Court Opinion

ID: 9782612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:00:15.920678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:06.569408
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE FREEMAN, specially concurring: Although I agree that dismissal is unwarranted in these cases, I do so for reasons other than those expressed in the court’s opinion. As an initial matter, today’s opinion decides an issue not before the court, i.e., whether Public Act 96 — 694 applies retroactively to these defendants, who were ticketed before its effective date of January 1, 2010. The retroactivity of the new legislation is not an issue before the court, and by deciding it without the benefit of briefing, the court has prevented the parties from any opportunity to speak to it substantively. In fact, the State cites to the legislation in a footnote, stating only that the problem “will not arise in the future” because dismissal is now legislatively prohibited under the circumstances presented here. The legislation does play a role in today’s decision, but it is not the one that the court envisions. The need for such legislation, one might argue, was occasioned because the General Assembly was aware that courts had the discretion to dismiss charges for a Rule 504 violation. There are several reasons why such an argument might be persuasive. Initially, there was judicial authority for such dismissals. See People v. Walter, 335 Ill. App. 3d 171 (2002); People v. Alfonso, 191 Ill. App. 3d 963 (1989). Second, cases such as Village of Park Forest v. Fagan, 64 Ill. 2d 264 (1976), and People v. Norris, 214 Ill. 2d 92 (2005), stand for the proposition that dismissal may be appropriate if Rule 504 is violated, which, of course, contradicts today’s pronouncement that these cases state that no such discretion existed. To support its conclusion, the court must overrule Walter and Alfonso, but this is entirely unnecessary in this case, because each of the three defendants not only received the benefit of Rule 504, they forfeited the opportunity to assert any violation of it. All three actually appeared within the 14- to 60-day window provided by Rule 504. They did so to file speedy-trial and jury demands and, in some cases, to seek discovery. This fulfilled the purpose of the rule to grant the opportunity for a “trial on the merits” within “a reasonable time” after the appearance date. As this court recently explained about Rule 504 in Norris, the “policy” announced there, i.e., to grant trials on the first appearance date, operates for fine-only offense cases, not for misdemeanor traffic offenses, including DUI offenses. Therefore, this “policy” simply has nothing to offer with respect to the analysis of this case. Further, DUI trials are far more involved than trials in fine-only cases. DUI trials are often complicated, involving multiple witnesses, chemical testing, toxicology reports, and the like. Defendants are entitled to invoke their speedy-trial rights to force the State to move the case expeditiously, but that right is entirely separate from the “policy” announced in the rule. Norris, 214 Ill. 2d at 102. Thus, by failing to raise the Rule 504 violation until after jury-trial and speedy-trial demands were filed, defendants waived any right to dismissal they may have had under Rule 504. It is for this reason and this reason alone that I join in the court’s disposition of these cases.