Court Opinion

ID: 9715986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:22:21.072631+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:40.478469
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE FREEMAN, concurring in part and dissenting in part: The court correctly holds that the brief filed by defendant in this case violates Supreme Court Rule 341 and, as such, does not constitute the reasonable level of assistance of counsel required by Rule 651. 192 Ill. 2d at 206-07.1, therefore, concur in that part of today’s opinion that orders the matter be rebriefed. As noted in the court’s opinion, the consequences for failing to comply with Rule 341 can vary. 192 Ill. 2d at 206. Our conclusion that this matter must be rebriefed evinces our concern that defendant’s right to appeal be protected and that his arguments be presented thoroughly and adequately in accordance with our rules. See Ill. Ann. Stat., ch. 110A, par. 341, Historical & Practice Notes, at 478 (Smith-Hurd 1985) (noting that what action a court of review will take when a party is in noncompliance with the appellate rules “is a matter entirely in its discretion, a discretion usually exercised by reference to the effect of the case on the public and on the parties” and collecting cases). Moreover, the court’s decision to preclude defendant’s attorneys of record from further participation in this case is justified in light of the fact that these attorneys have been given two chances to submit briefs that conformed to our rules, but have failed to do so. See Ill. Ann. Stat., ch. 110A, par. 341, Historical & Practice Notes, at 478 (Smith-Hurd 1985) (stating that when there is noncompliance with the appellate rules, the court of review “does not necessarily have to visit the consequences *** on the litigant”). Notwithstanding my concurrence in the decision to rebrief this case, I part ways with the court with respect to the following directions imposed during the rebriefing period: “The Capital Litigation Division of the office of the State Appellate Defender is ordered to assign the case to a staff attorney in its office. The case may not be contracted to outside counsel. The appellant’s brief is due 35 days from the date that any petition for rehearing in this cause is disposed of or, if no petition for rehearing is filed, within 35 days of the expiration of the time period for filing such a petition.” 192 Ill. 2d at 207-08. In my opinion, it is unwise for this court to limit reassignment of this case to only “staff attorneys” without first ensuring that this action will not cause more problems than it attempts to cure. Unfortunately, we, as a court, have not done this. The members of this court, for example, have no knowledge of, nor have they sought to ascertain, the number of “staff attorneys” currently employed in the Office of the State Appellate Defender (hereinafter OSAD) or the status of their workloads. Further, the members of this court have no knowledge of, nor have they sought to assess, the OSAD’s legitimate need for utilizing “outside counsel” in light of its present workload. Thus, precluding the case from being reassigned to anyone but a staff attorney has the potential to create an unmanageable burden for the OSAD, an agency that has long suffered from understaffing and underfunding. See, e.g., Annual Report of the Illinois Courts, Administrative Summary — 1995, 1995 Annual Report to the Eighty-Ninth Ulinois General Assembly, at 2-3; Annual Report of the Illinois Courts, Administrative Summary — 1996, 1996 Annual Report to Ninetieth Illinois General Assembly, at 2; Annual Report of the Illinois Courts, Administrative Summary — 1993, 1993 Annual Report of the Supreme Court to the Eighty-Eighth General Assembly, at 29-30 (all noting that budget cuts and staff reductions in the OSAD have caused inordinate delay in processing capital appeals). More important, such a burden can be harmful to defendant — if defendant’s new attorney is to be a staff attorney, as the court today orders, that attorney will assuredly have other capital cases for which he or she is also responsible. I, therefore, am hesitant to forbid this matter from being contracted to outside counsel without facts that would indicate that such a course of action would inure to the defendant’s benefit and not to his detriment. For these reasons, I believe that the better approach to this situation is for this court to leave the decision as to whom this appeal should be reassigned to the discretion of the State Appellate Defender, who, as head of the state agency involved (see 725 ILCS 105/3, 10 (West 1992)), is in the best position to make the appropriate reassignment. In addition, unlike my colleagues, I do not feel that the 35-day rebriefing period ordered by the court constitutes a reasonable amount of time in which to expect the new attorney to complete an appellant’s brief in this case. Presumably, the new staff attorney will enter the case without any working knowledge of it or of the issues it presents. The justices in the majority today point to the length of the record in this appeal — the “post-conviction record is over 4,500 pages long” and the “direct appeal record *** is over 3,500 pages long” — and state that the issues raised “are not simple.” 192 Ill. 2d at 207. Elsewhere my colleagues refer to “the task of combing through these 8,000-plus pages.” 192 Ill. 2d at 207. I do not believe that we can expect new appellate counsel to familiarize himself or herself with this same 8,000-plus page record, identify the colorable issues for appeal, and write an adequate brief in a 35-day time span.1 Given the lengthy record in this matter in addition to the fact that the issues “are not simple,” I must disagree with the court’s decision to allow the new attorney only 35 days to submit a new brief. In light of the above, I believe the court’s directions in this matter are ill-advised. I, therefore, dissent from that portion of the court’s opinion. I would order, instead, that the State Appellate Defender reassign the case in the manner he deems appropriate and in the best interests of defendant. I would further order that the appellant’s brief be due 90 days from the date that this court’s decision becomes final.  New counsel will actually have less than 35 days to prepare the brief because of the time it takes to process the record in this case from our clerk’s office in Springfield to the Capital Litigation Division of the OSAD.