People v. Townsend

2024 IL App (2d) 240216-U

• Court: Appellate Court of Illinois
• Decided: June 10, 2024
• Docket: 2-24-0216
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

2024 IL App (2d) 240216-U No. 2-24-0216 Order filed June 10, 2024

NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23(b) and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1). ______________________________________________________________________________

IN THE

APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS

SECOND DISTRICT ______________________________________________________________________________

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE ) Appeal from the Circuit Court OF ILLINOIS, ) of Kane County. ) Plaintiff-Appellant, ) ) v. ) No. 24-CF-332 ) DEAN M. TOWNSEND, ) Honorable ) Donald M. Tegeler Jr., Defendant-Appellee. ) Judge, Presiding. ______________________________________________________________________________

JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the judgment of the court. Justices Hutchinson and Jorgensen concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

¶1 Held: The trial court had jurisdiction over defendant’s motion during the pendency of his Rule 604(h) interlocutory appeal from his detention order, and it did not abuse its discretion in releasing defendant to a treatment facility with conditions. Therefore, we affirm.

¶2 The State appeals from the trial court’s March 7, 2024, order releasing defendant, Dean M.

Townsend, from pretrial detention. Defendant, who had been charged with a third violation of

aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol (625 ILCS 5/11-501(a) (West 2022)), was

initially denied pretrial release on February 18, 2024, pursuant to section 110-6.1 of the Code of 2024 IL App (2d) 240216-U

Criminal Procedure of 1963 (Code) (725 ILCS 5/110-6.1 (West 2022)). Defendant appealed the

detention order on February 20, 2024 (no. 2-24-0144).

¶3 The day after filing his notice of appeal, defendant filed a demand for a speedy trial and a

motion for discovery. Following a status hearing in which defendant appeared on February 28,

2024, the trial court found that defendant’s continued detention was necessary to avoid a real and

present threat to the community and that no less restrictive conditions would mitigate that threat.

¶4 Defendant also moved in the trial court on March 4, 2024, to “Modify the Pretrial Release

Conditions.” 1 In his motion, he requested that he be released to Northern Recovery Center for

residential treatment, where a bed had become available on March 8, 2024.

¶5 On March 7, 2024, the trial court heard the motion and ordered that defendant be released

on March 8, 2024, and placed in the custody of Northern Recovery Center. Defendant was not to

be released other than to that agency, and his defense attorney was to immediately alert the court

if he did not check into treatment or left treatment early. Defendant was not to leave treatment

early and, if released from treatment by medical professionals, he was to be placed on Secure

Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring (SCRAM) within 48 hours. Defendant was also

prohibited from driving a motor vehicle. The trial court’s order noted that the State had objected

to consideration of defendant’s detention because defendant had filed his notice of appeal prior to

filing his motion. On March 8, 2024, the State appealed the release order.

1 Effectively, defendant was asking the court to reconsider its detention order in light of a

change in circumstances. See 725 ILCS 5/110-6.1(i-5) (West 2022) (the trial court must find that

a defendant’s continued detention is necessary at each of defendant’s subsequent appearances

before the court).

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¶6 On March 11, 2024, defendant moved in this court to dismiss as moot his appeal from his

detention order, and this court granted his motion the same day.

¶7 The State’s primary contention in this appeal is that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to

consider defendant’s March 4, 2024, motion to release him to a residential treatment facility

because defendant’s motion was filed during the pendency of defendant’s appeal from his

detention order. This argument fails because, as we explain, it is contrary to both supreme court

rule and precedent.

¶8 First, Illinois Supreme Court Rule 604(h)(6) (eff. Dec. 7, 2023) 2 provides that “The circuit

court shall retain jurisdiction to proceed with the case during the pendency of any appeal from an

order entered pursuant to section 110-5, 110-6, and 110-6.1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of

1963.” This plain language of the rule clearly provides trial courts with jurisdiction during the

pendency of a Rule 604(h) appeal, such as defendant’s appeal here. The State failed to cite to this

supreme court rule in its memorandum, instead asserting that “there is no language in the statute

that expressly grants trial courts jurisdiction over matters that have a pending interlocutory

appeal.”

¶9 Moreover, this court has recently opined that trial courts retain jurisdiction to consider

matters regarding pretrial release during the pendency of a Rule 604(h) interlocutory appeal. See

People v. Harris, 2024 IL App (2d) 240070, ¶ 27 (examining Rule 604(h) and explaining that it

provided that the trial court retained jurisdiction to proceed with the defendant’s case during the

pendency of the defendant’s Rule 604(h) appeal).

2 The current version of Rule 604(h) provides the same. See Rule 604(h)(9) (eff. Apr. 15,

2024).

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¶ 10 The State does advance one point with intuitive appeal. It argues that, by allowing the trial

court to continue ruling on a defendant’s continued detention during the pendency of a Rule 604(h)

appeal, the appellate court is opening itself up to an untenable deluge of appeals from each

continued detention order, often with no substantive distinctions between the subsequent orders.

However, our supreme court has already allayed this concern in Rule 604(h)(11) (eff. Apr. 15,

2024), which provides that “No appeal from a subsequent detention or release order may be taken

while a prior appeal under this rule by the same party remains pending in the appellate court.”

¶ 11 Finally, we note that the most recent amendment to Rule 604(h) provides that if “issues

raised on appeal become moot due to resolution of the case or otherwise,” appellant’s counsel must

advise the clerk of mootness and seek dismissal of the appeal. Ill. S. Ct. R. 604(h)(1) (eff. Apr. 15,

2024). This amendment is further evidence that our supreme court contemplates that trial courts

retain jurisdiction to continue with a defendant’s case during the pendency of a Rule 604(h) appeal,

as progress in the trial court will often affect the justiciability of a Rule 604(h) appeal.

¶ 12 In the alternative, the State argues that the trial court abused its discretion in releasing

defendant based on a finding that he did not pose a threat. The State argues in its notice of appeal

only that the court did not even find whether defendant posed a threat when it released defendant

to the residential treatment facility. We reject this argument. The State’s argument—which is

barely developed to the point of forfeiture and is unsupported by a transcript of the hearing on

defendant’s motion—assumes that the trial court’s order was based on defendant not posing a

threat. To the contrary, defendant’s motion was that a new, less restrictive condition had become

available, namely, placement at the Norther Recovery Center’s residential treatment facility. The

trial court’s placement of defendant in the treatment center reasonably showed that it recognized

that defendant still posed a threat to the community but that placement with conditions could

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sufficiently mitigate the threat he posed. In short, the trial court found that continued detention was

not necessary to avoid a real and present threat, not that defendant no longer posed a real and

present threat. See 725 ILCS 5/110-6.1(i-5) (West 2022). As the State makes no argument that

continued detention was necessary to avoid a real and present threat, we consider the issue no

further.

¶ 13 For the aforementioned reasons, we affirm the order of the Kane County circuit court.

¶ 14 Affirmed.

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