People v. West

2025 IL App (1st) 231601-U

• Court: Appellate Court of Illinois
• Decided: August 26, 2025
• Docket: 1-23-1601
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

2025 IL App (1st) 231601-U

SECOND DIVISION August 26, 2025

No. 1-23-1601

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

IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT ______________________________________________________________________________

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, ) Appeal from the ) Circuit Court of Cook County Respondent-Appellee, ) ) No. 13 CR 19440 v. ) ) Honorable CHRISTOPHER WEST, ) Maria Kuriakos-Ciesel, ) Judge Presiding Petitioner-Appellant. ) _____________________________________________________________________________

JUSTICE ELLIS delivered the judgment of the court. Justices McBride and Howse concurred with the judgment.

ORDER

¶1 Held: Affirmed. Section 2-1401 petition properly dismissed as barred by res judicata or forfeiture.

¶2 A jury found petitioner Christopher West guilty of first-degree murder for shooting

Anthony Curtis in south Chicago in December 2008. Curtis had been shot multiple times,

including once right beneath the top of his head at close range. Although the case went cold, it

heated up when West, in prison on an unrelated charge, confessed to killing Curtis to a jailhouse

informant who was wearing a recording device. A detailed retelling of the crime and

investigation is in the order affirming his conviction and sentence on direct appeal. People v.

West, 2022 IL App (1st) 172823-U. Most of it is not relevant to this appeal. No. 1-23-1601

¶3 At the time of the murder, West was 17 years old. After an extensive sentencing hearing

where West presented significant mitigation evidence, the trial court sentenced him to 40 years

in prison. Because West was convicted of first-degree murder, Illinois’s truth-in-sentencing law

requires him to serve 100 percent of his sentence. See 730 ILCS 5/3-6-3(a)(2)(ii) (West 2016).

¶4 On direct appeal, West challenged his conviction and sentence in many ways. West, 2022

IL App (1st) 172823-U, ¶¶ 58-96. Among them, he claimed his sentence violated the

proportionate-penalties clause of our state constitution because the court imposed a “near de-

facto life sentence” of 40 years without considering his youth and its attendant characteristics.

West, 2022 IL App (1st) 172823-U ¶ 80; see Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 11. We disagreed, holding

that West received a comprehensive sentencing hearing during which the trial court more than

adequately considered those characteristics. Id. In his proportionate-penalties claim on direct

appeal, West did not reference the truth-in-sentencing law.

¶5 On June 1, 2023, West filed a pro se petition for relief from judgment under section 2-

1401. See 735 ILCS 5/2-1401 (West 2022). He alleged that the truth-in-sentencing statutory

scheme that requires him to serve 100 percent of his sentence was unconstitutional as applied to

him; it violates the proportionate-penalties clause of our state constitution, he claimed, in failing

to distinguish adults from juveniles and their rehabilitative potential.

¶6 The circuit court dismissed the petition. Though the trial court addressed the merits of

West’s claim, the court first concluded that the petition was untimely, and that any proportionate-

penalties claim was barred by res judicata or waiver because West made a similar challenge on

direct appeal. As the court disposed of this petition on questions of law, our review is de novo.

People v. Vincent, 226 Ill. 2d 1, 12 (2007).

¶7 We agree with the circuit court that this action is barred by res judicata or, failing that,

-2- No. 1-23-1601

forfeiture. “ ‘Rulings on issues that were previously raised at trial and on direct appeal are res

judicata, and issues that could have been raised in the original proceedings, but were not, will be

deemed waived.’ ” People v. Emerson, 153 Ill. 2d 100, 106 (1992) (quoting People v. Ruiz, 132

Ill. 2d 1, 9 (1989)). The supreme court has since clarified that the failure to raise an argument

that could have been raised is more aptly deemed forfeiture, not waiver, so we use that term. See

People v. Blair, 215 Ill. 2d 427, 444 (2005). These procedural bars apply equally to

postconviction petitions and those brought under section 2-1401. See People v. Thompson, 2015

IL 118151, ¶ 39 (petitioner’s section 2-1401 claim of unconstitutional sentence was forfeited).

¶8 Start with res judicata. On collateral review, a petitioner “may not avoid the bar of res

judicata simply by rephrasing issues previously addressed on direct appeal.” People v. Williams,

186 Ill. 2d 55, 62-64 (1999). On direct appeal, West claimed his sentence was disproportionately

long in light of his youth and attendant characteristics. The truth-in-sentencing statute—the fact

that he must serve every day of that sentence—was already baked into that length.

¶9 We did not assume a discount for good time served in our decision; we premised our

holding on the fact that West would serve a full 40 years in prison and even compared his

sentence, at his urging, to another defendant’s identical sentence. See West, 2022 IL App (1st)

172823-U, ¶¶ 87, 89. West cannot recast his challenge to the 40-year sentence as an attack on

one of the statutes that made him serve it and pretend that it’s a different argument.

¶ 10 In any event, even if res judicata did not bar this claim, forfeiture would. See Emerson,

153 Ill. 2d at 106; Ruiz, 132 Ill. 2d at 9. In Emerson, 153 Ill. 2d at 107, the petitioner argued on

direct appeal that the death-penalty statute was unconstitutional in granting prosecutors unbridled

discretion to seek the death penalty. On collateral review, he argued other constitutional

challenges to the statute—that the lack of sufficient pretrial notice violated due process, and that

-3- No. 1-23-1601

the statute unconstitutionally placed the burden on him to prove the existence of mitigating

factors to avoid the death penalty. Id. The supreme court found these challenges waived—or, in

current parlance, forfeited—as the petitioner “fail[ed] to provide a valid reason as to why they

could not have been raised on direct appeal.” Id.

¶ 11 So too here. The argument West makes here about the truth-in-sentencing statute is

inherently intertwined with the 40-year length of his sentence, which he already challenged. If

this argument is indeed separate at all from the one he made on direct appeal—and thus not

barred by res judicata—then he could have and should have raised it on direct appeal. His claims

here are thus forfeited. Either way, the circuit court correctly dismissed the petition.

¶ 12 Affirmed.

-4-