Court Opinion

ID: 9819036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:18:04.803073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:28.940277
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE RATHJE, specially concurring: I agree entirely with the majority’s conclusion that the penalty for violating section 4—103(a)(6) of the Illinois Vehicle Code (625 ILCS 5/4—103(a)(6) (West 1996)) is not unconstitutional as applied. I further agree that we have jurisdiction over this matter. I write separately, however, because the majority’s jurisdictional analysis, with all due respect, is much ado about nothing. Inexplicably, the majority sets its sights upon rehabilitating this court’s Rule 302(a) jurisprudence, when the relevant rule — Rule 603 — already permits this court to review “as applied” rulings on direct review. To see this, one need look no further than the two cases cited by the appellate court, when it entered its order transferring this action to this court. In its order the appellate court recognized that in People v. Miller, 171 Ill. 2d 330, 331-33 (1996), and People v. Shephard, 152 Ill. 2d 489, 493 (1992), this court exercised jurisdiction over direct appeals from a trial court order finding a statute unconstitutional as applied.1 See also People v. Morris, 136 Ill. 2d 157, 160-61 (1990) (recognizing that the issue on appeal was “whether the penalty *** is constitutional, as applied in this case”); People v. M.A., 124 Ill. 2d 135, 138 (1988) (“[b]ecause the statute was declared unconstitutional as applied, this case is here on direct appeal by the State”); People v. Geever, 122 Ill. 2d 313, 315 (1988) (stating that the trial court had found a provision “unconstitutional as applied to the defendants” and that “[t]he State [citation], under our Rule 603 [citation], directly appealed the dismissals to this court”). In each of these cases we exercised Rule 603 jurisdiction over “as applied” rulings. Given our repeated willingness to consider “as applied” rulings under Rule 603, I question both the relevance and the utility of the majority’s Rule 302(a) discussion. To be sure, overruling Rehg will ensure that this court’s jurisdictional jurisprudence is uniform and consistent. Nevertheless, the majority wields a meat cleaver when not even a scalpel is called for.   Curiously, Shephard, in which this court exercised Rule 603 jurisdiction in an “as applied” action, was announced on the same day as and immediately precedes in the official reporter Rehg v. Illinois Department of Revenue, 152 Ill. 2d 504 (1992), in which we held that, under Rule 302(a), appeals in “as applied” actions are not appealed directly to this court, but are rather “properly brought in the appellate court.” Rehg, 152 Ill. 2d at 509.