ways when a sense jim may to a period of incarceration of from the department of juvenile justice st the judge fail to find over explicitly or even implicitly that a sense of department was the least restrictive alternative available a nd the judge fail to review services within the department that would meet jamie's individualized needs most notably his need for mental health treatment now because jimmy has already finished important matters that are related to this case this case is about more than just the legal issues that have been raised it's about a lack of compassion and a lack of understanding an underprivileged child with behavioral mental health disorders was fourteen years old at the time of his offenses which is old enough to be an th grade was sent to live with the link with adults in the department of juvenile justice which is a place known to do more harm to children been good especially children with mental health disorders while his behavior mental health disorders which were known to be neglected his entire life which can lead to bad  victim said the following these kids come from a cycle in the city broken very young enough that there's still a chance i'm asking sort of making these kids never a burden on taxpayers by putting them in detention center lot like a compassionate and understanding parent prioritizing community based solutions over incarceration which was the role that the state was supposed to play in this case but  e writing it could be i've reverb leave or in writing of course generally speaking chords speak from speak or early in the words they use in pronouncing sense so we prefer it to be orally i think it that language is going to show up regardless of a judge actually made finding or not and there's no handwritten marking indicating it was no check mark the grower and other parsons of the pro forma order indicating the judge actually made sections that were relying on the st section fifty seven o five vs and the language of the legislature use is the following commitment to the department of juvenile justice order the court shall state the basis for selecting the particular department it must find a certain facts exist and one of those facts is that the department is the least restrictive alternative available so in other words all the services well that all the new services that were given to the minor and they failed no absolutely not and i'll tell you why and we can actually start what happened to sentencing hearing because that's really what we're the least restrictive i'll turn the vailable moving forward to the motion to reconsider sons at that hearing the judge said they have attempted believe strenuous and severe senses to try to rehabilitate jamie while those were two things circumstances pretty pretty do consider residential treatment also he considered short term detention in a detention home such as mary davis which may or may not include mental health treatment was evidence of less restrictive alternatives use in the past and that came from his history sensing history for past offenses and he received probation in a home detention with electronic monitoring so we're has that been tried in the past and failed in prior cases for that child and the court held that that's sufficient to show that the judge considered evidence of less restrictive alternatives we agree with that based on that on that precedent we're not challenging that but generally speaking we need evidence the judge of that list if it will turn is that i really been unsuccessful in the past or an did not alter it based on what she found in terms of his mental health health history she just devean done them but the updates are risk factors to so show that his mental health disorders were risk factors and she didn't alter sensing recommendation she just said this child is bad behavior and the department of juvenile justice is where we should go she said nothing as to his  the judge was supposed to have the insight and the understanding to say ok i have documentation for me showing that this kid has oppositional defiant disorder as a d h he may be bipolar these disorders a his behavior he needs mental health treatment particularly where the socialist report shows that a court had never ordered that he received mental health treatment in the past not court ordered and he didn't participate i mean he's young he was a young child and that's not entirely on him i mean the mother need to take responsibility there is a lot there are a lot of things going on and this is a very troubled child he grew up in the single parent household he has  three cousins have been killed his rock his brother was shot at the age of five his sister younger sister was kidnapped in his mother's car when her car was stolen and that happened in july of been stolen and his sister been kidnapped so we need to look at the big picture and we can't just blame everything on this child and blame everything on the mom as to why he didn't get he hasn't gotten the mental health services that he needs consistently  a minimum wage job when she was working when she wasn't working she should live on his disability benefits as a source of income so we can't just place of this on the child and it would be wonderful if this child receives consistent mental health treatment over a period of time but he's never received and that was suddenly make him no longer b legal that would be a victory not only for him but for for juvenile justice of the system the people of the state of illinois if a judge actually takes this stuff recognizes this kid needs mental health treatment or is it i would say i would say that that's a trifle but certainly the judge has to rule them out and find the three unavailable or not suitable for a child for example the child may not qualify for a juvenile impact incarceration program because you're for certain requirements in the statute must be met or maybe a facility that houses delinquent children especially as a mental health treatment may not accept them so the judge needs to consider and rules  out doesn't have to actually tried but they have to rule out and to present the court with that it's i think when it comes to considering the sensing justice you need to you would think that the prosecutor presented evidence of why is the least she's alternative if defense counsel wants to argue that the department is not the right place answering your question  additional notice of things which did not happen here realistically you're not going to see a defense attorney presenting evidence because you're not going to have a defense attorney recommending that his or her client's going to wants to be sent to the department actually before the court today this is not a case about whether it was an abuse of discretion for the judge to give the sentence that he gave it's not an excessive sentence challenge and any any issues into the specific repercussions for this respondent are moot because he's already served his sentence and there's no remedy along those lines that can be given to respond it we're here to ask the legal question of what was required of the trial court and you do so and to uncover the answer it's best to look at what was before the trial court during the sentencing here the trial court court heard that over the curve course of little believe little less than a year  respondent had stolen or taken part in stealing four vehicles he did tempted to break into two other cars over the course of this year in between these offenses respondent was st put into a  a diversionary program to avoid the legal system but after that shortly after that's when if so his st car he was then put on probation that didn't work he was put on home arrest he cut off his monitor and fled the state he continued to steal cars it escalated to the incident in the case in question where he was found knowing where the stolen car was and had a firearm on him so over the course of this year the judge is looking at this respondent he keeps running away from home he keeps committing crimes and every type of sentence that courts have handed out to him has not worked to rehabilitate this individual his mother admits that she can't control him she's had trouble getting him to the medical services he needs the court taking all of sinew counts i find commitment to the ideal jay jay is necessary now express they find so in the plain language of the statute to require an explicit finding using specific words would require adding that word express that word explicit into the statute and it's not the respondent tries to look to section five def seven o five which notes of the court to state the basis for selecting the particular distance disposition but there is no requirement that the court use any specific words in that state in that section of the statu it's very important that the statute does not require specific words by the court because that's not the purpose of the judicial or of the juvenile court the purpose of the juvenile court as it was amended was to make sure that every juvenile gets an individual lies to cessnock of their situation and the court taking everything about the individual circumstances the crime and possible rehabilitative measures available come to an individual ised understanding of what's best for the juvenile that's not something that can be handled on a checklist it's not something that can be handled by merely stating i find this is the least restrictive alternative what the act had in mind and what happened here was the judge considered all the evidence and then gave a reason statement of why he was choosing the particular disposition he did it became even more clear child's home life and how that was not it was not suitable for the juveniles rehabilitation and the court said i think commitment is the most reasonable sense that this court could impose under all the circumstances so this court looked at less restrictive alternatives was able to not just consider them as hypotheticals so how they had actually failed with respondent and had the sensing hearing he said commit what was necessary at the motion to reconsider hearing he said it was the only reasonable option or i'm sorry it was the most reasonable option short of requiring the court to read the statute words forbade him this was a finding that commitment is the less least restrictive alternative available no other alternative was going to work no respondent is maybe argument that in order for us to be able to tell what the court actually found without him saying these magic words we have to the court would have to go through each and every alternative available that just doesn't logically follow and it would not be a good use of the court's time for some of the options available they don't really work for every spondon as the poet court noted there are things like techs who removal or taking away an individual's license which just would not were not relevant to this case there's also a logical step that has to be taken and if the court is looking at a spectrum of available punishments dispositions and the court looks at one that is fairly restrictive in probation with and then full monitoring and it says that's not enough one can reasonably presume that the court would also be finding that anything less restrictive that that probation with an ankle monitor is also not going to be enough in this case the court not only looked at those earlier probations the court looked at what was probably the most restrictive step possible short of commitment to the ideal jay jay and that was the court said i've looked at detention in this home and i think that's probably what respondent needs they just can't give him enough time to do it and so the court found that lesser restrictive alternative that was not going to be available and it logically follows that if something that restrictive isn't enough to rehabilitate isn't going to work with respondent that everything western that step also wasn't going to work the reasoning it's it has to give its reasons those reasons have to show support for what the court is finding in this case the court to just about everything it could short of using the exact words of the statute that this is probably the best case scenario for looking what the court could have said short of reading off the pre written order i don't know that this is a case rule a rule that's able to say the court only has to say this amount of things and that's enough because the whole point of the juvenile court act is to give individual wise to sustenance it's to give a case specific reasonings that are quite there were further beyond what you see in a lot of other circumstances and that's intentional in the juvenile court act and so because this is meant to be such an individualized indication a bright line rule around the specific words the court has to say goes against the framework set out by the legislature direct contradiction because those cases like respondent is requesting day review the plain language of the statute to say that the court must express that find their required magic words and their requirements not in there and beyond the plain language you can also look to other sections of the juvenile court act where legislature made clear that it knew how to state that the court had to say something specific the finding of guilt in juvenile proceedings in that section section five dash six hundred and twenty legislature use the language that a court must make and no finding so it's not just that the court the appellate courts and the other cases were adding a word that was not in a statute they were reading where it wasn't in the statute in a framework of statutes where the legislature had shown it knew how to put that requirement in and that requirement simply isn't that i did not know your honor but they were so i do not know if the same yes i believe and i i don't know if that was the same judge beef that signed the earlier sentencing orders i do know though that they were contained in the report that was before the judge so the judge had knowledge of these i'm sorry i don't know the individual court dates largely the record shows not i'm sorry i mean i don't know how separated out they were other than i know there were two separate probations order part of the part of the difficulty in difficulty in finding a sentence to rehabilitate the individual in this case is that all these happens in such a short time span and happened overlapping each other that it is hard from the record to be able to pinpoint exactly which which instance was a separate legal determination were at least two separate probations within that chain and then there was this rd the following year book within one thousand three hundred and sixty five day period oh so you agree with the hol law i think in that question assume assuming the the major finding means did not state i'm finding i think the court would be wrong the appellate court was wrong in that instance  because this court has recognized there are explicit findings and there are implicit findings there may be cases where the trial court doesn't use the word i find or the trial court uses different language and it becomes a harder question of can we look at the record and infer what the court was actually meaning when it spoke or what the court was actually finding based on its language that question is not  at question doesn't rise in the current case though because the court did say so much and did say what it was finding and i think again that would be of a very fact specific question and it would be hard to it's well it's the same reason it's hard to come up with a clear bright line rule it's because we're dealing with one of the most individual ised and fact intensive areas of the law and so bright line rules are not as suited for this type of  i'd like to briefly touch on the nd issue before the court of whether the court considered different medical services available at the idea which b j before rendering its decision i st know and rely largely on the proof that this issue is moot and as a fact based issue is not subject to the same exceptions that the statutory interpretation issue is but more importantly it should be noted that in the record the court was shown that was one it had some mental health difficulties in his life the only things have been from the record that had been prescribed or put forth as solutions the experts was meeting with psychiatry as in a prescription that he was receiving there's been no argument and there is no argument that the idea of jay jay doesn't have the services necessary to deal  with respondents mental health as put forth by the record we're not talking about an actual harm here we're talking about procedural did the court specifically go through things the court looking at the record knowing that respondent had been told to see a psychiatrist to speak with psychiatry's did not have any indication that respondent would need any further individual care than might be necessary of any individual any juvenile interacting with the the judicial system this is not a case where it was clear that there was there was some extraordinary treatment or solutions require so without further indication in the record to the trial court that respondent had special needs that required special individualized the least restrictive issue i believe it would be i think it would be all as similar to what response and it would be all parties involved have some some impetus whether it's there the judges knowing the law and following the law whether it's the state attorney seeking to make its case and then to trial the defense attorney providing effective the service all had a  need to bring up the issue as it were as it arose and it did arise in the motion to reconsider and that is why are the record so clear as it is because this question was bought proper for the trial court it gave its answer and even if that sentencing hearing had not been enough the reasoning and explanation from the motion to reconsider would have cheered any error and made clear that yes this court found a commitment was the least restrictive alternative intensive therapy the nd point is what the judge says is the most reasonable sons or most appropriate sons or even the most necessary sons is not the same thing as  main reason why an explicit finding should be required is because that finding is needed to show that a sense of apartment is actually off arise by law the sentencing scheme for children adult we're looking at ok what is the offense what is the class of the offense what is the legislative set range for that for back class and then you look to see does a sense fall from that range you're looking exclusively at fifty says a judge can order a child to a department if it finds certain facts to be in existence those facts are essentially conditions things to be made explicitly even if we require an explicit finding sensing the child is still going to be individualized because you need evidence showing that the judge has served and ruled out less restrictive alternatives and the ju state finding it says basis but as a matter of law one of the bases that you need to send the child to the department is a finding that the pardon is the least restrictive alternative so when you read those two sections together like we're supposed to do we construe statutes as a whole that language is there and finally i just like to conclude sixty years from now this court is going to be hosting a virtual mental health summit series and one of the goals of this summit is to develop initiatives leading to the treatment rather