Illinois Official Reports

Appellate Court

People v. Massamillo, 2020 IL App (3d) 190765

Appellate Court 

Caption

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. 

JOSEPH A. MASSAMILLO, Defendant-Appellant.

District & No. Third District 

No. 3-19-0765

Filed November 9, 2020

Decision Under 

Review

Appeal from the Circuit Court of La Salle County, No. 12-CF-578; the 

Hon. Cynthia M. Raccuglia, Judge, presiding.

Judgment Affirmed.

Counsel on

Appeal

Jack E. Boehm Jr., of Lake Bluff, for appellant.

Karen Donnelly, State’s Attorney, of Ottawa (Patrick Delfino, Thomas 

D. Arado, and Gary F. Gnidovec, of State’s Attorneys Appellate 

Prosecutor’s Office, of counsel), for the People.

Panel JUSTICE SCHMIDT delivered the judgment of the court, with 

opinion.

Justice McDade concurred in the judgment and opinion.

Justice Wright concurred in part and dissented in part, with opinion. 
- 2 -

OPINION

¶ 1 Defendant, Joseph A. Massamillo, filed a petition for relief from judgment, alleging that 

his 2013 conviction for unlawful possession of cannabis with intent to deliver was void. The 

circuit court found that the conviction was not void and dismissed defendant’s petition as 

untimely. We affirm.

¶ 2 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 3 The State filed an indictment on December 18, 2012, in which it charged defendant with 

two counts of unlawful possession of cannabis with intent to deliver (720 ILCS 550/5(f) (West 

2012) (Class 1 felony); id. § 5(g) (Class X felony)).

¶ 4 On June 5, 2013, defendant pled guilty to a newly filed Class 2 felony charge of unlawful 

possession of cannabis with intent to deliver. Id. § 5(e). The court sentenced defendant to a 

term of three years’ imprisonment, to be followed by a two-year term of mandatory supervised 

release. Defendant has not included the report of proceedings from his plea hearing in the 

appellate record.

¶ 5 On December 15, 2017, defendant filed a petition for relief from judgment pursuant to 

section 2-1401 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Code) (735 ILCS 5/2-1401 (West 2016)). In 

his petition, defendant alleged that his conviction had been based upon a traffic stop effectuated 

on Interstate 80 by the State’s Attorney’s Felony Enforcement (SAFE) unit. Citing our supreme 

court’s decision in People v. Ringland, 2017 IL 119484, defendant asserted that the SAFE unit 

was not a valid law enforcement entity and that the stop of his vehicle and his subsequent arrest 

were both unauthorized and illegal. Defendant concluded: “Applying the holding of Ringlnd

[sic] to The Circuit Court of La Salle County, La Salle County no longer has jurisdiction over 

any of the Defendants that were stopped, arrested and prosecuted by the State’s Attorney of 

La Salle County.” Defendant requested that the court vacate his conviction as void.

¶ 6 The State filed a response, alleging that defendant’s petition was filed outside of the twoyear limitations period contemplated by section 2-1401. The State argued that the holding in 

Ringland did not disturb circuit court jurisdiction and that defendant’s conviction was therefore 

not void.

¶ 7 The circuit court entered an order on January 24, 2018, denying defendant’s petition but 

granting leave to refile. The precise grounds for this order are unknown, as defendant has not 

included in the appellate record any report of proceedings relating to his original petition.

¶ 8 On June 14, 2018, defendant filed a petition for relief from judgment, raising the same 

claim: that his conviction was void because the unauthorized actions of the SAFE unit deprived 

the circuit court of jurisdiction. The State, now via a special prosecutor, filed a motion to 

dismiss, again asserting untimeliness.

¶ 9 The court ultimately dismissed defendant’s petition for relief from judgment, finding that 

defendant’s conviction was not void and that his petition was therefore untimely. This appeal 

follows.

¶ 10 II. ANALYSIS

¶ 11 On appeal, defendant raises the same arguments as those raised in the circuit court. Namely, 

he argues that because his stop and arrest were unauthorized, the circuit court lacked 
- 3 -

jurisdiction over him. He contends that the lack of jurisdiction renders his conviction void and 

that such a claim of voidness is not subject to the two-year limitations period applicable to 

petitions for relief from judgment under section 2-1401. 

¶ 12 Section 2-1401 of the Code provides a statutory procedure for seeking vacatur of a final 

judgment that is more than 30 days old. 735 ILCS 5/2-1401 (West 2018); People v. Vincent, 

226 Ill. 2d 1, 7 (2007). A petition for relief from judgment under this section must be filed 

within two years of the judgment being challenged. 735 ILCS 5/2-1401(c) (West 2018). The 

two-year limitations period, however, is inapplicable where the judgment being challenged is 

void.1 People v. Thompson, 2015 IL 118151, ¶ 29. We review the circuit court’s dismissal of 

a petition for relief from judgment de novo. Vincent, 226 Ill. 2d at 14.

¶ 13 The State does not dispute that the traffic stop and subsequent arrest in this case were 

conducted by the SAFE unit. Nor does the State dispute that the SAFE unit was not authorized 

to take those actions. This court previously held in People v. Ringland, 2015 IL App (3d) 

130523, ¶¶ 24, 42, 48, that the creation of a drug interdiction unit by the state’s attorney 

exceeded the scope of section 3-9005(b) of the Counties Code (55 ILCS 5/3-9005(b) (West 

2012)). Our supreme court affirmed that holding, finding that neither section 3-9005 nor the 

common law provided authority for the state’s attorney or his unit to “patrol the highways, 

engage in law enforcement, and conduct drug interdiction.” Ringland, 2017 IL 119484, ¶¶ 21, 

24-25, 33.

¶ 14 This appeal calls on us to consider whether defendant’s unauthorized arrest at the hands of 

the SAFE unit renders his subsequent criminal conviction void. Illinois law recognizes two 

types of void judgments. Thompson, 2015 IL 118151, ¶¶ 31-32. First, a judgment is void where 

“the court that entered the final judgment lacked personal or subject matter jurisdiction.” Id.

¶ 31. Second, a judgment is void where it is based upon a facially unconstitutional statute, 

which is void ab initio.

2 Id. ¶ 32.

¶ 15 This case presents no issue relating to the circuit court’s subject matter jurisdiction. Article 

VI, section 9, of the Illinois Constitution provides that “Circuit Courts shall have original 

jurisdiction of all justiciable matters.” Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, § 9. “With the exception of the 

circuit court’s power to review administrative action, which is conferred by statute, a circuit 

court’s subject matter jurisdiction is conferred entirely by our state constitution.” Belleville 

Toyota, Inc. v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., 199 Ill. 2d 325, 334 (2002). There can be no 

doubt that defendant’s prosecution for unlawful possession of cannabis with intent to deliver 

was a justiciable matter. See id. at 335; see generally People v. Glowacki, 404 Ill. App. 3d 169, 

1

Periods in which a petitioner suffers from legal disability or duress, or during which the grounds 

for relief are fraudulently concealed from a petitioner, are also excluded in the calculation of the twoyear period under section 2-1401. 735 ILCS 5/2-1401(c) (West 2018). Defendant does not argue that 

either of those exceptions apply to his case.

2

The void ab initio doctrine is inapplicable to the present case. Under that doctrine, a statute that 

has been found facially unconstitutional is deemed void ab initio, or void from the beginning. People 

v. Holmes, 2017 IL 120407, ¶ 12. The unconstitutional law “ ‘confers no right, imposes no duty and 

affords no protection. It is *** as though no such law had ever been passed.’ ” People v. Gersch, 135 

Ill. 2d 384, 399 (1990) (quoting People v. Schraeberg, 347 Ill. 392, 394 (1932)). No statute relevant to 

this case has been found or is argued to be facially unconstitutional.
- 4 -

172 (2010) (“Under this rule, most void judgments occur when the trial court lacks personal 

jurisdiction; failures of subject matter jurisdiction are unusual.”).

¶ 16 Accordingly, defendant argues only that the circuit court lacked personal jurisdiction over 

him. More specifically, he claims: “Defendant’s stop by a SAFE unit investigator was 

unlawful; therefore, personal jurisdiction was never acquired over Defendant. Defendant’s 

court appearances and conduct thereafter, including his guilty plea, were done without proper 

personal jurisdiction over Defendant ***.” Similarly, in his reply brief, defendant repeatedly 

asserts that personal jurisdiction was lacking because he “was never properly brought before 

the court” and never voluntarily submitted to the court’s jurisdiction.

¶ 17 Defendant, like the dissent, fails to provide citation to any authority that supports his 

assertions. This failure likely stems from the fact that his assertions are incorrect. Our supreme 

court declared in 1970:

“The general rule is that if a defendant is physically present before the court on an 

accusatory pleading, either because held in custody after arrest or because he has 

appeared in person after giving bail, the invalidity of the original arrest is immaterial, 

even though seasonably raised, as far as the jurisdiction of the court to proceed with 

the case is concerned. [Citations.] Due process of law is satisfied when one present in 

court is convicted of crime after having been fairly apprised of the charges against him 

and after a fair trial in accordance with constitutional procedural safeguards. 

Accordingly it is held that the power of a court to try a person for crime is not impaired 

by the fact that he has been brought within the court’s jurisdiction by reason of a 

forcible abduction.” People v. Bliss, 44 Ill. 2d 363, 369 (1970). 

Even 50 years ago, that particular statement of the law was not new or novel. See People v. 

Rose, 22 Ill. 2d 185, 186 (1961) (“We find it unnecessary to consider the defendant’s 

contention that she was illegally arrested for it is settled that illegal arrest, in itself, in no way 

affects a judgment of conviction [citation].”).

¶ 18 It is well settled that “a defendant’s appearance before the trial court on a criminal charge 

ordinarily confers personal jurisdiction over the defendant.” People v. Johnson, 2015 IL App 

(2d) 140388, ¶ 7; see also, e.g., People v. Speed, 318 Ill. App. 3d 910, 915 (2001); United 

States v. McLaughlin, 949 F.3d 780, 781 (2d Cir. 2019) (per curiam) (“When a District Court 

has subject matter jurisdiction over the criminal offenses charged, it has personal jurisdiction 

over the individuals charged in the indictment and present before the court to answer those 

charges.”). In the instant case, there is no dispute that defendant was properly charged and 

appeared before the circuit court. While defendant claims that he was not “properly brought 

before the court,” Bliss makes clear that the concept of personal jurisdiction is subject to no 

such caveats.

¶ 19 Defendant also argues that his case is distinguishable from the more common situation in 

which arrests are deemed illegal for lack of probable cause “because [defendant’s] arrest was 

invalid from its inception due to the lack of authority of the officer to make the arrest.” In 

essence, he argues that the instant arrest was even more illegal than a mere violation of the 

fourth amendment.

¶ 20 Again, defendant has cited no authority in support of the notion of tiers of illegality, or that 

one illegal arrest may be merely illegal while another is “invalid from its inception.” In fact, 

the rule that an illegal arrest is not a jurisdictional issue has been applied in circumstances far 

more egregious than those seen here. In Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, 520 (1952), for 
- 5 -

instance, the defendant was forcibly seized from his home in Chicago by Michigan officers, 

who subsequently transported him to Michigan. The United States Supreme Court, while 

allowing that the Michigan officers might be subject to criminal penalties under the Federal 

Kidnaping Act, nevertheless concluded that jurisdiction over the defendant by the Michigan 

courts was sound:

“This Court has never departed from the rule announced in Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 

436, 444 [(1886)], that the power of a court to try a person for crime is not impaired by 

the fact that he had been brought within the court’s jurisdiction by reason of a ‘forcible 

abduction.’ No persuasive reasons are now presented to justify overruling this line of 

cases. They rest on the sound basis that due process of law is satisfied when one present 

in court is convicted of crime after having been fairly apprized of the charges against 

him and after a fair trial in accordance with constitutional procedural safeguards. There 

is nothing in the Constitution that requires a court to permit a guilty person rightfully 

convicted to escape justice because he was brought to trial against his will.” Id. at 522.

¶ 21 Defendant here was illegally arrested by a unit that had no statutory or common law 

authority to take such an action. Ringland, 2017 IL 119484, ¶¶ 21, 33. That illegal arrest, 

however, had no impact on the circuit court’s jurisdiction. See Bliss, 44 Ill. 2d at 369. The 

court had subject matter jurisdiction derived from the Illinois Constitution and personal 

jurisdiction because defendant appeared in court to answer charges. Moreover, defendant’s 

conviction was not based upon a facially unconstitutional statute. In short, defendant’s 

conviction is not void.

¶ 22 Accordingly, any attack on that conviction raised in a petition for relief from judgment is 

subject to the two-year limitations period of section 2-1401. 735 ILCS 5/2-1401(c) (West 

2018). Because defendant filed his petition more than five years after his conviction, and the 

State raised the issue of timeliness in a motion to dismiss, the circuit court properly dismissed 

defendant’s petition as untimely.

¶ 23 III. CONCLUSION

¶ 24 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court of La Salle County.

¶ 25 Affirmed.

¶ 26 JUSTICE WRIGHT, concurring in part and dissenting in part:

¶ 27 I respectfully concur in part and dissent in part. First, based on the argument advanced by 

defendant, I agree with the majority’s view that defendant’s section 2-1401 petition was 

untimely. However, I note that this court has not been asked to consider whether due diligence 

resulted in a timely filed petition following the holding in People v. Ringland, 2017 IL 119484.

¶ 28 Similarly, I agree with the majority’s observation that this court is bound by existing 

precedent. The existing precedent makes it clear that the SAFE unit was unlawfully operating 

as a drug interdiction unit. Ironically, the SAFE unit has been unanimously denounced as an 

unlawful law enforcement operation by two levels of judicial review. See id. ¶¶ 2, 33. 
- 6 -

¶ 29 For purposes of this separate offering, I turn to precedent from our supreme court 

concerning void convictions.3 Recently, in In re N.G., 2018 IL 121939, our supreme court 

relied on the authority represented by the decisions in Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. ___, 

136 S. Ct. 718 (2016), and Class v. United States, 583 U.S. ___, 138 S. Ct. 798 (2018). In so 

doing, our supreme court stated as follows:

“The United States Supreme Court has identified two basic paths for analyzing the 

consequences of a constitutionally deficient criminal conviction. Which path a court 

must follow depends, in the first instance, on the reason the conviction is 

unconstitutional. Where the conviction is found to have resulted from constitutionally 

deficient procedures, that determination does not negate the possibility that the 

defendant is actually culpable for the underlying offense and could have been convicted 

of that offense had the constitutionally mandated standards been followed.” (Emphasis 

in original.) In re N.G., 2018 IL 121939, ¶ 34.

¶ 30 This appeal falls onto the first path. In other words, our court must determine the severity 

of the consequences stemming from the state’s attorney’s unlawful operation of the SAFE unit, 

beyond the boundaries of his authority rooted in our state constitution. The trial court 

determined that no negative consequences should be imposed due to the prosecutor’s unlawful 

operations. Respectfully, I conclude that the egregious prosecutorial abuse of power warrants 

a serious consequence, specifically, defendant’s conviction should be treated as void in spite 

of his guilty plea. Even if the outcome of this appeal is severely limited to the unique facts of 

record, I would hold that this conviction cannot be salvaged. 

¶ 31 First, this felony arrest, culminating in a conviction, cannot be justified, in hindsight, as 

based on a constitutional traffic stop qualifying as a citizen’s arrest. This is not a citizen’s arrest 

due to the use of a trained canine, which is a tool that is not available to private citizens. See 

People v. Lahr, 147 Ill. 2d 379, 382-83 (1992). Moreover, to my knowledge, the case law does 

not create a good faith exception for a private citizen acting as an agent for an unlawful drug 

interdiction unit, no matter how successful those operations may have been. 

¶ 32 Further, defendant’s traffic stop was not an isolated mistake but a part of a pattern of 

prosecutorial misuse of authority. For example, in People ex rel. Donnelly v. City of Spring 

Valley, 2020 IL App (3d) 180202-U, ¶¶ 6-7, the SAFE unit seized nearly $1 million from 

travelers on Interstate 80 between 2011 and 2015. These monies, tracing back to illegal 

operations by the state’s attorney’s office, were then lawfully distributed, according to statute, 

between the SAFE unit, other agencies, and local municipalities. See Guava LLC v. Comcast 

Cable Communications, LLC, 2014 IL App (5th) 130091, ¶ 14 n.1 (a reviewing court may take 

judicial notice of unpublished orders, not as proof of the findings of fact contained therein, but 

to provide context to the allegations levied in the instant appeal); Aurora Loan Services, LLC 

v. Kmiecik, 2013 IL App (1st) 121700, ¶ 37 (providing that a reviewing court may take judicial 

notice of a written decision that is part of the record of another court because those decisions 

contain readily verifiable facts). Moreover, the City of Spring Valley, alone, deposited more 

than $500,000 into its drug asset forfeiture fund, and this amount was traced back to the SAFE 

unit. Later, approximately $100,000 was transferred from that fund to the City of La Salle. 

3

The case law regarding void convictions is distinguishable from case law abolishing the void 

sentence rule. 
- 7 -

Similarly, an equal amount was transferred from that fund to the City of Ottawa. Donnelly, 

2020 IL App (3d) 180202-U, ¶ 7. 

¶ 33 In this particular case, the court ordered defendant to pay $30,000 instanter, as fines and 

fees, after approving a negotiated plea agreement crafted by the state’s attorney. This sum was 

eventually lawfully distributed, according to statute, to several local government entities. In 

my view, this process created unjust financial enrichment of various government entities, 

resulting from the prosecutor’s wrongdoing. Public policy supports a significant consequence

that will deter other prosecutors from forming their own SAFE unit. Without a negative 

consequence, such as a void conviction, other agencies may decide that an unlawful drug 

interdiction is worth the risk because, if defendant’s conviction is affirmed, then the $30,000 

distributed from defendant’s payment of court-ordered fines and fees will remain in the hands 

of government agencies.

¶ 34 Respectfully, the end does not justify the means, no matter how successful this drug 

interdiction unit may have been. Therefore, I would remand the matter with directions for the 

trial court to enter an order vacating defendant’s conviction as void and requiring the current 

state’s attorney to locate and refund all monies, with the exception of the bond fee the circuit 

clerk is entitled to keep. See 725 ILCS 5/110-7(f) (West 2018).

¶ 35 For these reasons, I respectfully concur in part and dissent in part.