People v. Rodgers

• Court: Appellate Court of Illinois
• Writing for the Court: KENNEDY PRESIDING JUSTICE
• Citation: People v. Rodgers, 2025 IL App (2d) 240327U, 2-24-0327 (Ill. App. Nov 07, 2025)
• Docket Number: 2-24-0327
• Decision Date: 07 November 2025
• Parties: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. RONALD P. RODGERS, Defendant-Appellant.

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2025 IL App (2d) 240327-U

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. RONALD P. RODGERS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 2-24-0327

Court of Appeals of Illinois, Second District

November 7, 2025

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).

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Kane County. No. 22-CF-18 Honorable Salvatore LoPiccolo Jr., Judge, Presiding.

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

ORDER

KENNEDY PRESIDING JUSTICE

¶ 1 Held: Defendant's seven-year sentence is not excessive for his conviction of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon. Further, the statute establishing the offense of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon is not unconstitutional. Therefore, we affirm.

¶ 2 Following a bench trial, defendant, Ronald P. Rodgers, was convicted of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon (UPWF) (720 ILCS 5/24-1.1(a) (West 2020)). On this direct appeal, he raises two issues: (1) whether his sentence of seven years is excessive, and (2) whether the statute establishing UPWF (720 ILCS 5/24-1.1(a) (West 2020)) is unconstitutional. For the following reasons, we affirm.

¶ 3 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 4 On April 5, 2022, a grand jury indicted defendant of two counts of UPWF (Counts I and II) (720 ILCS 5/24-1.1(a) (West 2020)) and one count of possession of a firearm without a Firearm Owner's Identification (FOID) Card (Count III) (430 ILCS 65/2(a)(1) (West 2020)). All three counts were alleged to have occurred in Kane County on January 2, 2022.

¶ 5 Count I alleged possession of a handgun and Count II alleged possession of firearm ammunition. For both Counts I and II, the indictment alleged that defendant had been convicted of the following felonies: possession of a firearm with a defaced serial number (No. 20-CR-0182701 (Cir. Ct Cook County)) and aiding or abetting a stolen motor vehicle (No. 20-CR-0294801 (Cir. Ct. Cook County)).

¶ 6 A. Bench Trial

¶ 7 Defendant's bench trial commenced on July 7, 2023. The State's first witness was Parole Agent Jeffery White, who testified as follows. On January 2, 2022, he visited defendant's address in Elgin. Defendant was on mandatory supervised release (MSR), and White met with defendant at his apartment. The purpose of White's visit was a diversion review: an IDOC (Illinois Department of Corrections) warrant had been issued for defendant because he had not returned home within his allotted time.

¶ 8 White arrived with another parole officer, and defendant let them into the apartment. Defendant was handcuffed for officer safety. Defendant was in his boxers, so White asked him where his pants were. Defendant said they were in the bedroom, and White went to retrieve his pants. In the bedroom, White observed a pile of clothes in the middle of the floor, and he grabbed the first pair of pants that he saw. When White picked up the pants, he observed a firearm beneath where the pants had been. The firearm was fully loaded. This prompted an immediate call to the Elgin police.

¶ 9 Nothing at the apartment indicated to White that another person lived there with defendant. The apartment had another bedroom, but nothing was in that bedroom; all the furniture and furnishings were in the one room with the pants and gun. The room with defendant's pants also contained defendant's wallet, ID, keys to the apartment, and two cell phones.

¶ 10 White's partner at the apartment was Parole Officer Joyce Verdeyen, who testified consistently with White's testimony. She testified that defendant had his ankle bracelet on, and the receiver for the bracelet was plugged into the apartment's living room wall. They collected the bracelet when they arrested defendant that day.

¶ 11 The State's final witness was Officer Richard Free with the City of Elgin, who testified as follows. On January 2, 2022, he responded to defendant's apartment with Officer Russell Nisivaco in response to a call by parole agents who had a subject in custody. Free met with the agents and observed defendant in their custody. The agents directed him to a bedroom, which had a mattress and clothes strewn about the floor. The other bedrooms in the apartment were bare. In the bedroom with the clothing, Nisivaco collected a Glock 19, nine-millimeter handgun. In the Glock was a 30-round magazine containing ammunition.

¶ 12 After calling its witnesses, the State introduced, and the court admitted, People's Exhibit 8, which was a certified copy of defendant's conviction in Cook County case number 20-CR-182701. The copy of conviction showed that, on July 28 2020, defendant had pled guilty to possession of a firearm with a defaced serial number (720 ILCS 5/24-5(b) (West 2018)).

¶ 13 Following a continuance to August 23, 2023, defendant called Yamarciay Grant, who testified as follows. He had known defendant for more than 10 years; they were friends. Around January 1, 2022, Grant was a leaseholder at defendant's apartment address, specifically defendant's unit number 7. Grant reviewed his lease, which began March 1, 2021, and ran until March 31, 2022. The other leaseholder was his then-girlfriend, Sammarion Dungey. He and Dungey had a "falling out" that resulted in him moving out of the apartment "[w]ay before December" of 2021. Dungey remained in the apartment after he left. Grant did not know when she moved out of the apartment, but she did move out at some point.

¶ 14 Around New Year's Day of 2022, Grant allowed defendant to stay at the apartment. Grant let defendant into the apartment, which had no furniture and "[o]ne bedroom [where] they left a bunch of crap in there." By "crap" he meant "[c]lothing, garbage. You name it, it was there." On cross-examination, Grant acknowledged that defendant had asked him to testify at his trial, and he answered that he had not seen a firearm in the bedroom with all the junk on the floor. He had not gone through any of the items on the floor.

¶ 15 The court then questioned Grant.^[1] It asked whether there was a bed in the bedroom with all the clothes and trash, and he answered that there was an air mattress. Grant confirmed that defendant had arrived at the apartment in defendant's car and that the charger for defendant's electronic monitoring device was already in the apartment. Grant had signed for defendant to be at the apartment after speaking with defendant's parole officer. Grant acknowledged that he had been to the apartment at least once previously with defendant, when defendant would have left his electronic monitoring device at the apartment. Following Grant's testimony, the defense rested.

¶ 16 On September 14, 2023, the trial court found that the State proved defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on all three counts.

¶ 17 B. Sentencing

¶ 18 On November 16, 2023, the trial court held defendant's sentencing hearing. The State argued that the minimum sentence for UPWF was seven years because defendant had a prior qualifying felony conviction, namely, defacing identification marks of a firearm. It also argued that he had a history of criminal activity, and it asked for a 10-year sentence. It acknowledged that his three convictions in this case would merge.

¶ 19 Defense counsel asked that the court depart from the seven-year minimum, citing, among other things defendant's willingness to better himself, his desire to support his family, and the fact that he did not cause any harm to others in this case. Counsel asked for a sentence between three and five years.

¶ 20 The trial court noted that the normal sentencing range for defendant's conviction of UPWF was 3 to 14 years, but defendant's predicate felony was possession of a defaced firearm, which increased the minimum-end of the range to 7 years. In reaching its sentencing decision, the court stated that it had considered the following: evidence at trial and at the sentencing hearing, the arguments of counsel, the presentence investigation report, defendant's statements in the presentence report and in allocution, factors in mitigation and aggravation, and defendant's rehabilitative potential.

¶ 21 In the trial court's opinion, defendant's offense was "not a minimum sentence type of offense. You were on parole when you committed this offense. You were on [an] electronic home monitoring device. And so, when I'm talking about minimum, I'm talking about 3 to 14. The three portion of it." The court continued that, as a convicted felon, defendant was not allowed to possess a firearm or ammunition, and one of his prior convictions was for having a firearm with a defaced serial number. The court stated that, under these circumstances, the range was 7 to 14 years.

¶ 22 The trial court reviewed factors that would permit departure from the guidelines to impose a sentence otherwise authorized by law but found no substantial and compelling justification to depart from the seven-year minimum guideline. The court found that, although defendant was young (25 as of the sentencing hearing, and 23 as of commission of the instant case's offense, and 21 as of the predicate offense), he had gone to prison with an opportunity to rehabilitate and restart his life as a law abiding citizen but instead he was found with a Glock handgun and extended magazine. The court noted that the predicate offense of possession of a defaced firearm was in conjunction with stealing a motor vehicle. Continuing with the factors, the court found that there was no evidence that defendant acted under duress or coercion in committing the predicate offense, as well as no evidence that defendant aided in the apprehension of another felon or testified truthfully in...