morning honors so i may please the court assistant head of attorney general garson fisher for the people known as the post conviction hearing at treating ninety day window in which trial courts can dispose of the easiest cases those found to be frivolous and patently without merit the ninety day window begins running with the filing and docking of the petition court then has ninety days to examine the petition and if it finds it for was a battle without merit enter an order dismissing it otherwise the petition proceeds a second stage to the question before this court is who must do right to comply with that statutory mandate and avoiding teaching the substantial resources of the court the state's attorney's office public defender's office  involved in second stage proceedings under the post election hearing at the answer that question the court need look no further than the plain language of the statute statute requires that the court and sharyn order finding the petition for of listen pavley without merit  statute doesn't define the word enter but at the time that the general assembly drafted statute the dictionary defined enter as nearly identical to formally reducing to write it so when the judges for i've been waiting seana and in this case one of the concerns of the second district raised in finding that there were additional conditions beyond those in the plain language of the statute was that a judge might it had not been filed at that point but it is also worth noting on the that in first each proceedings this question of when the order is filed is largely irrelevant one the parties received notice of the entry of the order which is why there's the requirement for the ten day certified mail notice rule from filing the document actually doesn't contribute to in most of the cases to notifying the  of the petition and rendering a decision which it does when it writes down that decision in order and signs and dates that the court engaging in its ministerial function of final in that order is not a power of the time we consideration of the order but second quarter identify the second purpose which is to ensure that the limited resources of the criminal justice system are spent where they are most needed where they are best used and the second district's interpretation of the statute actually of engaging in his ministerial function a final in that order on which they first resources from the clerk or the public defender's office in the state's attorney's office away from other petitions where the court finds that there is a jest of a constitutional claim defender's office needs to engage in a substantial review of the record meet with their client develop the claims that the client wishes to raise off and file an amended petition properly raising those claims the state's attorney needs to response to that amended petition there are often multiple hearings or appearances in in the trial court at that point requiring sometimes the prisoner to be rigid in so there is a substantial commitment of resources that occurs when a petition is advanced of the second stage for a petition to be advanced and second stage not because the court found it to state the gist of the constitutional claim but instead because there is that the way in the definitions of honor in a legal sense it ask you to address whether you think their definition supports your position in this case the first black defines it as to put formally before the court or on the  support i think it does your honor because at the time of the drafting of the statute last went on to explain that its definition was nearly identical to formally reducing to writing so i think when the court beating it is consistent with the sort of general understandings of what answer means the fact that when the judge wrote the order and signed and dated he did so on a line that is identified as enter so i think that  in that context and sure would work would appear to require an additional ministerial step by the clerk sometimes words do mean different things in different contexts court recently dealt with the word rescinded in multiple construction of what i'm sure means in this statute that it occasionally has a different definition it's also not on as informative to what the general assembly intended entry to mean here what it might mean in a different file the order within ninety days they would have used the word file just as they did earlier in the very same subsection of a chose to use the word answer indicating venture mean something different then finally the order so i think both from the ordinary understanding of the word and share at the time that they drafted the statute and from the context of the subsection as a whole  it's plain that and sure contemplates writing the order signing dating it not the clerk filing the order and that's why the second district's interpretation of the statute is invalid because it imposes an additional condition upon compliance with the statutory mandate that's not in the plain language of the statute that the court filed the order in addition to the court entering the order filed within ninety days in the thirty to build in some kind of additional time at the end of this ninety day period which is uncertain depending on the staffing of the clerk's office the timing of vacations holidays weekends so on and so forth the ordinary practices of the clerks in that in that circuit to allow for it to be filed within ninety days so it takes away the certainty that the court has that i have ninety days to examine this please the court counsel my name is alice and shon i represent i have interest in this case the state is claiming that the post conviction hearing act is somehow exempt from the public expression doctrine the state wants to write a new rule just for the entering  post conviction petitions however such a rule is under us history and with court the purpose of the ninety day rule the majority decision here simply reaffirms this court's well settled precedent beginning with tiger home in one nine hundred fifty nine that in order is not effective until it is publicly expressed here the appellate court was simply holding the trial court to this standard well the state stresses that the statute says enter and that public expression does not appear in the statute there no indication in the statute that the post conviction hearing act is somehow exempt from this doctrine on the contrary the cases show that it is well settled that in order for an order to be effective it must be publicly expressed importantly to the state's contention we are not requiring any additional conditions on trial courts all that were required is for the trial court or any court throughout the state of illinois entering in order to publicly make his decision of record well in this case the first public expression was the court's file stamp the trial court has other options including stating in open court that it was denied a petition and a written order would issue significantly in this cour decision in favor of home this court clarify that a judgment law becomes effective when it is announced in open court or in the absence of such pronouncement when is when it is reduced to writing approved by the judge and filed for record also part and parcel with this is the definition throughout the different editions of black's laws dictionary defining enter it also works into it this concept of public expression it recognizes that there has to be some formalizing of the decision a court simply signing an order in chambers without anyone else being present to know that that order had been entered is not enough for an order to be effective and frequently orders are submitted to the court all well know it's so that's obviously you know that is the order is entered for purposes when the judge signs it and when there is some formalizing and public expression of the of the written order if it's a written order a statute doesn't say that the statute doesn't say that but i think it's something that permeates statutes throughout illinois that at any time any order is written in illinois courts there has to be some public expression i mean this is something that you know dates back to the one nine hundred fifty s recognizing that in order being signed behind closed doors without knowing when without having some formalization on the record you know when that order that's i think that's where the ninety day rule comes into play is that so the way that the statute is written is that a court has ninety days to review and enter an order on the petition but the court  play is that it's we're not i think it's also important to stress that we're not saying that it has to be filed with the clerk the court just has to take some other step to make it publicly of record in most post conviction cases that simply involves an open court stating i received t order had been entered here there what the record is completely silent aside from the clerk's files and the judge's signature there's no report of proceedings there's just there's nothing to indicate when this order was filed aside from those two did you know enter the order on that day this ninety day rule is a bright line rule the legislature soffit that all these petitions have to be reviewed and an order entered on them within ninety days if we were to follow the state's argument here it would  purpose of the ninety day rule because it would allow courts to review a petition potentially you know potentially review a petition within the ninety days but then wait weeks months potentially years before actually entering an order you know going back in the i've said part and parcel with the definition of the word enter is this public expression entering does not simply involve signing a paper behind closed doors there has to be some public expression of it whether it's an entry on a half sheet or a dated sure because then it's then it's of public order for example the example that my counsel was opposing counsel was discussing is you know if then somebody you know in any situation if somebody then were to call the important point to make is that as the majority made clear in their decision is that courts look to the record as a whole when determining where the first public expression took place this is not simply a matter of looking at a clerk's file stamp or a report of proceedings but look to all of the proceedings as a whole and determined when the first public expression that adequately noted all of the interested parties and the public and when that happens that is the effective date of an order here because the effective date was on the ninety first day when that first public expression happened it violated the ninety day rule and as such should be remitted for second stage proceedings would call in the justice secretary like go back and review be something that a secretary would have to have said on the phone but there's not you know any public document is easy to record so yes and i think that's what the definition of enter says that's what the court in figure home made clear that's what the qualify as law and you know if it were some says see were referred to were right and that's to be under way would be when the attorneys for write one i think that that would again meet the requirements of some public expressions about the public and the parties are notified of this decision there's some some concrete thing in the record that the parties can return to here there was no concrete thing in the record showing bad the parties could you know say ok and i think interesting leave that's how you know the  notice to defendant and his notice of appeal that all depended on this february eighth date of the ninety first day they were looking to that as the date of the effective that the order was effect than just briefly regarding my the state's arguments about that the tending to rule x as a type of safeguard here those arguments are in opposite because what is at issue here is the ninety day rule and this is a as i said this is a bright line rule that an order has to be entered within ninety days the ten day notice rule only comes into play after the fact here the court's order was not effective until after those ninety days have been passed and moreover robinson shows that the ten day rule does not offer any protection to defendants while in that case it recognized that the right to appeal might be injured by untimely service it stated it was unlikely for that to happen due to the difference and twenty days between the tend notice and the thirty days notice of appeal however here the majority stressed their concern that a court you know a order could languish on a court's desk for days weeks months or even years without anyone having notice of it defendant's appeal rights well that's the that's the thing if it goes past this thirty days he loses his right to appeal and moreover you know that the the idea of getting away notice of appeal is then you know asking the courts to expand even more resources because then it's saying ok well we'll allow courts to bypass this ninety day rule by waiting until after the fact to say ok an order was entered and then say well if it goes past the ten day rule ten day notice they there are no further questions i respectfully request this court to affirm the majority's opinion thank you the ten day notice rule the second is the discretion to allow a late notice of appeal whether the ten days of being complied with or not where through no fault of his own a petitioner didn't receive timely notice but to consider the extreme example your honor where the ninety days pas supervisory action asking that the court be directed to comply with the statutory mandate with grants the petition to second stage in response is only to court if it had entered an order within ninety days would produce that order showing it had been entered and positional be allowed to file late notice of peels and fe hadn't been served in any kind of timely manner and if the court couldn't produce an order that had been entered within ninety days then the court would g i would have been contemplated that the distinction your honor i would think that it would require a suburb written order but the subject doesn't address the statute doesn't directly can't respond to a petition mourning gauge a petition when it's at the first stage the state has no representation at this stage we are in the vast vast majority of cases talking about pro se prisoner petitioners here so for a court to go into the courtroom and orally announce a decision from the bench and say that that somehow substantially alters the extent to which an you know an order as been entered it seems irrelevant to the first stage proceedings which is why we have specific also your honor so i wanted to discuss briefly what the record shows record does show when we were there was written because the judge signed and dated the order so in reviewing the record as a whole the final when the order was entered you don't need then we also have the judge's signature and date on it which is what the first district relied on and rossman found that the judgment of the order was me and that case was entered on the date that the judge signed and i'm substantially alters the amount of time that the court has to review the titian that concern was somewhat dismissed by the idea that no you know you could announce it in open court or you could you know you could answer on a half sheet there you know there are other steps that could be taken but there are extreme cases where a court might have engaged in the time the examination of a petition in this winter you know the headlines talked about snow pocalypse and things like that the records that were close have been times when this court has had arguments scheduled in this had to cancel them for various reasons sometimes things happen that might prevent the ministerial acts of filing an order or having time in open court to the extent that it's relevant to first  for the purpose of the statute to ensure that the resources go where they're best needed to that in turn around and say that this frivolous and patently without merit petition is where the public defender's office is state's attorneys and the court should indicate the resources required for