THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Respondent-Appellee, v. HARVEY ALLEN, JR., Petitioner-Appellant.
No. 1-14-2125
APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT
March 25, 2016
2016 IL App (1st) 142125
SIXTH DIVISION. Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County. No. 86 CR 901. Honorable Charles P. Burns, Judge Presiding.
OPINION
¶ 1 This case presents an issue of first impression: whether the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission Act (Act) (
¶ 2 Petitioner Harvey Allen, Jr. was convicted of four counts of murder and one count of arson stemming from an incident which occurred on December 7, 1985. He was sentenced to natural life imprisonment. In 1993, this court affirmed his conviction and sentence. People v. Allen, 249 Ill. App. 3d 1001, 1020 (1993), appeal denied, 152 Ill. 2d 563 (1993), cert. denied sub nom. Allen v. Illinois, 511 U.S. 1075 (1994) (Allen I). In Allen I, we specifically rejected Allen‘s contentions that his confession was involuntary because it was coerced through the improper tactics of his interrogating police officers. Id. at 1016-1017. Later, we affirmed the dismissal of Allen‘s first
¶ 3 Allen then filed a second successive postconviction petition, in which he contended that police officers physically coerced his confession. In particular, this petition relied heavily on a report of the Special State‘s Attorney, Edward J. Egan, which detailed a pattern of police coercion of confessions in Chicago‘s Areas 2 and 3 under the leadership of Commander Burge. People v. Allen, 2014 IL App (1st) 120209-U, ¶ 18 (Allen IV). We determined that the Burge allegations were irrelevant to Allen‘s case, stating:
“Instead, petitioner was initially brought to District 3, which is within Area 1, where Burge was never the supervising detective and which was never mentioned in the Egan report. In addition, none of the detectives or police officers involved in petitioner‘s arrest and questioning were named in the Egan report, nor are petitioner‘s claims of physical abuse similar to the conduct revealed in the Egan report. Finally, there was no medical evidence or testimony supporting petitioner‘s claim.” (Emphasis in original.) Id. ¶ 25.
Accordingly, we found that Allen could not meet the cause-and-prejudice test to allow him to file a successive postconviction petition. Id. ¶ 34.
¶ 4 While the postconviction petition at issue in Allen IV was pending, Allen also applied for relief under the Act (
¶ 5 Pursuant to the Act, the Commission entered a “case disposition” dated May 20, 20131, in which the Commission determined, by a preponderance of the evidence, that there was “sufficient evidence of torture” in Allen‘s case to “conclude the Claim is credible and merits judicial review for appropriate relief.” We concluded in Allen IV that since Allen was processed in Area 1, the Egan Report was not relevant to his case. The Commission noted that, since Allen‘s trial, certain evidence of Burge‘s activities had “emerged,” but it stated that Burge‘s activities occurred in Areas 2 and 3. The case disposition contains no mention whatsoever of Area 1 where Allen was actually processed. Nothing in the Commission‘s case disposition or its findings actually links Burge or any of his subordinates to Allen‘s confession or conviction.
¶ 7 After the chief judge of the circuit court of Cook County received this referral, he transmitted it to a judge for consideration. The State then filed a motion to dismiss it under section 2-615 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure (Code) (
¶ 8 We first note that Allen‘s brief fails to comply with Illinois Supreme Court Rules in numerous respects. The appendix to the brief, which is not labeled as such, is only one page long and consists of merely an index to the record on appeal. The brief does not contain the verbatim text of the relevant statutes involved in violation of Illinois Supreme Court Rule 341(h)(5) (eff. Feb. 6, 2013). In addition, Allen‘s brief fails to comply with Supreme Court Rule 342(a) because the brief does not contain: (1) a copy of the notice of appeal; (2) a copy of the judgment appealed from; (3) a copy of the Commission‘s order; nor (4) the dates corresponding to the filing or entry of the various items listed in the index to the record. Ill. S. Ct. R. 342(a) (eff. Jan. 1, 2005). Nonetheless, we will consider the merits of this appeal, finding that the brief‘s lack of compliance with Supreme Court Rule 341(h) does not preclude our review. See In re Estate of Jackson, 354 Ill. App. 3d 616, 620 (2004) (reviewing court has choice to review merits, even in light of multiple Rule 341 omissions); Budzileni v. Department of Human Rights, 392 Ill. App. 3d 422, 440-41 (2009) (same as to Rule 342(a)).
¶ 9 We also note that the record contains no materials from the Commission‘s proceedings whatsoever except a single document: a recommendation to the Commission from its own staff. The Act requires that “[a]ll proceedings of the Commission shall be recorded and transcribed as part of the record.”
¶ 10 On appeal, Allen argues that the trial court erred in dismissing the Commission‘s referral pursuant to section 2-615 of the Code. Section 2-615 motions are established by the Code and therefore apply, in the main, to civil rather than criminal, cases. However, we may affirm on any basis in the record, whether or not the trial court relied on that basis or its reasoning was correct. Leonardi v. Loyola University of Chicago, 168 Ill. 2d 83, 97 (1995). Regardless of whether a section 2-615 motion was the appropriate approach here, we find that the trial court correctly dismissed the referral.
¶ 11 A Commission referral normally triggers a trial court proceeding akin to a third-stage evidentiary hearing under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act.
¶ 12 The gist of the State‘s motion to dismiss was simply that the Commission‘s case disposition, on its face, did not state that Burge or his subordinates were ever involved with the police investigation of Allen and therefore was not authorized by the Act.
¶ 13 Resolving the question presented requires us to interpret the Act. Statutory construction presents a question of law which we also review de novo. People v. Gutman, 2011 IL 110338, ¶ 12. The primary objective of statutory construction is to ascertain and give effect to the legislature‘s intent. The most reliable indicator of legislative intent is the language of the statute, given its plain and ordinary meaning. Id.
¶ 14 The opening paragraph of section 5 of the Act reads: ” ‘Claim of torture’ means a claim on behalf of a living person convicted of a felony in Illinois asserting that he was tortured into confessing to the crime for which the person was convicted and the tortured confession was used to obtain the conviction and for which there is some credible evidence related to allegations of torture committed by Commander Jon Burge or any officer under the supervision of Jon Burge.” (Emphasis added.)
¶ 15 The Act‘s rather extraordinary naming of a specific living person is strongly probative of a specific legislative intent. Equally important is the Act‘s direction that Commission recommendations are filed with the chief judge of the circuit court of Cook County, which perforce eliminates claims from petitioners convicted in counties other than Cook from the Commission‘s purview, and further supports the conclusion that the Act should be narrowly construed to apply only to a specific set of cases, and not to allegations of police misconduct in general.
¶ 16 Allen argues that the Act contains a general purpose clause stating that it is intended to “investigate and determine factual claims of torture,” (
¶ 17 Consistent with our holding in Allen IV, we agree with the trial court that the Commission‘s referral did not show that Allen‘s confession and conviction were factually linked to Burge or his subordinates. Accordingly, the referral was not permitted under the Act and was correctly dismissed.
¶ 18 In the alternative, Allen also contends that the trial court erred in refusing to allow him to amend “his petition” to perhaps add allegations curing the deficiencies alleged in the State‘s motion to dismiss. We normally review the denial of requests to amend pleadings under an abuse of discretion standard. Clemons v. Mechanical Devices Co., 202 Ill. 2d 344, 351 (2002). Allen‘s request suffers from an incurable flaw. It improperly conflates the distinct procedures utilized in regular postconviction petitions and those employed in referrals under the Act. Standard postconviction petitions “belong” to a criminal defendant in the sense that he has filed them and can request leave to amend them as facts develop.
¶ 19 For these reasons, we affirm the judgment of the Circuit Court of Cook County.
¶ 20 Affirmed.