People v. Sheley, 90 N.E.3d 493

Defendant Nicholas Sheley was tried for four murders; evidence included clothing and cigarette butts in the victims’ apartment with his DNA and victims’ blood, and photos of him wearing a victim’s shirt the next day.
During trial, while security-camera videos were played, the presiding judge appeared to fall asleep during Officer Cirimotich’s testimony; counsel made a record and later moved for a mistrial.
The circuit court denied the mistrial motion, found the allegation largely unsupported, and concluded the judge retained control of the courtroom.
A jury convicted Sheley of four counts of first-degree murder; the court sentenced him to four consecutive natural-life terms.
On appeal Sheley argued the judge’s sleeping was per se reversible (structural) error; the State conceded the judge appeared asleep but argued any error was harmless.
The appellate majority held sleeping by a judge is not automatically structural error, applied harmless-error review given overwhelming evidence, and affirmed; one justice specially concurred (arguing waiver/sandbagging), one justice dissented (arguing Vargas controls and mandates per se reversal).

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether a judge falling asleep during trial is per se reversible (structural) error	Sleeping judge did not impair fairness; any error is subject to harmless-error review	Judge’s sleeping during testimony is equivalent to judge’s absence and is per se reversible	Not structural; sleeping is reviewed for harmless error and was harmless here
Whether defendant was prejudiced by the incident	No prejudice: no contemporaneous evidentiary rulings missed and evidence of guilt was overwhelming	Sleeping could have affected jury perceptions and deprived supervision, creating prejudice	No prejudice shown; denial of mistrial not an abuse of discretion
Whether Vargas (judge leaving bench) governs	Vargas is distinguishable because leaving is voluntary and has stronger deterrent concerns	Vargas policy concerns apply equally to a sleeping judge; per se reversal required	Vargas distinguished: involuntary nature of sleeping and lower likelihood jurors view it as dismissal of importance
Whether issue was waived/invited by defense conduct	N/A (State noted appearance but proceeded)	Counsel delayed raising issue, possibly ‘sandbagging’ or failing to timely object	Special concurrence would find waiver/invited error; majority did not base decision on waiver

People v. Sims, 167 Ill.2d 483 (general mistrial/abuse-of-discretion standard)
People v. Glasper, 234 Ill.2d 173 (structural-error framework)
People v. Thompson, 238 Ill.2d 598 (definition of structural error)
People v. Shaw, 186 Ill.2d 301 (harmless-error vs. structural-error guidance)
People v. Vargas, 174 Ill.2d 355 (judge’s total absence from bench per se reversible)
Lampitok v. State, 817 N.E.2d 630 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004) (judge sleeping not reversible without prejudice)
United States v. White, 589 F.2d 1283 (5th Cir. 1979) (same conclusion)