People v. Williams

• Decision Date: 30 July 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-575,81-575
• Parties: , 63 Ill.Dec. 948 PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John A. WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 1311

438 N.E.2d 1311

108 Ill.App.3d 219, 63 Ill.Dec. 948

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John A. WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 81-575.

Appellate Court of Illinois,

Third District.

July 30, 1982.

Gary L. Morris, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Peoria, on behalf of the People of the State of Ill BARRY, Presiding Justice:

The defendant, John A. Williams, was arrested on March 13, 1981, and charged with driving on a suspended license. During the defendant's bench trial on August 17, 1981, the presiding judge, John Whitney, denied the State's motion to admit into evidence an exhibit offered to prove that the defendant's license was suspended on March 13, 1981. The trial judge incorrectly ruled that the prosecution had failed to show a chain of evidence in the handling of the certified documents presented by the State.

A notice of appeal was filed by the State on September 16, 1981. However, the trial judge's order certifying the question of the need for a chain of evidence to admit certain certified copies of the defendant's driving license into evidence was not entered until September 25, 1981. Because the filing of the trial judge's order nine days after the notice of appeal was filed renders the September 16, 1981 notice of appeal a nullity, we will not entertain this appeal. There was no order from which to appeal at the time the notice of appeal was filed. Also, the State filed a notice of appeal rather than perfecting its appeal as an interlocutory appeal by seeking leave of this court, as required by Supreme Court Rule 308. Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 110A, par. 308.

Furthermore, the State cannot bring this appeal pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 604(a)(1). (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 110A, par. 604(a)(1)). Despite suggested language in the State's brief to the contrary, the erroneous ruling by Judge Whitney was clearly an evidentiary ruling and not a suppression order.

For the foregoing reasons, this appeal is dismissed.

Appeal dismissed.

STOUDER, J., concurs.

HEIPLE, J., specially concurs with opinion.

HEIPLE, Justice, specially concurring:

Although I agree with the dismissal of the People's appeal for the procedural reasons stated in the majority opinion, justice has again miscarried. As the majority pointed out, Judge Whitney erroneously ruled that the prosecution could not admit into evidence certified documents (i.e., the driving abstract of John A. Williams) from the Secretary of State since the envelope had been opened by a clerk at the Peoria Police Department before it was received by the arresting officer. Since the arresting officer had received an envelope from the Secretary of State that had already been opened, Judge Whitney decided that the prosecution could not establish a chain of custody of the certified documents.

This documentary evidence was clearly necessary to establish the fact that defendant Williams was driving on a suspended license. A conviction most certainly would have resulted if the certified documents had been admitted into evidence as is proper. Judge Whitney's ruling permitted an obviously guilty defendant to get off.

This is not the first, nor the second such occasion that justice has been miscarried by a grossly erroneous ruling by this judge. Earlier this year, in the case of People v. Louis C. White, Docket No. 81-413, in a non-published special concurring opinion I had another occasion to point out a gross...