Title: People v. Atkins
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 98257
State: Illinois
Issuer: Illinois Supreme Court
Date: October 20, 2005

Docket No. 98257-Agenda 4-May 2005.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellant, v. 							

WILLIAM ATKINS, Appellee.
Opinion filed October 20, 2005.
	CHIEF JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the court:
	At issue is whether an amendment to the residential burglary
statute, making burglary a lesser-included offense of residential
burglary, may be applied retroactively. We hold that it may not.

BACKGROUND
	The State charged defendant, William Atkins, and his
codefendant, Marcus Gross, with residential burglary (720 ILCS
5/19-3 (West 2000)). Defendant's bench trial was held simultaneously
with Gross' jury trial. The evidence showed that, on March 19, 2000,
Chicago police officers arrested defendant and Gross after observing
them removing items from a three-flat building at 1808 West Hastings.
Many buildings in the area had been torn down, and the three-flat was
the only building remaining on its side of the block. The first and
second floors of the building were vacant, but the officers were aware
that Josephine Jackson lived in the basement apartment with her
children. Jackson had locked the door to her apartment when she left
for work that morning, and the door showed signs of forced entry.
The apartment had been ransacked, and Jackson later identified as
hers the property recovered from defendant and Gross. Jackson
testified that she did not know defendant or Gross and did not give
them permission to enter her apartment.
	The jury found Gross guilty of residential burglary. In defendant's
case, however, the trial judge stated that he did not think that it had
been proved beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant knew the
apartment was a residence. Accordingly, the trial judge convicted
defendant only of the "lesser included offense" of burglary.
	Defendant appealed, contending that, at the time of the offense,
case law established that burglary was not a lesser-included offense of
residential burglary. Thus, once the court found that residential
burglary had not been proved, he was entitled to an acquittal. The
State responded that, subsequent to defendant's conviction, the
legislature amended the residential burglary statute to make burglary
a lesser-included offense. See 720 ILCS 5/19-3 (West 2002).
According to the State, this amendment could be applied retroactively
to defendant's case.
	The appellate court, First District, disagreed. 348 Ill. App. 3d
126. The court first noted held defendant had waived the issue by
raising it for the first time on appeal. Nevertheless, the court chose to
address the issue under the plain error rule because the error raised
was so fundamental that it could allow defendant to be convicted of
an offense that he could not be convicted of as a matter of law. 348
Ill. App. 3d at 128. The court then noted the rule that statutory
amendments that are procedural may be applied retroactively, while
those that apply to substantive law may not. 348 Ill. App. 3d at 129.
The court held that the amendment making burglary a lesser-included
offense of residential burglary was substantive because it exposed
defendant to conviction of an additional crime. Thus, the court
reluctantly reversed defendant's burglary conviction. 348 Ill. App. 3d
at 130. We allowed the State's petition for leave to appeal.

ANALYSIS
	The question before us is solely one of law. Accordingly, our
review proceeds de novo. People v. Breedlove, 213 Ill. 2d 509, 512
(2004).  
	At the time of the offense, the burglary and residential burglary
statutes provided, in relevant part, as follows:
			"§19-1. Burglary. (a) A person commits burglary when
without authority he knowingly enters or without authority
remains within a building, housetrailer, watercraft, aircraft,
motor vehicle as defined in the Illinois Vehicle Code, railroad
car, or any part thereof, with intent to commit therein a
felony or theft. This offense shall not include the offenses set
out in Section 4-102 of The Illinois Vehicle Code, nor the
offense of residential burglary as defined in Section 19-3
hereof." 720 ILCS 5/19-1(a) (West 2000).
			"§19-3. Residential burglary. (a) A person commits
residential burglary who knowingly and without authority
enters the dwelling place of another with the intent to commit
therein a felony or theft." 720 ILCS 5/19-3(a) (West 2000).
At one time, it had been the practice in the appellate court to view
burglary as a lesser-included offense of residential burglary. See, e.g.,
People v. Edgeston, 243 Ill. App. 3d 1 (1993); People v. Wiley, 169
Ill. App. 3d 140 (1988); People v. Johnson, 129 Ill. App. 3d 399
(1984); People v. Dawson, 116 Ill. App. 3d 672 (1983).
	In People v. Childress, 158 Ill. 2d 275 (1994), however, this
court held that burglary was not a lesser-included offense of
residential burglary. We accepted the parties' contention that these
statutes described mutually exclusive conduct:
		"As the defendant observes, the two offenses are mutually
exclusive. Residential burglary can be committed only in
dwelling places, while simple burglary cannot occur in a
dwelling place. The victim in the present case was attacked
and killed in her own home, and thus the defendant could not
have been guilty of burglary. Although the defendant failed to
raise this point in the proceedings below, he now asks that his
conviction for burglary be vacated. The State agrees that the
conviction should be vacated, and we vacate the defendant's
conviction for that offense." Childress, 158 Ill. 2d  at 302.
		Childress proved problematic. For instance, a conflict arose in
the appellate court over whether an attached garage was a dwelling.
The Second District (People v. Cunningham, 265 Ill. App. 3d 3, 9
(1994), and the Fourth District (Dawson, 116 Ill. App. 3d at 675),
held that it was, while the First District (People v. Mata, 243 Ill. App.
3d 365, 368 (1993), held that it was not. Thus, in a case in which the
defendant was convicted of residential burglary of an attached
garage, the First District reversed the conviction (Mata, 243 Ill. App.
3d at 368-69), while the Second District reversed the conviction of a
defendant convicted of burglary of an attached garage (People v.
Borgen, 282 Ill. App. 3d 116, 122-23 (1996)). Because of Childress's
holding that the crimes were mutually exclusive, the courts were
forced to reverse convictions even though it was clear that the
defendant was guilty of some type of burglary offense.
	The legislature fixed the problem by amending the residential
burglary statute to provide that burglary is a lesser-included offense
of residential burglary. Effective June 1, 2001, the burglary and
residential burglary statutes now provide as follows:
			"§19-1. Burglary.
			(a) A person commits burglary when without authority he
knowingly enters or without authority remains within a
building, housetrailer, watercraft, aircraft, motor vehicle as
defined in the Illinois Vehicle Code, railroad car, or any part
thereof, with intent to commit therein a felony or theft. This
offense shall not include the offenses set out in Section 4-102
of The Illinois Vehicle Code." 720 ILCS 5/19-3 (West
2002).
			"§19-3. Residential burglary.
			(a) A person commits residential burglary who knowingly
and without authority enters or knowingly and without
authority remains within the dwelling place of another, or any
part thereof, with the intent to commit therein a felony or
theft. This offense includes the offense of burglary as defined
in Section 19-1." 720 ILCS 5/19-1 (West 2002).
	Defendant was convicted and sentenced prior to the effective
date of these amendments. Thus, the trial judge had no authority to
convict defendant of burglary as a lesser-included offense of
residential burglary because Childress was a binding interpretation of
the statutes then in effect. Defendant's burglary conviction could only
be saved if the amended version of section 19-3 could be applied
retroactively.
	In Commonwealth Edison Co. v. Will County Collector, 196 Ill. 2d 27 (2001), this court adopted the retroactivity analysis of Landgraf
v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 128 L. Ed. 2d 229, 114 S. Ct. 1483 (1994). Landgraf sets forth a multipart test to determine
retroactivity, and the first step is to determine whether the legislature
has clearly indicated the temporal reach of the amended statute.
Commonwealth Edison, 196 Ill. 2d  at 38. This court later determined,
however, that, as long as section 4 of the Statute on Statutes (5 ILCS
70/4 (West 2002)) is in effect, an Illinois court will never need to go
beyond step one of the Landgraf test. Caveney v. Bower, 207 Ill. 2d 82, 94 (2003). Section 4 is a general saving clause in which "the
legislature has clearly indicated the 'temporal reach' of every amended
statute." (Emphasis in original.) Caveney, 207 Ill. 2d  at 92. This court
has interpreted section 4 to mean that procedural changes to statutes
may be applied retroactively, while substantive changes may not.
Caveney, 207 Ill. 2d  at 92; People v. Glisson, 202 Ill. 2d 499, 507
(2002). Here, the legislature did not indicate that the amendment
should be applied retroactively. Accordingly, section 4 applies, and the
question before us is whether the amendment to the residential
burglary statute is substantive or procedural.
	In Rivard v. Chicago Fire Fighters Union, Local No. 2, 122 Ill. 2d 303 (1988), we explained the difference between a substantive
amendment and a procedural one:
		"We have noted before that the line between 'substance' and
'procedure' may often be unclear. (Orlicki v. McCarthy
(1954), 4 Ill. 2d 342, 348 ('no simple formula can be evolved
as to when an amendment relates to a procedural, or to a
substantive right').) In general, procedural law is ' "[t]hat
which prescribes the method of enforcing rights or obtaining
redress for their invasion; machinery for carrying on a suit." '
(People v. Ruiz (1985), 107 Ill. 2d 19, 22, quoting Blacks'
Law Dictionary 1367 (4th ed. 1951).) Substantive law, in
contrast, establishes the rights whose invasion may be
redressed through a particular procedure. More specifically,
procedure embraces 'pleading, evidence and practice.
Practice means those legal rules which direct the course of
proceedings to bring parties into court and the course of the
court after they are brought in.' Ogdon v. Gianakos (1953),
415 Ill. 591, 596." Rivard, 122 Ill. 2d  at 310-11.
Thus, examples of amendments this court has held to be procedural
include one allowing substituted service on the Secretary of State for
a former resident of Illinois (Ogdon v. Gianakos, 415 Ill. 591, 596
(1953)), and one changing a statute of limitations (Orlicki v.
McCarthy, 4 Ill. 2d 342, 353-54 (1954)). Substantive amendments
include those that alter the scope or the elements of a crime. Glisson,
202 Ill. 2d  at 508; People v. DiGirolamo, 179 Ill. 2d 24, 50 (1997).
	Here, the amendment to the residential burglary statute is clearly
substantive because it altered the scope of the residential burglary
statute. As the appellate court correctly noted, the amendment
exposes defendant to conviction of an additional crime. 348 Ill. App.
3d at 130. Previously, when a defendant committed a burglary in a
dwelling he was committing solely the crime of residential burglary.
Childress had construed the preamendment versions of residential
burglary and burglary as being mutually exclusive. Under the amended
version of the statute, a defendant commits both burglary and
residential burglary when he commits a burglary in a dwelling. This is
a substantive change in the meaning of the residential burglary statute.
	The State contends that the amendments were merely procedural.
According to the State:
			"The amendment here does not affect matters of
substance; instead, it is procedural. Under the former version
of the statute, the prosecutor was given the discretion to
charge residential burglary or burglary, and the trier of fact
was barred from consideration of the lesser charge of
burglary unless the prosecutor charged both offenses. With
the amendment to the statute, however, the legislature,
consistent with the usual power of the trier of fact to find the
defendant guilty of lesser included offenses, properly
amended this procedure and returned the power to the trier
of fact rather than the prosecutor."
The State is incorrect. What the State describes are merely procedural
ramifications of a substantive change to the statute. Procedural
ramifications of a substantive amendment do not make the amendment
procedural. See People v. Holmes, 292 Ill. App. 3d 855, 860-61
(1997); People v. Jennings, 181 Ill. App. 3d 439, 442 (1989). This
case does not involve a general amendment to the Criminal Code
concerning lesser-included offenses. Rather, it involves substantive
changes to the burglary and residential burglary statutes that have
procedural ramifications for how the crimes can be charged.
	Because the amendment to the residential burglary statute was a
substantive one that cannot be applied retroactively, the appellate
court was correct in reversing defendant's burglary conviction. The
State charged defendant solely with residential burglary. Once the trial
court determined that the State had not met its burden of proof on
that charge, it had no choice but to acquit defendant.
	The State disagrees with this conclusion, contending that, even
if this court finds that the amendments cannot be applied retroactively,
the proper remedy is to remand the cause for a new trial. The State
argues that, by finding defendant guilty of burglary, the trial judge did
not acquit defendant of residential burglary. Rather, the State argues,
this was merely a case of trial error, and that the trial judge simply
believed that burglary was a more appropriate charge. We disagree.
Clearly, it was the trial judge's intent to acquit defendant of residential
burglary. It is axiomatic that a conviction of solely an included offense
operates as an acquittal of the offense charged. 720 ILCS 5/3-4(a)
(West 2002); People v. McCutcheon, 68 Ill. 2d 101, 105 (1977);
People v. Newman, 360 Ill. 226, 232-33 (1935). Thus, when the trial
judge purported to convict defendant of an included offense, his
intention was to acquit defendant of the greater. Moreover, the trial
judge clearly stated in his remarks from the bench that he was finding
defendant guilty of a "lesser included offense" because the State had
not established defendant's guilt of residential burglary beyond a
reasonable doubt.
	The State also complains that the trial judge's comments show
that he misunderstood the elements of residential burglary. Even if this
were true, and the trial court erroneously acquitted defendant of that
charge, retrial would still be barred by double jeopardy principles. See
Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 503, 54 L. Ed. 2d 717, 726, 98 S. Ct. 824, 829 (1978) ("an acquitted defendant may not be retried
even though 'the acquittal was based upon an egregiously erroneous
foundation' "), quoting Fong Foo v. United States, 369 U.S. 141,
143, 7 L. Ed. 2d 629, 631, 82 S. Ct. 671, 672 (1962). We reject the
State's contention that defendant can be retried.
	The appellate court correctly concluded that the amendment to
the residential burglary statute cannot be applied retroactively to
defendant's case. Accordingly, the appellate court properly reversed
defendant's conviction of burglary, and we affirm the appellate court's
judgment.

Affirmed.
	Although I agree with the result reached by the court today, I do
not fully agree with the analysis used in reaching that result. For the
reasons expressed in my special concurrence in Caveney v. Bower,
207 Ill. 2d 82, 97 (2003) (Freeman, J., specially concurring, joined by
McMorrow, C.J., and Kilbride, J.), I remain concerned about the
court's use of section 4 of the Statute on Statutes in the context of the
Landgraf test for determining the retroactivity of statute. I continue
to believe that the better approach in these cases is to apply the
Landgraf test in the manner set forth by the United States Supreme
Court, and as was contemplated by this court in Commonwealth
Edison Co. v. Will County Collector, 196 Ill. 2d 27 (2001). Applying
that test (see Commonwealth Edison, 196 Ill. 2d  at 38 (applying
Landgraf test); see also People v. Ramsey, 192 Ill. 2d 154, 186
(2000) (Freeman, J., specially concurring, joined by McMorrow, J.)
(discussing application of Landgraf with the context of criminal
cases)), I reach the same conclusion as that reached by my
colleagues-that the amendment at issue here may not be applied
retroactively.
	JUSTICE McMORROW joins in this special concurrence.