Court Opinion

ID: 9779603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 00:25:38.479384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:36.686802
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE BURKE, dissenting: I cannot join the majority because it assigns to the circuit court a “confusion” about jurisdiction that does not exist. The only confusion in this case is created by the majority, which chooses to interpret the circuit court’s use of the term “jurisdiction” one way, while adopting a different interpretation of the term “jurisdiction” when that term is used by respondent and the legislature. I would interpret the term consistently. Doing so leads to the conclusion that the circuit court was correct when it dismissed the delinquency petition filed in this case. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the appellate court. On August 8, 2007, the State filed a delinquency petition against respondent Luis R., charging him with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault allegedly committed between June and August of 2000. Because of the gap in time between the commission of the crimes and the filing of the petition, respondent, who had been a minor when the charged acts occurred, had reached the age of 21. Accordingly, Luis R. sought dismissal of the petition, arguing that the court did not have “jurisdiction” over him. The circuit court granted respondent’s motion to dismiss. In its order dismissing the State’s delinquency petition, the circuit court agreed with respondent, indicating that the court “lacks jurisdiction over [respondent].” In its oral pronouncements at the hearing on the motion, the court said, “I’m just ruling that there is no jurisdiction under the Juvenile Court Act for this proceeding.” From these two statements, the majority concludes that the circuit court was “confused” on the matter of jurisdiction. The majority then launches into a discussion on the constitutionally derived nature of a circuit court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, reiterating what Belleville Toyota, Inc. v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., 199 Ill. 2d 325 (2002), made clear — that amendments to the judicial article of the 1870 constitution, enacted in 1964 and retained in our current article VI, section 9, created a single integrated court system with a unified circuit court which enjoys “ ‘original jurisdiction of all justiciable matters.’ ” Belleville, 199 Ill. 2d at 337, quoting Ill. Const. 1870, art. VI, §9 (amended 1964). After this discussion, the majority then reaches the rather unremarkable determination that the circuit court possessed subject-matter jurisdiction in this case.2 What I find puzzling is why the majority finds it necessary to engage in this discussion. As noted above, after the State filed its delinquency petition against respondent in the circuit court, respondent moved to have the petition dismissed, arguing that the circuit court had no jurisdiction over him. Interpreting respondent’s use of the term “jurisdiction,” the majority does not conclude that respondent was contending that the circuit court lacked article VI jurisdiction. Rather, the majority states: “Respondent’s motion to dismiss did not assert that Illinois circuit courts lack the inherent authority to adjudicate delinquency petitions, or that the State’s petition should have been filed in a different tribunal, such as the Illinois Human Rights Commission or the Court of Claims. Such a motion would have been patently frivolous, as the circuit court’s authority to adjudicate delinquency petitions is beyond dispute. Rather, respondent’s motion asserted that this particular delinquency petition is legally defective in that respondent falls outside the class of persons against whom such petitions may lawfully be filed.” 239 Ill. 2d at 303. The majority also discusses the statute, section 5 — 120 of the Juvenile Court Act of 1987, which the circuit court applied in reaching its decision to grant dismissal. 705 ILCS 405/5 — 120 (West 2008). The majority notes that section 5—120 of the Act is entitled “exclusive jurisdiction,” and finds this use of the term jurisdiction “not helpful.” 239 Ill. 2d at 304. However, the majority again rejects the notion that the term “jurisdiction,” as used in this section, was intended to limit the scope of the court’s authority in the article VI sense. Rather, harkening back to its earlier discussion of Belleville Toyota and article VI, the majority finds that section 5—120 is simply “misleading, as that section is not in fact a grant of authority to the circuit court. Rather, section 5 — 120 is a grant of authority to the State, specifically defining the class of persons against whom the State may lawfully initiate juvenile delinquency petitions.” (Emphases in original.) 239 Ill. 2d at 304. If the majority can interpret the term “jurisdiction” as used by respondent and by our legislature in such a way that does not offend our constitution, why should a different interpretation be assigned to the circuit court’s ruling? Isn’t it likely that the court, which is presumed to know the law, was not asserting “that Illinois circuit courts lack the inherent authority to adjudicate delinquency petitions, or that the State’s petition should have been filed in a different tribunal”? And isn’t it more likely that when the circuit court ruled that it did not have “jurisdiction” it meant, like the respondent, that the petition was “legally defective in that respondent falls outside the class of persons against whom such petitions may lawfully be filed”? By selectively assigning different meanings to the term “jurisdiction,” the majority blinds itself to the actual rationale behind the circuit court’s order. When the circuit court granted respondent’s motion to dismiss and said it lacked “jurisdiction,” it did not mean that, as a circuit court, it lacked authority to enter a ruling. Rather, just like respondent and section 5 — 120 of the Act, the circuit court meant that the petition was legally defective. The correctness of that ruling is the issue that should be addressed. Instead, the majority concludes that the circuit court has article VI jurisdiction — a matter that no one actually disputes — and remands this matter to the circuit court for unspecified “further proceedings,” wasting the time and money of the State, as well as precious judicial resources. I can see no purpose to such a course of action. In my view, the appellate court judgment should be affirmed. As Chief Justice Miller stated in his concurrence in In re M.M., 156 Ill. 2d 53, 75 (1993) (Miller, C.J., concurring, joined by Bilandic, J.), “That a circuit court’s jurisdiction over a certain matter is conferred by the constitution rather than by the legislature does not mean, however, that a court is free to act in ways inconsistent with controlling statutory law ***. Clearly, the constitutional source of a circuit court’s jurisdiction does not carry with it a license to disregard the language of a statute.” The circuit court properly dismissed the State’s juvenile delinquency petition against respondent. To have done otherwise would have been “inconsistent with controlling statutory law.” The fact that the circuit court used the term “jurisdiction” — the same term used by respondent and the legislature — in its ruling should not distract us from the reality that dismissal of the petition was proper. JUSTICE FREEMAN joins in this dissent.  The majority also determines that the circuit court possessed personal jurisdiction over respondent, an issue that the parties do not dispute.