Court Opinion

ID: 9860454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:22:32.564393+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:24:21.120581
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE JIGANTI, dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion insofar as it reduces defendant’s prison sentence from 15 years to 10 years. It is well established that the trial court is vested with considerable discretion with respect to the appropriate sentence to be imposed. (People v. Cox (1980), 82 Ill. 2d 268, 280, 412 N.E.2d 541.) A disparity in sentences given to co-offenders is impermissible only if it is not justified by either a difference of degree in participation or rehabilitative potential. (People v. Lloyd (1981), 93 Ill. App. 3d 1018, 1028, 418 N.E.2d 131.) The record reveals that defendant has previously been convicted of the very serious crime of voluntary manslaughter, for which he was sentenced to a prison term of 7 to 12 years. He has now been convicted of crimes resulting from an extensive and deliberate course of criminal conduct with respect to the clandestine laboratory operation. In my view, this shows a serious lack of rehabilitative potential which was properly considered by the trial court and sufficient to support the disparity between defendant’s sentence and the sentence given to co-offender Wiley Brooks.