THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHRISTOPHER MANSOORI, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 1-23-2351B
APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST DISTRICT
April 25, 2024
2024 IL App (1st) 232351
Third Division
Appeal from the
Nos. 19 CR 12258, 19 CR 12259, 19 CR 13576
Honorable Michael J. Hogan, Judge, presiding.
JUSTICE LAMPKIN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.
Justice R. Van Tine concurred in the judgment and opinion.
Presiding Justice Reyes dissented, with opinion.
OPINION
¶ 1 Public Act 101-652 (eff. Jan. 1, 2023), commonly known as the Pretrial Fairness Act, amended article 110 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (Code) (
¶ 2 For the reasons that follow, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand for additional proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I. BACKGROUND
¶ 3 On September 5, 2019, the State charged defendant with two separate indictments
¶ 5 On October 10, 2023, defendant filed a pro se “Motion for Bond Review and/or Reduction of Bail” that was captioned to encompass all three of defendant‘s cases. That motion invoked the prior version of
¶ 6 The State first claimed that, on one occasion, defendant allegedly struck his girlfriend about the body and stomped on her legs. On the other occasion, defendant allegedly struck his girlfriend in the head and pulled her hair. The State provided no other details for these offenses.
¶ 7 At the time of defendant‘s arrest on August 2, 2019, an order of protection involving an unspecified person, presumably defendant‘s girlfriend, had been issued but not served. The State did not recount the circumstances of defendant‘s arrest, but apparently his car played some role, as a search of defendant‘s car yielded an AR-15 rifle, for which defendant did not have a Firearm Owner‘s Identification card, and 19.5 grams of suspected cocaine. The State claimed that defendant was released on bond but was returned to custody because he was attempting to “contact the victim or harass the victim” through a third party. The State provided no details.
¶ 8 Regarding prior criminal history, the State claimed that defendant had misdemeanor convictions for domestic battery in 2011, assault in 2009, resisting a peace officer in 2007, and telephone harassment in 2015. Defendant also had four failures to appear.
¶ 9 Based on those facts, the State argued that the proof was evident or the presumption great that defendant committed the charged offenses, that defendant poses a threat to the safety of the community, and that defendant should be detained.
¶ 10 Defendant, representing himself pro se, proffered that the complaining witness lives in another state and that he had no contact with her for 40 days leading up to his arrest. Defendant also claimed that he had no felony convictions, and his written motion claimed that his failures to
¶ 11 In its oral ruling, the trial court found that proof was evident or the presumption was great that defendant committed the charged offenses and that defendant poses a real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons or the community based on specific articulable facts “in that defendant committed multiple acts of violence against another and has a prior history of violence and has an arrest for guns or drugs on a separate case as has been pointed out here.”
¶ 12 The trial court then stated, “the Court finds that there [is] no condition or combination of conditions *** that can mitigate that risk.” It made specific mention of the fact that, “[a]lthough the defendant indicates that the complaining witness in at least one of the cases is no longer in the State of Illinois, that does not mean that they can‘t be in the State of Illinois and, therefore, this defendant is to remain detained on these three cases.”
¶ 13 The trial court‘s written orders for each case were virtually identical and contained little detail. Regarding whether the proof was evident or the presumption great, the order said, “Domestic battery bodily harm” or “armed violence/drugs and 2 domestic battery cases.” In the space to address whether defendant poses a real and present threat to the safety of any person, the trial court wrote, “2 Domestic Battery and weapons/drug case AR 15 + coc[aine].” In the space provided for whether any conditions can mitigate the threat posed by defendant, despite the requirements of
¶ 14 Defendant timely filed a notice of appeal.
II. ANALYSIS
¶ 16 Defendant asks us to decide whether the State proved by clear and convincing evidence that no condition or combination of conditions can mitigate the threat posed by defendant. This ostensibly straightforward question presents a conundrum of appellate review where answering that question would require us to accept that the Code operates in a way that we have repeatedly said it does not.
¶ 17 This appeal arises out of the trial court granting the State‘s petitions for pretrial detention.
¶ 18 However, the Code prescribes a different procedure for individuals like defendant who are already detained. Defendant was originally released on bond but was then detained following a violation of his bail bond. For detained individuals, at every court date, the trial court must make a finding that “continued detention is necessary to avoid a real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons or
¶ 19 People v. Casey, 2024 IL App (3d) 230568, presents a moderately similar factual scenario. There, the trial court granted a petition for pretrial detention, and the defendant later filed a motion seeking his release. Id. ¶¶ 6-7. The trial court rejected that request and correctly applied
¶ 20 The instant case differs slightly from Casey, and therein lies our conundrum. Like in Casey, the parties have presented us with an issue that is at odds with the procedure prescribed for detained individuals. But more importantly, the trial court‘s orders giving rise to this appeal were premised on a procedure at odds with the Code, namely that the trial court took up the State‘s petitions even though those petitions were untimely and where the Code provides a different procedure to follow.
¶ 21 This court has previously addressed the timeliness of petitions for pretrial detention when filed against those who were ordered released but remained in custody because they could not satisfy some requirement of their release. People v. Watkins-Romaine, 2024 IL App (1st) 232479, ¶ 34; People v. Brown, 2023 IL App (1st) 231890, ¶ 13. In Watkins-Romaine, we strictly interpreted the timing requirements of
¶ 22 The trial court here entertained the State‘s petitions for detention, which were not filed at defendant‘s first appearance before a judge or within 21 days of his arrest and release. By the logic in Brown and Watkins-Romaine, the State‘s petitions here were not timely. Indeed, unlike those cases, defendant was not an individual who had been ordered released but remained in custody because he could not satisfy a condition of his release. Defendant‘s bail was revoked in 2019 because he allegedly attempted to contact the complaining witness through a third party. He was detained in the most literal sense of the word, though maybe not under the standard now enumerated in
¶ 23 The dissent disagrees with this analysis, and points instead to
¶ 24 The second portion of
¶ 25 The only hearing referenced in
¶ 26 Additionally, if the “hearing” referenced in this second part of
¶ 27 The dissent also seizes upon the language that the aforementioned hearing is for any defendant “who is eligible for detention under
¶ 28 Finally, the dissent also takes the position that
¶ 29 The question before the trial court, either on its own motion or prompted by defendant‘s request for a reduction in bail, should have been only whether defendant‘s “continued detention is necessary to avoid a real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons or the community, based on the specific articulable facts of the case, or to prevent the defendant‘s willful flight from prosecution.”
¶ 30 We are cognizant that the timeliness of the State‘s petitions is not an issue before us. A fundamental principle of appellate review is, as the United States Supreme Court once said, that “‘[courts] do not, or should not, sally forth each day looking for wrongs to right. We wait for cases to come to us, and when they do we normally decide only questions presented by the parties.’” Greenlaw v. United States, 554 U.S. 237, 244 (2008) (quoting United States v. Samuels, 808 F.2d 1298, 1301 (8th Cir. 1987) (Arnold, J., concurring in denial of rehearing en banc)).
¶ 31 “[A]s a general rule, ‘[o]ur adversary system is designed around the premise that the parties know what is best for them, and are responsible for advancing the facts and arguments entitling them to relief.’” Id. (quoting Castro v. United States, 540 U.S. 375, 386 (2003) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment, joined by Thomas, J.)).
¶ 32 However, as our supreme court has said, this is not an absolute rule and we may address unbriefed errors in limited instances where a clear error occurred. People v. Givens, 237 Ill. 2d 311, 325 (2010). In Givens, the question was whether the appellate court erred in reversing a defendant‘s conviction on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel where that issue was not raised or briefed. Id. at 325-26. The supreme court reasoned that reviewing courts should refrain from addressing unbriefed issues when it would transform the court‘s role from that of jurist to advocate. Id. at 328. But that is not the effect that our decision has here. We are not reversing and ordering defendant‘s release based on an unbriefed issue, advocating on behalf of one party or the other, or indeed, prejudicing the State in any way. Rather, our decision simply declines to sanction disregard of the procedure that the trial court is required to follow at each and every court date, and declines to endorse a procedure that is at odds with this division‘s precedent. Watkins-Romaine, 2024 IL App (1st) 232479, ¶ 34; Brown, 2023 IL App (1st) 231890, ¶ 13. Thus, while we typically should not address
¶ 33 Although the required finding in
¶ 34 Additionally, the record indicates that defendant‘s charges have been pending since September and October 2019. Defendant has been in custody for approximately 4½ years. The charges, domestic battery, possession of a controlled substance, aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, and armed violence, are not complicated—defendant is accused of committing a battery on two occasions against the same person and possessing a firearm and illegal narcotics. While the record offers no insight into why these cases remain unresolved or how the reasons for the delay might be apportioned, we believe it would behoove the parties to expedite the resolution of these matters.
III. CONCLUSION
¶ 36 For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the trial court‘s order granting the State‘s petition for pretrial detention and remand for additional proceedings consistent with this opinion.
¶ 37 Reversed and remanded.
¶ 38 REYES, P.J., dissenting:
¶ 39 The majority finds that the State‘s detention petition was untimely and therefore reverses the trial court‘s decision to detain the defendant. I believe that both the majority‘s analysis and its interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Code are flawed and, accordingly, I must respectfully dissent.
¶ 40 First and foremost, the majority‘s decision to reverse the trial court‘s detention order based on timeliness is inappropriate where the defendant has not raised this issue, either on appeal or below, a fact which the majority acknowledges. Supra ¶ 30. See People v. Givens, 237 Ill. 2d 311, 323 (2010) (“Illinois law is well settled that other than for assessing subject matter jurisdiction, a reviewing court should not normally
¶ 41 Even if this issue was properly before us, however, I would disagree with the majority‘s analysis on the matter. As noted by the majority, the defendant in the instant case was arrested prior to the effective date of the amendments to the Code and was ordered released with pretrial conditions, but his bail was revoked in 2019 and he has remained in custody since then. In October 2023, defendant filed a motion for bond review, and in response, the State filed petitions for pretrial detention under
¶ 42 The only way in which a defendant may be eligible for detention under
¶ 43 I also disagree with the majority‘s reliance on
¶ 44 Furthermore, even if the majority‘s position concerning the applicability of
¶ 45 As a final matter, I must note that the majority‘s decision appears intended to reaffirm its position as to the timing requirements of
¶ 46 As the majority‘s sua sponte decision to reverse and remand the trial court‘s detention order based on timeliness is inappropriate for a variety of reasons, as set forth above, I must respectfully dissent.
People v. Mansoori, 2024 IL App (1st) 232351
Decision Under Review: Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County, Nos. 19-CR-12258, 19-CR-12259, 19-CR-13576; the Hon. Michael J. Hogan, Judge, presiding.
Attorneys for Appellant: James E. Chadd, Carolyn R. Klarquist, and Benjamin Wimmer, of State Appellate Defender‘s Office, of Chicago, for appellant.
Attorneys for Appellee: Kimberly M. Foxx, State‘s Attorney, of Chicago (Liv K. Grewal, Assistant State‘s Attorney, of counsel), for the People.
