People v. Whitfield, Docket No. 98136 (IL 10/6/2005)

• Decision Date: 06 October 2005
• Docket Number: Docket No. 98136.
• Parties: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellee, v. RONALD WHITFIELD, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

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THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellee, v. RONALD WHITFIELD, Appellant.

Docket No. 98136.

Supreme Court of Illinois

Opinion filed October 6, 2005.

JUSTICE McMORROW delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant, Ronald Whitfield, appeals the dismissal of his postconviction petition. He contends that his constitutional rights were substantially violated because he entered a plea of guilty in exchange for a specific sentence, but, with the addition of a statutorily required term of mandatory supervised release (MSR), about which the trial court never admonished him, he was given a more onerous sentence and, as a result, denied the benefit of his negotiated plea bargain. As a remedy, he asks that his sentence of imprisonment be decreased by the length of the statutorily required MSR term.

For reasons that follow, we now hold that, under the circumstances of this case, defendant has established that his constitutional rights were substantially violated. We remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

BACKGROUND

On September 16, 1998, in the circuit court of Cook County, defendant Ronald Whitfield entered a plea of guilty to charges of first degree murder (No. 95-CR-3219) and armed robbery (No. 95-CR-21921) pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement. At the hearing, the prosecutor set forth the terms of the agreement, stating that defendant "will receive 25 years IDOC" for his plea of guilty to felony murder and a concurrent sentence of "six years IDOC" for his plea of guilty to armed robbery. After hearing a factual basis, the circuit court accepted defendant's plea, ratified the agreement, and in accordance with its terms, sentenced defendant to concurrent terms of imprisonment, 25 years and 6 years, respectively.¹ At no time during the plea hearing did the prosecutor or the court advise defendant that, pursuant to section 5-8-1(d)(1) of the Unified Code of Corrections (the Code) (730 ILCS 5/5-8-1(d)(1) (West 1998)), he would be subject to a three-year period of mandatory supervised release (MSR) following his 25-year sentence for murder.²

Defendant did not file a postjudgment motion to withdraw his plea and never directly appealed his conviction or sentence. However, sometime while defendant was in prison, he learned that a three-year MSR term had been added to his 25-year sentence by operation of law. He then filed a pro se motion, on June 8, 2001, entitled "Motion for Relief From Judgment." In this motion, defendant contended that his fourteenth amendment due process rights were violated because an MSR term, about which he was never advised, had been added to his negotiated sentence and resulted in a "more onerous" sentence than the one he had agreed to when he pled guilty. Defendant did not ask to have his plea withdrawn. Instead, he sought to hold the State to the terms of the plea agreement. Defendant argued that the appropriate relief would be to eliminate the MSR term or reduce his 25-year prison term by the length of the MSR term.

On October 1, 2001, the circuit court appointed the public defender to represent defendant on his due process claim. On October 16, 2001, the State moved to dismiss defendant's section 2-1401 motion for relief from judgment, arguing that it was not timely filed. The State acknowledged that defendant's motion could be treated as a postconviction petition, but argued that the circuit court was not obligated to do so. Furthermore, the State argued that, even if the court treated defendant's motion as a postconviction petition, the petition should be denied because defendant did not make a substantial showing that his constitutional rights had been violated.

Responding to the State's motion, defendant, represented by counsel, asked the court to treat his motion for relief from judgment as a postconviction petition. Defendant also supplemented his petition with references to case law. He cited Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 30 L. Ed. 2d 427, 92 S. Ct. 495 (1971), in support of his claim that he was denied the "benefit of the bargain that he made in pleading guilty." Defendant also cited People v. Moore, 214 Ill. App. 3d 938 (1991), and United States ex rel. Baker v. Finkbeiner, 551 F.2d 180, 184 (7th Cir. 1977), for the proposition that the court's failure to admonish him regarding the MSR term constituted a due process violation which required the court to strike the MSR term.

After a brief hearing on December 20, 2001, the circuit court granted the State's motion to dismiss defendant's petition. The circuit court did not indicate whether or not it found that defendant had established a due process violation, but simply refused to grant defendant the relief he requested. Defendant appealed.

The appellate court, in an unpublished order (No. 1-02-0314 (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23)), upheld the dismissal of defendant's petition. The appellate court held that the circuit court had informed defendant he would receive a specific sentence (25 years), but that defendant was, in fact, sentenced to a term greater than the agreed term, taking into consideration the period of MSR, about which defendant had not been admonished. Nevertheless, the appellate court concluded that defendant's due process claim failed because he had not made a "good-faith argument" that he would not have pled guilty had he known about the MSR term. Without any discussion or analysis, the court held that decisions cited by defendant which held to the contrary, People v. Moore, 214 Ill. App. 3d 938 (1991), and United States ex rel. Miller v. McGinnis, 774 F.2d 819 (7th Cir. 1985), were "factually distinguishable."

Defendant petitioned this court for leave to appeal, which we allowed. 177 Ill. 2d R. 315. Here defendant maintains, as he did below, that Illinois Supreme Court Rule 402(a) and the due process clauses of the Illinois and United States Constitutions required the circuit court to admonish him, before accepting his negotiated plea for the offense of murder, that a three-year MSR term would be added to his sentence. Defendant further maintains that, because the circuit court failed to admonish him, adding the MSR term to his sentence violates due process, fundamental fairness, and principles of contract law. He asks this court to afford him the benefit of his plea bargain by modifying his sentence to a term of 25 years, inclusive of the three-year MSR term.

ANALYSIS

The appeal in the case at bar arises from the dismissal of defendant's second-stage postconviction petition. The standard by which second-stage dismissals of postconviction petitions are reviewed is de novo. People v. Munson, 206 Ill. 2d 104, 115 (2002). We begin our review by recalling the familiar principles concerning postconviction proceedings.

The Post-Conviction Hearing Act ( 725 ILCS 5/122-1 et seq. (West 2002)) provides an avenue by which a defendant may challenge his conviction or sentence for violations of federal or state constitutional rights. People v. Jones, 211 Ill. 2d 140, 143-44 (2004); People v. Rissley, 206 Ill. 2d 403, 411-12 (2003); People v. Brisbon, 164 Ill. 2d 236, 242 (1995). To be entitled to postconviction relief, a defendant must demonstrate that he has suffered a substantial deprivation of his federal or state constitutional rights in the proceedings that produced the conviction or sentence being challenged. People v. McNeal, 194 Ill. 2d 135, 140 (2000). The scope of the postconviction proceeding is limited to constitutional matters that have not been, and could not have been, previously adjudicated. Accordingly, any issues which could have been raised on direct appeal, but were not, are procedurally defaulted and any issues which have previously been decided by a reviewing court are barred by the doctrine of res judicata. Rissley, 206 Ill. 2d at 412.

The State asks us to affirm the appellate court's dismissal of defendant's petition, arguing that defendant has not demonstrated that his constitutional rights were substantially violated at the plea hearing which produced his conviction and sentence.

Nature of Defendant's Claim

We believe it appropriate, at the outset, to identify the exact nature of defendant's claim. When seeking relief from a guilty plea, either directly or collaterally, there are two separate, though closely related, constitutional challenges that may be made: (1) that the plea of guilty was not made voluntarily and with full knowledge of the consequences, and (2) that defendant did not receive the benefit of the bargain he made with the State when he pled guilty. In the case at bar, the State argues that defendant's appeal is an "improper amalgamation" of these two constitutional claims and that this court should clarify that "a claim that a petitioner did not get the benefit of the People's bargain is fundamentally different from a claim that he did not understand the People's offer and that, as a result, his plea was not knowing and voluntary." Defendant, on the other hand, agrees that the two types of constitutional claims are analytically different, but denies that he has confused them in his petition. Defendant contends that he is raising a "benefit of the bargain" claim, i.e., that his constitutional right to due process and fundamental fairness was violated because the State breached the plea agreement which induced his plea. In his reply brief, defendant disavows and waives any challenge to the voluntariness of his plea.

In light of the arguments raised, we examine the two types of constitutional claims. The first constitutional claim derives from Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 23 L. Ed. 2d 274, 89 S. Ct. 1709 (1969). In Boykin, the defendant entered pleas of guilty to five counts of robbery and was subsequently sentenced to death. The record of defendant's plea hearing, however, showed that the trial court asked defendant no questions concerning his plea and that defendant did not address the court. On review, the...