Court Opinion

ID: 9779805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 00:47:43.582349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:15:35.788751
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE ZENOFF, specially concurring: I agree with the majority’s analysis and result, but I feel constrained to write separately on the excessive-sentencing issue to point out the shortcomings of section 5 — 5—4 of the Unified Code of Corrections (Code) (730 ILCS 5/5 — 5—4 (West 2008)), which prohibits defendant’s increased sentence. The council commentary summary to that section states that it “[ljimits the use of increased sentences where an original conviction or sentence has been overturned by a higher court.” 730 ILCS Ann. 5/5 — 5—4, Council Commentary — 1973, at 968 (Smith-Hurd 2008). The commentary goes on to explain that the provision was adopted to codify the rule set out by the United States Supreme Court in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 23 L. Ed. 2d 656, 89 S. Ct. 2072 (1969), and followed by Illinois in People v. Baze, 43 Ill. 2d 298 (1969). In Pearce, the Court limited the power of a sentencing court to increase a sentence after reconviction following a new trial. Pearce, 395 U.S. at 725-26, 23 L. Ed. 2d at 669-70, 89 S. Ct. at 2080-81. It held that the fourteenth amendment’s due process clause prevented the increase if it was motivated by the sentencing judge’s vindictiveness. Pearce, 395 U.S. at 725-26, 23 L. Ed. 2d at 669-70, 89 S. Ct. at 2080-81. Later, in Alabama v. Smith, 490 U.S. 794, 802, 104 L. Ed. 2d 865, 874, 109 S. Ct. 2201, 2206 (1989), the Court said that there is no presumption of vindictiveness when a second sentence imposed after a trial is greater than a first sentence imposed after a guilty plea. It reasoned that even where the same judge imposes both sentences, the judge would most likely have greater information available after a trial, and the factors of leniency in consideration of a plea would be absent. Smith, 490 U.S. at 801, 104 L. Ed. 2d at 874, 109 S. Ct. at 2206. Section 5 — 5—4 of the Code makes no such distinction between a plea and a trial. It just provides that when an appellate court overturns a conviction, the defendant cannot thereafter receive a higher sentence. Moreover, the statute makes no distinction based on the reason that a conviction may have been set aside. The prohibition applies regardless of whether the case is sent back based on faulty admonitions or on an analysis of the substantive issues. The fact that the conviction is set aside on appeal as opposed to at the trial level triggers the application of the provision. Thus, in People v. McCutcheon, 68 Ill. 2d 101, 104 (1977), when the appellate court vacated the defendant’s guilty plea and the defendant then was convicted after a trial, the parties “agreed” that section 5 — 5—4 precluded a higher sentence. To be sure, the supreme court did not expressly approve that agreement; however, as this court has noted, “the supreme court did not disagree with the premise that McCutcheon could not receive a greater sentence where the appellate court vacated his guilty plea and remanded for him to plead anew.” People v. Miller, 286 Ill. App. 3d 297, 302 (1997); see also People v. Jackson, 299 Ill. App. 3d 104, 116-17 (1998) (reading McCutcheon similarly). This result in essence gives defendant a windfall. Although a defendant usually has an incentive to plead guilty — to get leniency in sentencing — the defendant in this scenario has no such incentive. That is, he has nothing to lose by going to trial after the first conviction is vacated by the appellate court regardless of the reasons — he might get acquitted, but even if he is convicted, he is guaranteed to come out no worse than he did when he pleaded guilty. The trial court is required to give him the same leniency that it gave him when he pleaded guilty, even though, in the end, he did not plead guilty. I think that the General Assembly, in attempting to codify Pearce, overlooked these important distinctions.