Court Opinion

ID: 9860763
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:32:02.525995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:39.062410
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, specially concurring: While purporting to retain the strict compliance standard of Janes I, the majority holds that the standard need not be applied where, as here, a defendant has already been granted a remand and a new hearing on his resentencing motion. Strict compliance, as it turns out, is not so strict after all. The merits of the majority’s new rule are questionable. Although I appreciate its pragmatic appeal, it creates the possibility that a defendant’s motion to withdraw his plea or reconsider his sentence may be denied without a proper attorney certificate having ever been filed. If another mistake is made on remand and the defendant still does not receive the requisite assistance of counsel in preparing and presenting his motion, the majority’s new rule would leave the defendant without any recourse. This hardly seems consistent with the principles of Janes I or the purposes of Rule 604(d). Wholly aside from these issues, I am puzzled as to why the majority felt compelled to fashion a new rule based on the facts of this case. As the majority correctly notes, defendant’s attorney did file a Rule 604(d) certificate following remand and prior to the new hearing on his resentencing motion. Although a substitution of counsel subsequently took place, that was inconsequential for Rule 604(d) purposes. Nothing in that rule requires that the certificate be filed by the same attorney who drafts the motion and argues it before the circuit court. Because a proper Rule 604(d) certificate was timely filed on remand, I agree with the majority that defendant is not entitled to another remand and another hearing on his motion to reduce sentence. Accordingly, I concur. JUSTICE HEIPLE joins in this special concurrence.