Court Opinion

ID: 9526524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:19:21.65935+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:26.429205
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE HEIPLE, specially concurring: I concur with the affirmance of defendant’s conviction based on our holding in People v. Stapleton (1983), 115 Ill. App. 3d 1067, 451 N.E.2d 5841. However, the majority relies on cases that are distinguishable and distinguishes a case which is directly on point in arriving at its conclusions here. The most recent discussion of this sort of issue is found in People v. Palmer (1984), 104 Ill. 2d 340, 472 N.E.2d 795. The majority would distinguish Palmer because it interprets the unlawful use of weapons statute as opposed to the theft statute. I submit that this is too narrow a reading. Palmer traces the history of numerous cases involving various procedural aspects of the enhancement-by-prior-felony provision. The one decision the court confronted directly was People v. Hayes (1981), 87 Ill. 2d 95, 429 N.E.2d 490. Hayes ostensibly held that a prior theft conviction was not an element of the offense of felony theft. Were Hayes the latest pronouncement of the court, I would have no choice but to concur. Palmer, however, explicitly disclaimed this holding as dicta (People v. Palmer (1984), 104 Ill. 2d 340, 348). Instead, it was reaffirmed that a prior conviction used to enhance an offense from a misdemeanor to a felony is an element of the enhanced offense which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to the trier of fact. Hence, given the willingness of the court to blend together felony theft and unlawful-use-of weapons principles, the reluctance of the majority to do so is misguided. The cases relied on by the majority are not persuasive. People v. Price (1984), 127 Ill. App. 3d 1, 468 N.E.2d 412, relied in principal part on Hayes. This can be excused as an accident of chronology, since the Price court did not have the benefit of the Supreme Court version of Palmer. People v. Jackson (1984), 99 Ill. 2d 476, 459 N.E.2d 1362, is also of little value. The Jackson court was confronted with the question of whether to apply “An Act *** in relation to the construction of the statutes” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1981, ch. 1, par. 1103) to the increase of the value limits defining misdemeanor and felony theft. As part of its inquiry, the court sought to determine whether value was “an essential element of the offense.” If such were the case, defendant would not have the option of being sentenced under the amended statute with its higher value limits. The court concluded that value, mentioned, as here, only in the sentencing subsection of the theft statute, was not an essential element of the offense. Taken literally, Jackson would seem to support the majority position in the instant case. However, a deeper analysis reveals the distinction. The Jackson court was concerned with cases holding that where substantive elements of the offense charged have been changed, no election for a lesser sentence can be made (People v. Gibson (1976), 41 Ill. App. 3d 209, 354 N.E.2d 71). It held that an amendment to the value limits did not affect the substantive elements of a theft. But that is not to say that the State need not prove to the trier of fact that the property stolen is worth over $300, for indeed it must. (People v. Harden (1969), 42 Ill. 2d 301, 247 N.E.2d 404.) Hence, it emerges that it is possible for something to be an element of an offense for some purposes but not others. Factors related to the classification of the severity of a theft are elements of the offense in the sense that a defendant has the right to force the State to produce proof beyond a reasonable doubt to the trier of fact that these factors are present. On the other hand, these factors do not affect the definitional elements of a theft as set forth in the statute. Thus, when the legislature tinkers with these factors for whatever reason, it does not create a new or different offense so as to afford the defendant the benefits of a mitigated penalty. That is all that Jackson holds. Jackson does not disclaim Harden, nor should it.