Court Opinion

ID: 9741672
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:00:24.174836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:25.418866
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE McLAREN, dissenting: I dissent because I do not believe the parties’ “minds” ever “met” and therefore the trial court either should have refused to entertain the plea agreement or should have vacated the agreement upon reconsideration. The State wanted a 14-year cap on the sentence. That portion of the agreement could be achieved only if at least two of the sentences were consecutive. Paradoxically, the defendant only agreed to concurrent sentences. I believe the record reflects that the trial court was aware of this contradiction by its responses to the arguments of defense counsel as to what the court should do in reconciling the impossibility of a 10- or 14-year sentence without making some of the sentences consecutive when the defendant agreed only to concurrent sentences. I believe the trial court should have refused to entertain the plea agreement or vacated the plea agreement at the conclusion of the motion to reconsider sentence because the patent contradiction contained in the plea agreement clearly established that there never was a meeting of the minds. I continue to believe that the law regarding contracts applies equally to all parties and that the majority is subverting the law by giving the State the “benefit of a bargain” that was never realized because it would have been, and still is, impossible to simultaneously sentence the defendant to solely concurrent and solely consecutive sentences. See People v. Knowles, 304 Ill. App. 3d 472, 475 (1999) (McLaren, J., dissenting); see also People v. Mast, 305 Ill. App. 3d 727 (1999) (adopting the rationale of the dissent in Knowles). Because there could not possibly be such a sentence as agreed, there never was a “meeting of the minds,” and the “agreement” should not be enforced against either party. Rather than affirm the sentence as modified, I would vacate the sentence and the plea and remand the cause for further proceedings. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.