Court Opinion

ID: 9711468
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:32:41.867157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:05.275008
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE BARRY, specially concurring: I concur with the result reached by the majority in this case. However, my concurrence is qualified because I do not consider the defendant’s failure to raise the unconstitutionality of section 5 — 2—l(i) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 38, par. 5 — 2—l(i)) in his direct appeal to constitute a waiver of that issue on this appeal from the denial of his post-conviction petition. The Illinois Supreme Court did not declare the unconstitutionality of the statute in People v. McCullum (1977), 66 Ill. 2d 306, 362 N.E.2d 307, until after this court’s opinion in defendant’s direct appeal had been filed (this court decided defendant’s direct appeal on February 25, 1977 (People v. Carmickle (1977), 46 Ill. App. 3d 112, 360 N.E.2d 794); McCullum was filed April 5, 1977). Because pr e-McCullum implementation of section 5 — 2—l(i) constituted an error of constitutional magnitude, the unconstitutionality of that statute thereafter became a proper issue to be raised in a post-conviction proceeding (see People v. Miller (1981), 92 Ill. App. 3d 1148, 416 N.E.2d 765). Consequently, had McCullum been applicable to the instant case, which I agree with the majority it is not, the waiver would have resulted not from the defendant’s failure to address the unconstitutionality of section 5 — 2—l(i) in his pr e-McCullum direct appeal, but from his failure to allege it as grounds in either of his post-McCullum petitions for post-conviction relief.