Court Opinion

ID: 9727602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:44:37.211599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:40.599518
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE LONDRIGAN, dissenting: The majority, in its construction of the statute, reaches a result that is contrary to the clear intent of the legislature. Accordingly, I dissent. The majority concedes that the phrase, “a finding of guilt,” originated on the House floor as an alternative distinct from “a stipulation by the defendant of the facts supporting the charge.” They also concede that when offering the amendment containing this language, Representative Schlickman explained to the House that “a finding of guilt” could occur “upon a plea of guilty or upon a trial.” Additionally, in his introductory remarks and throughout his replies to inquiries, Representative Schlickman said that the amendment was intended to codify the practice that had existed before the supreme court’s decision in Breen. The practice before Breen was to allow supervision to defendants who proceeded to trial, and in fact the defendant in Breen was adjudged guilty after a bench trial. Finally, the majority acknowledges that when the Senate passed its first bill on supervision, it rejected an amendment that would have eliminated supervision as an option after trial and instead allowed supervision whenever a defendant “is found guilty,” which meant after trial. The majority declines to follow these clear indications of legislative intent and says: “However well founded the belief of Representative Schlickman might have been that the bill allowed supervision after trial, the language simply will not sustain it”; “The legislative history of section 5 — 6—1(c) is helpful in reviewing what the General Assembly was attempting to do, but we find that the effort was abortive”; and “[I]t appears to us that the legislature fell short of what seemed to be its goal.” I disagree: the majority’s interpretation of the statute, and not the statute itself, fails to sustain the legislature’s intent. The Illinois Supreme Court has lucidly and definitively rejected the approach that the majority is taking: “The cardinal rule of statutory construction, to which all other canons and rules are subordinate, is to ascertain and give effect to the true intent and meaning of the legislature [citations]; and where, as in this case, there is no controlling precedent, the history, existing circumstances and contemporaneous conditions of the legislation are invaluable in ascertaining that intent. [Citations.]” (People ex rel. Hanrahan v. White (1972), 52 Ill. 2d 70,73, 285 N.E .2d 129,130.) To effectuate legislative intent, the Illinois Supreme Court has inserted one word for another (People ex rel. Barrett v. Anderson (1947), 398 Ill. 480, 76 N.E.2d 773), supplied missing provisions (Ketcham v. Board of Education (1927), 324 Ill. 314, 155 N.E. 332), enlarged (Baker & Conrad, Inc. v. Chicago Heights Construction Co. (1936), 364 Ill. 386, 4 N.E.2d 953) or restricted (City of Elmhurst v. Buettgen (1946), 394 Ill. 248, 68 N.E .2d 278) the normal meanings of words, and disregarded punctuation (Illinois Bell Telephone Co. v. Ames (1936), 364 Ill. 362, 4 N.E .2d 494). The case at hand requires no such radical remedies. One reading “upon a stipulation by the defendant of the facts supporting the charge or a finding of guilt” (the original statutory language as passed in 1976) notes an obvious ambiguity: whether “finding” is an object of the preposition “upon” or of the modifying participle “supporting.” We are told, “We have first the noun ‘facts’ modified by the participle ‘supporting.’ There follow two nouns as the objects of the participle: ‘charge’ preceded by the definite article, and ‘finding’ preceded by the indefinite article.” The majority begs the question by assuming that “finding” is an object of “supporting.” Grammar does not resolve the ambiguity, for “finding” may as well be an object of “upon” as an object of “supporting.” The case law therefore requires us to search for the legislative intent. The language under question was meant to codify the pre-Breen practice and was explicitly presented as allowing supervision after trial. The Senate rejected an amendment that would have denied supervision after trial, and the further evolution of the statute and this particular language indicates an independent meaning for “a finding of guilt.” (See R.S. Blome Co. v. Ames (1937), 365 Ill. 456, 6 N.E.2d 841.) The majority believes that the difference in wording between the original Senate bill, which allowed supervision “whenever a person *** is found guilty,” and the House bill and final language, which allow supervision “upon *** a finding of guilt,” evidences a detour in legislative thought. This ignores, however, everything else in the legislative history. When “a plea of guilty or” was inserted by the House into the bill amending the supervision statute in 1977, the following comment was made: “Schlickman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, Senate Bill 228 amends the Act on supervision ***. By Amendments, certain technical changes are made to the Bill, to the Act on supervision, as adjusted [sic] by the presiding Judge of the Second Municipal District of Cook County, Harold Sullivan, contained in a Bar Association article.” (Transcription of House Proceedings, June 15,1977, at 170.) The passage Representative Schlickman is referring to says: “The statute requires either a finding of guilty or a stipulation to the facts so a plea of guilty may not be sufficient.” (Sullivan, Supervision Comes to All of Illinois, 65 Ill. B.J. 190,194 (1976).) It is significant that the legislature chose to add the “plea of guilty” option at Judge Sullivan’s suggestion but did nothing to correct his assumption that supervision is available after a finding of guilt. In coming to its conclusion, the majority has ignored or contravened several other principles of statutory construction that favor a contrary holding. First, when language is ambiguous, the sense that contemporaneous members of the profession have put on it is to be considered. (Antrim v. Guyer & Calkins Co. (1945), 324 Ill. App. 641, 59 N.E.2d 316.) The only commentaries brought to our attention explicitly understood the statute to allow supervision for defendants who had proceeded to trial. See Jordan, Lampkin, and Woods, Some Thoughts on Supervision as a Disposition in Minor Criminal Cases, 7 Ill. St. B. A. Jud. Ad. Newsletter 5, 6-7 (October 1976); Sullivan, Supervision Comes to All of Illinois, 65 Ill. B.J. 190,194 (1976). Second, it is a well-known principle of construction that a statute should be construed so that no part is meaningless, redundant, or superfluous. (Peacock v. Judges Retirement System (1957), 10 Ill. 2d 498, 140 N.E.2d 684.) Yet nothing is accomplished if “upon a stipulation by the defendant of facts supporting a finding of guilt” is added to “upon a stipulation by the defendant of facts supporting the charge.” The majority says that the object is to provide for stipulations to lesser included offenses, but lesser included offenses are automatically included in a charge (People v. Ostrand (1966), 35 Ill. 2d 520, 530, 221 N.E.2d 499, 505). The majority’s reasoning suggests that without its interpretation, a defendant who stipulates to facts supporting a lesser included offense would not be eligible for supervision for that lesser included offense. A judge could not grant supervision for a lesser included offense if the State’s Attorney wished to prosecute that greater charge. So, in any event, the State’s Attorney would have to agree to a reduced charge. Therefore, the majority’s strained interpretation is not necessary to provide for lesser included offenses. Furthermore, if that is what the legislature intended to accomplish, the statute would read “upon a stipulation by the defendant of facts supporting the charge or a lesser included offense.” Third, the majority has characterized supervision as a “compassionate statute.” The majority holds that because it bypasses the normal procedure of judgment and sentencing, it must “be spelled out with particularity” and “accomplished with great care.” Apparently the majority here means that the statute will be construed strictly against the defendant. Penal statutes are to be strictly construed and any ambiguity resolved in favor of the defendant. People v. Kirkrand (1947), 397 Ill. 588, 74 N.E.2d 813. Today we uphold the statutory construction of Bodine, in which the issue of allowing supervision after trial was not even briefed. The Bodine opinion made no attempt to examine the legislative history or the postBreen setting in which the supervision statute was enacted. Careful examination reveals that Bodine was wrongly decided. We now compound the error.