Court Opinion

ID: 9527840
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:34:46.548228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:14.605041
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION ON DENIAL OF REHEARING JUSTICE SPITZ delivered the opinion of the court: In a petition for rehearing, defendant points out that subsequent to the filing of our initial opinion in this cause, the supreme court declared the statute which she was convicted of violating (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 38, par. 20 — 1.1(a)) unconstitutional. (People v. Johnson (1986), 114 Ill. 2d 69.) In her appellate briefs filed in this cause, defendant contended that this statute is unconstitutional, but did not question the statute’s constitutionality in her petition for post-conviction relief. She now contends that we should grant rehearing in order to consider her contention that the statute under which she was convicted is unconstitutional.  In our initial opinion, we remanded this cause to the circuit court with directions that counsel be appointed to represent Dredge with respect to her petition for post-conviction relief. Counsel appointed to represent a pro se petitioner for post-conviction relief may amend the pro se petition so that it adequately presents the petitioner’s allegations of violations of her constitutional rights. (People v. Slaughter (1968), 39 Ill. 2d 278, 235 N.E.2d 566.) Nothing in our previously filed opinion in this cause was intended to prevent appointed counsel from amending defendant’s petition for post-conviction relief to allege that defendant was convicted on the basis of an unconstitutional statute, and we now hold that in the proceedings on remand, defendant’s appointed counsel may file an amended petition for post-conviction relief premised on the unconstitutionality of section 20 — 1.1(a) of the Criminal Code of 1961 (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 38, par. 20 — 1.1(a)). For the foregoing reasons, we deny the defendant’s petition for rehearing. Petition for rehearing denied. McCULLOUGH, P.J., and GREEN, J., concur.