People v. Schmidt

938 N.E.2d 559, 405 Ill. App. 3d 474, 345 Ill. Dec. 120, 2010 Ill. App. LEXIS 1163
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedOctober 27, 2010
Docket3-08-1037
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 938 N.E.2d 559 (People v. Schmidt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Schmidt, 938 N.E.2d 559, 405 Ill. App. 3d 474, 345 Ill. Dec. 120, 2010 Ill. App. LEXIS 1163 (Ill. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

JUSTICE SCHMIDT

delivered the opinion of the court:

The State charged defendant, Gerald Schmidt, with a plethora of crimes stemming from an incident that occurred on May 27, 2008. A Hancock County jury found defendant guilty of unlawful use of property (720 ILCS 646/35(a) (West 2008)), unlawful possession of methamphetamine precursor (720 ILCS 646/20(b)(l) (West 2008)), unlawfiil possession of methamphetamine (720 ILCS 646/60(a) (West 2008)), obstructing justice (720 ILCS 5/31 — 4(a) (West 2008)), and aggravated fleeing or attempt to elude a peace officer (625 ILCS 5/11— 204.1(a)(1) (West 2008)). The circuit court sentenced defendant to the following terms of imprisonment: unlawful use of property, 20 years; unlawful use of methamphetamine precursor, 20 years; unlawful possession of methamphetamine, 4 years; obstructing justice, 2 years; and aggravated fleeing or attempt to elude a peace officer, 2 years.

In this direct appeal, defendant claims that his conviction for unlawful use of property cannot stand as section 35 of the Methamphetamine Control and Community Protection Act (the Act) (720 ILCS 646/35 (West 2008)) is: (1) unconstitutional as it bears no reasonable relationship to a legitimate state interest; (2) overbroad as it criminalizes innocent conduct; and (3) unconstitutionally vague. Defendant further claims that the State failed to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of possession of a methamphetamine precursor and that his convictions for both possession of methamphetamine and possession of a methamphetamine precursor cannot stand as they are lesser-included offenses of unlawful use of property.

FACTS

Fuller Fertilizer is located in Hancock County, just off Highway 96, about two miles north of the Adams County line. There is only one road in or out of the property. A main building fronts the property, and the driveway leads past it and toward the back of the property. In the back of the property, there are several buildings, including a seed building, a fertilizer plant and several anhydrous ammonia wagons.

At about 10 p.m. on May 27, 2008, Jeffrey Donley, an employee of Fuller, reported to police that a small, white pickup truck with a loud muffler had driven onto the company grounds with its lights off. The truck proceeded past the main building and up over a hill toward a large, open-ended Quonset hut.

Within 15 minutes, several officers arrived. Deputy Joshua Smith testified that, after speaking with Donley, he drove toward the back of the property. Deputy Mike Norris walked along the path the white truck had followed, carrying a rifle equipped with a flashlight. Two other officers used their squad cars to block the entrance to the grounds.

Deputy Smith drove through a grassy field, passed the ammonia wagons, and circled back toward the Quonset hut where he saw a white Ford Ranger pickup truck that was later determined to be registered to defendant. As Smith drove down a hill toward the Quonset hut, Norris radioed him to advise that the truck’s engine had started. The truck then sped away and Smith, after activating his emergency lights, pursued the truck.

The driver of the truck turned its headlights on as it drove away from Smith. The driver nearly hit Deputy Norris with the truck as Norris stood in a gravel parking lot on the grounds. Norris fired two shots at the truck: one struck the front fender and the other punctured the front driver’s-side tire. The truck continued to head for the exit, forcing the police that were blocking it to back away to avoid being struck by the pickup.

Smith continued to follow the truck down Highway 96. Chunks of tire flew from the left front of the truck as it drove down the highway. During the chase, Smith witnessed the driver lean over to the passenger-side window, open it, and throw a blue container out of the window. A blue bowl containing suspected pseudoephedrine was found the next day in the area where Smith witnessed the driver of the truck jettison the blue object.

Smith followed the truck over the Adams County line, at which time the driver’s-side front tire had come completely off the truck. Eventually, the truck stopped in a residential alley in Quincy, Illinois. Police then arrested the defendant driver. At the time of arrest, a white powder covered defendant as well as the front seat of the pickup. Deputy Norris collected the powder from the front seat.

Police later searched the Quonset hut and the area immediately surrounding it. They found a bucket, other containers, plastic gloves, salt, Coleman fuel, Liquid Fire, coffee filters, side cutters, a pocket knife and battery peelings. It is undisputed that all of the items found are items used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

Joni Mitchell, a forensic scientist employed by the Illinois State Police, tested both the substance found on the front seat of the truck and the substance found in the bowl recovered from the side of the highway. She determined that the substance found in the bowl was “1.9 grams of powder [that] does indeed contain methamphetamine and pseudoephedrine.” She could not determine what percentage of the substance was pseudoephedrine and what percentage was methamphetamine. She explained that it is “pretty common to find in a methamphetamine sample, not all of the pseudoephedrine gets cooked up and so some of it is left behind. And we typically find it a lot of times with meth.” The substance recovered from the pickup truck weighed 3.1 grams and was determined to contain methamphetamine.

Ultimately, the jury acquitted defendant of the offenses of burglary and unlawful participation in methamphetamine manufacturing. The jury found defendant guilty of unlawful use of property, unlawful possession of methamphetamine precursor, unlawful possession of methamphetamine, obstructing justice, aggravated fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, and aggravated assault. Defendant filed a timely posttrial motion. After the trial court considered defendant’s motion, it entered a judgment notwithstanding the verdict in favor of defendant on the aggravated assault charge.

At sentencing, the trial court found that defendant’s criminal record mandated that he be sentenced as a Class X offender for the two Class 2 felonies: unlawful use of property and unlawful possession of methamphetamine precursor. For these crimes, the trial court sentenced defendant to concurrent 20-year terms of incarceration. The trial also sentenced defendant to a four-year term for unlawful possession of methamphetamine, a two-year term for obstructing justice, and a two-year term for aggravated fleeing and attempting to elude a peace officer. All sentences imposed run concurrently.

Defendant filed a timely motion to reconsider sentence that the trial court denied. This timely appeal followed.

ANALYSIS

A. Constitutionality Challenges

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Related

United States v. Shawn D. Taylor
681 F. App'x 529 (Seventh Circuit, 2017)
People v. Smith
2014 IL App (1st) 103436 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2014)
In re Jovan A.
2014 IL App (1st) 103835 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2014)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
938 N.E.2d 559, 405 Ill. App. 3d 474, 345 Ill. Dec. 120, 2010 Ill. App. LEXIS 1163, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-schmidt-illappct-2010.