People v. Archer
| Decision Date | 01 September 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 13-2156,13-2156 |
| Citation | 2015 IL App (1st) 1132156 -U |
| Parties | PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Respondent-Appellee, v. MICHAEL ARCHER, Petitioner-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and may not be cited as precedent by any party except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County.
Honorable Domenica A. Stephenson Judge Presiding.
Held: The trial court properly dismissed defendant's pro se postconviction petition because defendant lacked standing to raise his claim under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act. Defendant waived his right to be tried as a juvenile because he did not assert his age promptly in the proceedings below.
¶ 1 Defendant, Michael Archer1, pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. Defendant filed a postconviction petition where he claimed that he was ajuvenile at the time of the offense but he was charged and convicted as an adult. The trial court dismissed the petition because defendant lacked standing to raise his claim under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act, (725 ILCS 5/122-1 et seq. (West 2013)), when defendant finished serving his sentence at the time he filed his postconviction petition. Defendant appeals the trial court's dismissal and contends for the first time on appeal that his conviction and sentence are void.
¶ 3 Defendant was charged by indictment with two counts of possession of a controlled substance. Count 1 charged defendant with possession of a controlled substance (PCP) with intent to deliver within 1000 feet of Howland Elementary School. 720 ILCS 401(E)/407(b)(3) (West 2001). Count 2 charged defendant with possession of a controlled substance (PCP) with intent to deliver. 720 ILCS 401(E) (West 2001). The arrest report indicates defendant's alias, Michael Archer, and defendant's birthday as April 27, 1981, making him 20 years old at the time of his arrest on September 13, 2001. On October 25, 2001, defendant pleaded guilty to Count 2 and received a sentence of 24 months of probation. The State nol-prossed Count 1 of the indictment. On the same date, defendant indicated that his name was Sheldon Young but that he also went by the name of Michael Archer.
¶ 4 Defendant violated his probation several times. On one such occasion, the trial court ordered a Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC) evaluation of defendant's case. The TASC evaluation report lists defendant's legal name "Shelby Young, aka: Michael Archer." The trial court's resentencing order dated October 23, 2002, lists defendant's date of birth as "4/27/85". On June 19, 2003, defendant's probation was terminated unsatisfactorily. Defendant did not file a motion to withdraw his guilty plea and did not file a direct appeal.
¶ 5 On April 10, 2013, while in federal custody on an unrelated federal charge, defendant filed a pro se petition for postconviction relief where he contended that he was a juvenile when he pleaded guilty on October 25, 2001, but he was erroneously charged and convicted as an adult. Defendant claimed that, following his arrest, he informed his counsel that he was a juvenile, but counsel advised him that the State would proceed with the charges regardless. Defendant contended that he pleaded guilty based on counsel's advice. Defendant also stated in his petition that counsel did not advise him about the consequences of pleading guilty as "an adult petitioner," especially that he would be subjected to more severe penalties for committing an offense subsequent to his guilty plea.
¶ 6 On June 7, 2013, the circuit court dismissed defendant's petition based on defendant's lack of standing because defendant had fully served his sentence at the time he filed his petition.
¶ 7 Defendant appeals the circuit court's order. On appeal, for the first time, defendant claims that his conviction and sentence are void because he was a juvenile when he pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance and he was never properly charged and convicted as a juvenile. Defendant argues that the indictment did not state that he was on a "public way" within a 1000 feet of a school in order to trigger the excluded jurisdiction provision of the Juvenile Court Act. 705 ILCS 405/5-130(2)(a) (West 2001).
¶ 9 The Post-Conviction Hearing Act, (725 ILCS 5/122-1 et seq.), provides a process by which a criminal defendant may challenge his or her conviction by filing a petition in the circuit court. 725 ILCS 5/122-1. The Act provides for a three-stage process for adjudicating postconviction petitions. People v. Harris, 224 Ill. 2d 115, 125 (2007). At the first stage, the court independently assesses the merit of the petition. 725 ILCS 5/122-2.1. If the court finds thepetition to be "frivolous" or "patently without merit," the court shall dismiss the petition. 725 ILCS 5/122.1(a)(2). At the first stage of postconviction proceedings, the circuit court must take the petition's factual allegations as true, unless those allegations are contradicted by the record. People v. Coleman, 183 Ill. 2d 366, 382 (1998).
¶ 10 Initially, this court notes that both defendant and the State agree that the trial court did not err when it dismissed defendant's postconviction petition because he lacked standing. When a defendant has fully served his underlying sentence before filing a postconviction petition, he no longer has standing to file a petition. People v. Vinokur, 2011 IL App (1st) 090798, ¶ 6. Here, defendant filed his petition on April 10, 2013, more than ten years after he finished serving his sentence on June 19, 2003, when his probation was terminated. Therefore, defendant did not have standing to file his postconviction petition and the trial court did not err when it dismissed it based on lack of standing.
¶ 12 Nonetheless, defendant claims that, even though he did not have standing to file a postconviction petition, his claim that his conviction and sentence are void is properly before this court because void sentences can be challenged at any time. Defendant contends that his lack of standing under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act does not result in this court's lack of subject matter jurisdiction over a voidness claim. The State argues that the issue of voidness was not raised in the context of a proceeding that was properly pending before the circuit court and, therefore, this court should not consider petitioner's claim and should affirm the circuit court's dismissal of defendant's petition. Furthermore, the State argues that defendant's conviction is merely voidable and is not subject to collateral attack.
¶ 13 The postconviction cases in our jurisdiction are not uniform on the issues of standing and subject matter jurisdiction. People v. Vasquez, 2013 IL App (2d) 120344, ¶ 18. In People v. Vinokur, the Third Division held that a postconviction claim of a void sentence was not cognizable on appeal when the petitioner lacked standing under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act due to the completion of his sentence. People v. Vinokur, 2011 IL App (1st) 090798, ¶ 18. The Vinokur court, relying on People v. Flowers, 208 Ill. 2d 291, 308 (2003), recognized that a void order may be attacked at any time, either directly or collaterally, but only in a proceeding properly pending in the courts. Id. ¶ 16. citing People v. Flowers, 208 Ill. 2d at 308 ().
¶ 14 In Vinokur, the defendant pled guilty to one count of possession of cannabis with the intent to deliver and was sentenced to 24 months of probation. Id. ¶ 3. After his probation was successfully completed, the defendant filed a postconviction petition alleging that his guilty plea was involuntary. Id. ¶ 4. The trial court summarily dismissed the defendant's petition based on a lack of standing. Id. This court agreed that, for the purposes of the Act, defendant was no longer imprisoned and thus had no standing to bring a postconviction petition. Id. ¶ 14. This court stated that, although the appeal before it was proper, it could not consider the merits but had the authority to determine only whether the trial court was correct in dismissing the defendant's petition for lack of standing. Id. ¶¶ 17-18.
¶ 15 In People v. Henderson, 2011 IL App (1st) 090923, ¶ 40, the Fourth Division disagreed with the Vinokur court and held that "[s]tanding has no effect on subject matter jurisdiction." InHenderson, defendant appealed the trial court's dismissal of his postconviction petition. Id. ¶ 1. Defendant raised for the for the first time on appeal the claim that his conviction for delivery of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school was void because the automatic transfer provision of the Juvenile Court Act of 1987 (705 ILCS 405/5-130(2) (a)(West 2004)) did not authorize his transfer from juvenile court to criminal court. Id.
¶ 16 Even though the Henderson court determined that the defendant had lost standing under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act because his mandatory supervised release (MSR) term ended while the appeal of the dismissal of his postconviction petition was pending, the court reasoned that the issue of whether the defendant's conviction was void was properly before it. Henderson, 2011 IL App (1st) 090923, ¶¶ 40-41. The court in Henderson noted that unlike the situation in Flowers where the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear the defendant's untimely motion to reconsider, in Vinokur, the trial court had subject...
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