Court Opinion

ID: 9531035
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:06:44.417091+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:19.648107
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, specially concurring: I concur in the judgment, but in doing so I feel the need to emphasize, as the court’s opinion fails to do, the relevance of the fact that defendant was convicted of both aggravated kidnaping (not for ransom), a Class 1 felony, and armed robbery, a Class X crime, while in contrast his older brother was not convicted of participating in the kidnaping. The defendant’s involvement in the kidnaping indicates that he was the primary actor in the armed robbery, for without the car taken from the kidnap victim, the robbery would have been impossible. More importantly, just as a trial judge may take a defendant’s previous crimes into account when sentencing, despite the fact that the defendant has already been punished for those crimes, he is also entitled to take into consideration concurrent criminal convictions. The fact that Ricardo Godinez committed two felonies in one day, in the course of which he abducted and terrorized an innocent woman (who later identified him) by driving her around, part of the time while she was blindfolded, after he seized her, binding her hands and feet and holding her captive for several hours in an apartment, indicates that his offenses were more serious than his brother’s and that he is a greater danger to society and less likely to change his ways than is his brother. Thus even though the trial judge imposed concurrent sentences on the defendant, perhaps because he believed this to be required under section 5-8-4 of the Unified Code of Corrections (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 38, par. 1005-8-4), the judge did not abuse his discretion in imposing longer sentences for either or both convictions than would have been imposed in the absence of the other conviction.