Opinion ID: 2045025
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Proportionate Penalties Challenge

Text: We first address defendants' proportionate penalties challenge. The proportionate penalties clause of the Illinois Constitution requires the legislature to determine a penalty according to the seriousness of the offense, and with the objective of restoring the offender to useful citizenship. Ill. Const.1970, art. I, § 11. Prior to our decision in Sharpe, 216 Ill.2d 481, 298 Ill.Dec. 169, 839 N.E.2d 492, a defendant could challenge a penalty pursuant to the proportionate penalties clause by (1) comparing it to the penalty for a similar offense with different elements, (2) comparing it to the penalty for an offense with identical elements, or (3) arguing that the penalty was cruel, degrading, or so wholly disproportionate to the offense committed as to shock the moral sense of the community. See, e.g., People v. Moss, 206 Ill.2d 503, 522, 276 Ill.Dec. 855, 795 N.E.2d 208 (2003). In Sharpe, we abandoned cross-comparison analysis as part of our proportionate penalties jurisprudence. Sharpe, 216 Ill.2d at 519-21, 298 Ill.Dec. 169, 839 N.E.2d 492. Thus, a defendant may no longer premise a proportionate penalties challenge on the comparison of similar offenses with different elements. Sharpe, 216 Ill.2d at 521, 298 Ill.Dec. 169, 839 N.E.2d 492. A defendant may, however, still argue that a penalty for a particular offense violates the cruel or degrading standard or is harsher than the penalty for an offense with identical elements. Sharpe, 216 Ill.2d at 521, 298 Ill.Dec. 169, 839 N.E.2d 492. As mentioned, the State suggests that defendants' proportionate penalties challenge is based on a comparison of two offenses with different elements: manufacturing methamphetamine and distributing methamphetamine. Defendants did partially rely on a cross-comparison analysis of these two offenses before the appellate court ( McCarty, 356 Ill.App.3d at 563, 292 Ill.Dec. 521, 826 N.E.2d 957; Reynolds, 358 Ill.App.3d at 296, 294 Ill.Dec. 778, 831 N.E.2d 1103), but their appeals were decided prior to Sharpe. While they could have stated the precise basis for their present proportionate penalties challenge more clearly, we do not understand them to renew their cross-comparison argument, but rather to assert that the 15-year mandatory minimum sentence set forth in section 401(a)(6.5)(D) violates the cruel or degrading standard i.e., that it is cruelly harsh to penalize an individual who manufactures a substance that contains only traces of unusable methamphetamine as severely as one who manufactures an identical quantity of usable methamphetamine. We find defendants' argument unavailing. In general, the legislature has the authority to set the nature and extent of criminal penalties, and courts may not interfere with such legislation unless the challenged penalty is clearly in excess of the very broad and general constitutional limitations applicable. People v. Morgan, 203 Ill.2d 470, 488, 272 Ill.Dec. 160, 786 N.E.2d 994 (2003), overruled on other grounds by Sharpe, 216 Ill.2d at 519, 298 Ill.Dec. 169, 839 N.E.2d 492. As we noted in rejecting defendants' assertion that our interpretation of section 401(a)(6.5)(D) produces absurd results, manufacturing methamphetamine is a dangerous process involving toxic and combustible chemicals, and regardless of whether an individual successfully completes the methamphetamine manufacturing process, merely engaging in it poses a serious threat to public safety. Accordingly, we cannot say that the sentencing category established by section 401(a)(6.5)(D) is cruel or degrading or a shock to the moral sense of the community just because the legislature has chosen not to condition an individual's eligibility for it on the level of refinement the individual achieves during the methamphetamine manufacturing process. We therefore conclude that section 401(a)(6.5)(D) does not violate the proportionate penalties clause.