you could approach and let us know who you are and who you represent fincher of the office of the state of tele defender and i represent dennis edwards this morning and as your honor has requested i will discuss jurisdiction a judgment is considered void if the if the court that juristic chain is also the power to render a judgment in this case the circuit court did not have power to enter the two convictions for predatory criminal sexual assault of a child because th statute that i had to be dead the convictions were entered under did not exist in illinois because they had been declared void ab initio several years before mr edwards but guilty i thought law itself never had any legal force so therefore the judgement and to under that rock could have no legal recognition here as in brown this statute that mr edwards was convicted  view that you have basically it would have permitted someone who pleads guilty to a statutory offense such as this one which  previously been declared void avenue issue to wait it out lou somebody is going to get a long sentence wait it out until something happens the complaining witness and then file a post conviction say the person unfortunately is hit by a car's thing like that and then file a post conviction because whenever that person chooses to file the post conviction he's challenging the void statute and therefore the remember would be not a risk at all because there would be no way for scenario if we accept the void argument you're making and the fact is the remedy is not to reform but rather to rescind and remember isn't that  you know as a former defense attorney myself if you were offered by mistake that type of plea by unsophisticated uninformed state's attorney it might be you'd be ok we'll plead to this and see what happens down the road situation where somebody can do what got yes they can come up with a scenario that might end up for somebody to natural life for seventy years a way that with you know given something happening to a consensual witness or the destruction of certain evidence successfully prove the case such that the defendant would be inclined to enter a plea of guilty and that is a consideration for the john the mine but that doesn't affect the fact that the that his conviction is void because is this case is a man case was not well handled by the state am i i just don't want to the state did would be dead but they did it and yes seems like this is a technical problem where you could be quite correct that the guilty plea you know that the court had no jurisdiction to accept the guilty plea because the statute was not valid be in your view sentenced to a greater sense than forty five years and the range is six to thirty i understand that bot having exercised his power right i think i charged he was found to be unfit and was remanded to the department of health for about three years and when he came back when he was deemed fit is when shortly thereafter he pled guilty so you saw it i fully admit that this we got the proper charges but i have a feeling what occurred here and i can't confirm this is only my belief that because he had been deemed unfit was outside of the criminal court context at the time it fell through the cracks it's it's an unfortunate circumstance but that held in the context of the voidness for the failure impose consecutive sentences in a case called garcia which admittedly is not in our briefs because this wasn't presented but that if a condition is deemed void if a sentence is deemed void it's as if it didn't exist and then th restrictions and greater sentencing doesn't and doesn't apply and so yes there is a very real consideration for the petitioner in this case that he could be subject to a much better sense than a total of forty five years if he were to be given the relief that he's actually asking for it and again looking at the facts of this case the ferdi five year sentence was a very fair favorable deal to the petitioner in this case this is a horrible brutal rape of an escape beating her all along the way this is get back to the residual thing what options do we have i mean you've you've given us things that most of the things you have said the public defender is answered quite that there is very little if any loss of mourning here i would respectfully disagree with that i believe there's actually admittedly there was a concern here is to the effect of date of the act but at the time that he pled guilty in two thousand in two thousand and three of two thousand the offense of predatory criminal sexual salt had been reenacted it was a valid offense at the time that it was that the judgment was entered the only question is whether or not it could be applied to him for distinguish well sitting here for any time soon was a scenario where a defendant was subjected to an extended term sentence that he wasn't awfully eligible for there were not there was nothing that could be done that he could waive his right into an extended term sentence and there's nothing that the state could do to create his rights and sometimes that's and that's why i'm saying that this has to be viewed what happened here that we were very recently reiterated that the sentence which does not conform to a statutory requirement is boy yes now i don't think it's reasonable to argue that focus on the former whether it's an ex post facto conceivably a circumstance where you could have one but not your honor what i would say is that in this situation it's the same exact really having to what you've done is you've raised to really second fault with the police in this case one of these it's not justified by a statutory s because the statute doesn't exist but secondly because it was later we enacted it would be an ex post facto application where we were able to allow it to stand and then you're just knocking down your straw man by case they all recognize that a plea to something that's not even a valid crime this analysis and crime can still be dealt with still than the court's authority to do that it doesn't render the judgment itself will it matter if he's came up with a situation where somebody could have been he probably wasn't i couldn't tell from the from the decision but he probably was charged with attempted murder and instead they bargained it down to the not exist in defense of attempts voluntary manslaughter and   because it would be an attempt and he received the benefit of having the larger charge crime of attempted murder dismissed well here there was no such bargaining down in terms of having a the higher classification of crime dismissed he played into the higher classification of crime all he received in benefit was either agreed negotiated sentence of a certain or mine isn't that a distinction well i believe it's essential but a difference your honor because the benefit that he did receive here as i said and this was a horrific crime he was clearly and likely facing a much greater sentence and if it were to go back for retrial it would clearly in the likely end up with a much greater sentence and so that's within that context what he was that what he was looking at and what he was considering it was a certain benefits and it was it he clearly achieved the benefit of the bargain in that regard and again your honor i would say i appreciate the point that you believe that my rickey's was a deal down from something to try and find something based off of a charge without murder but the in this is an important point we raise in our brief and all of that in pointing out that all the cases relied upon by the petitioner here they're almost all filed cases and when injured when a guilty plea and knowing an intelligent guilty plea is mixed into the factor that knowing and voluntary fashion asking to go back and perhaps be subject to giving being given to a greater sentence yes yes but that it is possible and you have the cases seem to be victims is is in italy this is a remember this is a little girl who was who was vandalized in a whore in a horrific fashion and to have there have that woman the young woman now we live it now seventeen years after the fact is it's something that we do not relish is something that we do not want to do we have an obligation to our victims to protect them to understand but a couple of things just getting back to the brown case which counsel has referred to if i could just point out brown was not a of law available for the courts rely on at the time of the transfer hearing again unlike here where the plea was entered after the statute had been reenacted if the court had the authority to impose russian upon the offense and your honor going back conviction petition which was never raised before that's the question with solely be actual fact at that time it would we wouldn't have to worry at all about any kind of point of initio it so that we'd miss that the statute was declared void of an issue under jo versus that we understand that the question is what happens after that is what happens as of may twenty ninth one thousand nine hundred six one eighty nine four sixty two was reenacted what happened in june of two thousand when he pled guilty what happens hansard prior to the the new statute being enacted he was convicted under the void statute he wasn't just charging the voice as he was convicted under the and so that so i don't believe that that i am criminal convictions imposing criminal liability upon defendants for conduct which occurs prior to the statute being enacted and if if the void assertion were to or the void of an issue  after thompson especially every claim practically an appeal has been this this is void because it doesn't match the session doesn't satisfy what's going on and so we could be faced with is a delusion of cases coming forward that for some reason it doesn't match up factually legally and anyway and so that's why i would stress this court the proper analysis here is ex post facto admittedly from the start there was a problem here we apologize on behalf of the state for overlooking this everyone overlooked this at the time but disguised why this law was not to be retroactively applied in the fact that the defendant in that he's was convicted following a trial is of no import to whether or not the statute should be retroactive his argument basically is because the legislature took the step of reenacting this action it takes it out of that analysis and that act by the legislature says that we can only look at