Court Opinion

ID: 9819196
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:20:00.278466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:29.375286
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HUTCHINSON, dissenting: I must respectfully dissent from the majority’s resolution of this case. As previously noted in People v. Smith, 288 Ill. App. 3d 308 (1997), this court concluded that People v. Evans, 174 Ill. 2d 320 (1996), did not specifically address the type of negotiated plea presented before the trial court. This court also analyzed the types of negotiated pleas presented in People v. Johnson, 286 Ill. App. 3d 597 (1997), and People v. Wilson, 286 Ill. App. 3d 169 (1997). We came to the same conclusion in each of those cases. In the Evans case, the State and the defendant agreed which charges would be dismissed, which charges defendant would plead to, and a specific number of years to recommend as a sentence. On the other hand, in Wilson and Smith, the State agreed to dismiss some of the charges, and the defendants agreed to plead guilty to the remaining charges. In Wilson and Smith, the State did not agree to recommend a specific number of years as a sentence to the trial court. Instead, the State agreed to recommend sentences not to exceed a certain number of years. In Johnson, the State agreed to dismiss charges, the defendant agreed to plead guilty to other charges, and no sentencing recommendation was made by the State. According to the facts in this case, the State agreed to dismiss some of the charges, and the defendant agreed to plead guilty to the remaining charges. Furthermore, the State did not recommend a specific sentence to the trial court; the State agreed to recommend no more than six years on those remaining burglary counts. Therefore, I believe that this case should not be considered a negotiated plea analogous to the plea bargained for in Evans. Here, as in Wilson and Smith, the trial court had the obligation to make findings concerning aggravation and mitigation and then determine an appropriate sentence not to exceed six years. Of course, the trial court also retained the option to reject the plea in its entirety. The Evans court identified open pleas and negotiated pleas as the only two types of pleas presented to a trial court. The Smith case, the Johnson case, the Wilson case, and this case clearly identify other types of negotiated dispositions. In Smith, this court observed that, "[i]n each of the cases permitting review of a defendant’s sentence following a negotiated plea agreement without requiring a motion to withdraw the plea, the common denominator of law seems to be that when a trial court exercises any discretion in imposing a sentence, a defendant should be allowed to challenge that sentence to determine whether the trial court abused its discretion.” Smith, 288 Ill. App. 3d at 315. Based upon the foregoing, I believe that defendant here should be allowed to pursue a properly presented motion to have his sentence reconsidered.