People v. Mescall

883 N.E.2d 612, 379 Ill. App. 3d 670, 318 Ill. Dec. 381, 2008 Ill. App. LEXIS 104
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided February 11, 2008·No. 2-06-0287·Published·Cited by 16 cases

Opinion

PRESIDING JUSTICE BYRNE

delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant, Thomas R. Mescall, appeals from the dismissal of his petition pursuant to section 2 — 1401 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Code) (735 ILCS 5/2 — 1401 (West 2006)), in which he sought relief from an allegedly void judgment. On October 11, 1996, defendant was charged by information with one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse (720 ILCS 5/12 — 16(c)(l)(i) (West 1996)) and four counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child (720 ILCS 5/12 — 14.1(a)(1) (West 1996)). The State subsequently filed an amended information prior to trial. However, no modifications were made. The amended information alleged that the offenses took place between June 1995 and September 1996. A jury convicted defendant on all counts, and the court sentenced him to four consecutive eight-year terms of imprisonment and one concurrent five-year term. Defendant filed his section 2 — 1401 petition after the applicable two-year time period for filing. See 735 ILCS 5/2 — 1401(c) (West 2006).

Defendant contends that his judgment of conviction of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child was void and that he may challenge the judgment after the limitations period pursuant to section 2 — 1401(c), because the judgment was based on a defective charging instrument. Defendant alleges that the information was defective because some of the conduct complained of was alleged to have occurred before the effective date of the predatory-criminal-sexual-assault-of-a-child statute. We disagree and affirm the trial court.

BACKGROUND

Following defendant’s conviction and sentence, he appealed, arguing that his trial was unfair due to various errors and that the court erred in making his terms of imprisonment subject to the truth-in-sentencing provisions. We affirmed the convictions but modified the sentence to allow defendant to receive pre-truth-in-sentencing good-conduct credits. People v. Mescall, No. 2—97—0925 (1999) (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23).

On January 23, 2003, defendant filed a “Petition for Post-Judgment Relief,” in which he alleged that his sentence was void. He contended that trial courts have consistently misinterpreted the mandatory supervised release (MSR) and the sentencing credit provisions to make terms of imprisonment exclusive of MSR. He did not raise any claim regarding the validity of his predatory-criminal-sexual-assault-of-a-child convictions. According to defendant’s certificate of service, he served the petition on the Attorney General by regular mail. The trial court dismissed the petition with prejudice as a petition under section 2 — 1401, finding that it was untimely. However, the trial court acted sua sponte and gave no notice to defendant.

Defendant appealed, raising for the first time that the judgment of conviction of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child was void based on a defective charging instrument, because some of the conduct was alleged to have occurred before the effective date of the statute creating the offense. Defendant also argued that the trial court erred in dismissing his petition sua sponte and without notice to him. People v. Mescall, 347 Ill. App. 3d 995 (2004).

The predatory-criminal-sexual-assault statute became effective on December 13, 1995. Pub. Act 89 — 428, eff. December 13, 1995. The statute was declared to be unconstitutional in Johnson v. Edgar, 176 Ill. 2d 499, 523 (1997), for violating the single subject rule of the Illinois Constitution. Ill. Const. 1970, art. IV, §8(d). The legislature reenacted the statute and it became effective May 29, 1996. Pub. Act 89 — 462, eff. May 29, 1996. Thus, any indictment or information charging predatory criminal sexual assault of a child prior to May 29, 1996, failed to state an offense.

Defendant was charged by amended information on July 7, 1997, with one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and four counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child. In each of the five counts of the amended information, defendant was charged with committing the offense between June 1995 and September 1996. Two of the predatory-criminal-sexual-assault charges (counts II and IV) pertained to Shannon S. and two (counts III and V) pertained to Ashley S. Therefore, according to the history of the predatory-criminal-sexual-assault statute as it applied to defendant’s case, from June 1995 to May 28, 1996, the charges against defendant did not exist.

We did not reach the first issue, regarding whether the judgment of conviction of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child was void, because we found that we lacked personal jurisdiction over the State. Mescall, 347 Ill. App. 3d at 997. However, we did address the second issue, whether the trial court erred in dismissing defendant’s petition sua sponte and without notice to him, as defendant had submitted himself to the jurisdiction of the court by filing the section 2 — 1401 petition. We held that the trial court erred in dismissing defendant’s petition sua sponte and without notice. Accordingly, we vacated the order and remanded the cause for further proceedings. Mescall, 347 Ill. App. 3d at 1001.

Thereafter, defendant filed an amended section 2 — 1401 petition in which he reiterated his argument that the judgment for predatory criminal sexual assault was void. This time the trial court rejected the argument. The court noted that, in the information, some of the dates on which the conduct was alleged to have occurred were after the effective date of the statute creating the offense of predatory criminal sexual assault. The court further noted that each count of predatory criminal sexual assault included the same defect. The court concluded that, because the testimony at trial would support a factual finding of guilt on the predatory-criminal-sexual-assault counts without reference to the conduct before the effective date, the judgment was not void but voidable, and therefore the petition was subject to the time limitations of section 2 — 1401. Further, because defendant failed to show that the untimely filing of his petition was not due to his culpable negligence and because he failed to show any of the other grounds for tolling the limitations period under section 2 — 1401(c), the trial court dismissed the petition. Defendant timely appeals.

ANALYSIS

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People v. Mescall, 883 N.E.2d 612, 379 Ill. App. 3d 670, 318 Ill. Dec. 381, 2008 Ill. App. LEXIS 104 (Ill. Ct. App. 2008).

883 N.E.2d 612 (People v. Mescall) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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