Court Opinion

ID: 9819329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:22:50.278898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:11:34.731726
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SLATER, specially concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree that failure to comply with Supreme Court Rule 604(d) does not affect this court’s jurisdiction over defendant’s appeal. As noted in McKay, “Wilk and its progeny *** withdraw from an appellate court not jurisdiction, but rather the decision whether waiver should bar the appeal of a defendant who has not filed a Rule 604(d) motion.” McKay, 282 Ill. App. 3d at 111, 668 N.E.2d at 583. I also do not disagree with the majority’s ruling vacating the withholding order, as it is arguably void and therefore subject to challenge at any time. See Despenza, 318 Ill. App. 3d 1155, 744 N.E.2d 912. I strongly object, however, to the majority’s decision to consider the merits of the restitution issue. The majority does so “under the exception announced in Belcher.” 333 Ill. App. 3d at 66. Although not explicitly stated, the “Belcher exception” relied on by the majority appears to be as follows: a defendant’s failure to comply with Rule 604(d) will be excused whenever the “ends of justice would be better served” (333 Ill. App. 3d at 66) by considering the merits of defendant’s appeal rather than dismissing it. This exception applies despite the fact that defendant did not file a motion to reconsider her sentence until more than 16 months after sentencing. Moreover, the exception applies even though the defendant still did not raise the restitution issue in that very untimely motion. According to the majority, the “Belcher exception” is very broad. So broad, in fact, that I submit with this decision Wilk has essentially been overruled. After all, if the “ends of justice” require ignoring Rule 604(d) to prevent the imposition of a $5,446 restitution order, it is difficult to imagine a scenario where dismissal of a defendant’s appeal would be warranted. Given this rather revolutionary change in the law regarding Rule 604(d), one might ask what reason the supreme court gave for abandoning Wilk and its progeny. Oddly, the court gave none. Instead it stated: “While it is true this court does not approve of any failure to comply strictly with the explicitly stated requirements of Rule 604(d) (People v. Wilk, 124 Ill. 2d 93, 103 (1988)), the unusual and fact-specific circumstances found in this case lead us to believe that the ends of justice will be better served by permitting defendant leave to file a motion to withdraw his guilty plea in the trial court.” (Emphasis added.) Belcher, 199 Ill. 2d at 382. The “unusual and fact-specific circumstances” in Belcher were that the defendant received a 60-year sentence upon pleading guilty to first degree murder after a court-appointed psychiatrist opined that defendant was sane under the amended insanity statute. At defendant’s sentencing hearing, the psychiatrist testified that he would have found the defendant insane under the prior version of the statute. The amended statute was subsequently ruled unconstitutional in Johnson v. Edgar, 176 Ill. 2d 499, 680 N.E.2d 1372 (1997), and defendant sought to withdraw his guilty plea. It was against this extraordinary backdrop that the Belcher court excused strict compliance with Rule 604(d). Clearly, the Belcher court did not intend to create a general “in the interest of justice” exception to Rule 604(d). The majority’s expansive interpretation of Belcher would bring us full circle to the pre-Wilk days when Rule 604(d) was largely ignored. I suggest that our supreme court has not yet abandoned what it said in Wilk: “[T]here is a general perception in our criminal justice system *** that a complete relaxation of Rule 604(d) is acceptable in this State. We hold today that it is not. At the risk of stating the obvious, it should be pointed out that the rules adopted by this court concerning criminal defendants and guilty pleas are in fact rules of procedure and not suggestions. It is incumbent upon counsel and courts alike to follow them. Rules 402, 604(d) and 605(b), which concern guilty pleas, are meant to mesh together not only to ensure that defendants’ constitutional rights are protected, but also to avoid abuses by defendants. *** These rules are not written in a vacuum and they represent our best efforts at ordering the complex and delicate process of plea bargains and guilty pleas.” Wilk, 124 Ill. 2d at 103-04, 529 N.E.2d at 221. Because the defendant did not comply with Rule 604(d), I would dismiss her appeal.