Court Opinion

ID: 9738906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:05:06.746869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:09.154251
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE GREEN, dissenting: Although I agree that the propriety of the sentence has been rebutted, I do not think that we have jurisdiction to reduce the sentence to probation. My position is based upon the same reasons I set forth in my dissent in People v. Cox (1979), 77 Ill. App. 3d 59, 396 N.E.2d 59. People ex rel. Stamos v. Jones (1968), 40 Ill. 2d 62, 66, 237 N.E.2d 495, 498, sets the precedent that provisions of the Judicial Article of 1962 (Ill. Const. 1870, art. VI (1964)), reenacted in article VI of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, “placed responsibility for rules governing appeal in the Supreme Court, and not in the General Assembly.” Thus, even if the supreme court had seen fit to enact a rule authorizing the appellate court to reduce a sentence to probation, the legislature could not authorize us to do so. Moreover, here the legislation by which the majority would reduce the sentence to probation concerns a precise appellate court power upon which the supreme court has enacted a rule. Supreme Court Rule 615 (58 Ill. 2d R. 615) authorizing us to reduce sentences has been held by that court to not authorize reductions of sentences to probation. (People v. Bolyard (1975), 61 Ill. 2d 583, 338 N.E.2d 168; People ex rel. Ward v. Moran (1973), 54 Ill. 2d 552, 301 N.E.2d 300.) Although the rule does not expressly prohibit the appellate court’s reduction of a sentence to one of probation, the legislature’s action attempting to expand the appellate court’s power beyond that given by the rule is more clearly a violation of the Stamos doctrine than would be the case if the legislation involved a power of the court upon which no rule had been enacted. Accordingly, I would reverse the sentence and remand to the trial court for resentencing.