People v. PricePeople v. Price
¶ 1 Defendant, Damen Price, filed a pro se petition for relief from judgment under
¶ 2 BACKGROUND
¶ 3 In November 1996, following a jury trial in the circuit court of Cook County, defendant was convicted of aggravated arson and the first degree murder of 4-year-old Curtis Jones, Jr., who died in the fire. Defendant had requested separate verdict forms for the various theories of murder charged by the State (intentional, knowing, and felony murder), but the trial court denied that request. The jury thus returned a general verdict of guilty of first degree murder and aggravated arson. The same jury found defendant death-penalty eligible but determined he should not be sentenced to death. The trial court sentenced defendant to a term of natural life imprisonment for murder and a consecutive term of 30 years’ imprisonment for aggravated arson. The appellate court аffirmed defendant‘s conviction and sentence. People v. Price, 303 Ill. App. 3d 1101 (1999) (table) (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23).
¶ 4 In April 2000 and again in February 2003, defendant unsuccessfully pursued relief under the
¶ 5 In February 2012, defendant filed his second pro se petition under
¶ 6 The appellate court reversed and remanded for resentencing on felony murder alone. 2014 IL App (1st) 130037-U, ¶ 31. The appellate court first rejected the State‘s argument that defendant‘s
¶ 7 We allowed the State‘s petition for leave to appeal. See
¶ 8 Shortly after the State filed its opening brief in this court, we announced our decision in Castleberry, abolishing the void sentence rule. At oral argument, questions arose as to the applicability of Castleberry. We subsequently ordered the parties to file supplemental briefs addressing two issues: whether Castleberry “should apply retroactively [to] matters on collateral review” and, if so, “what impact would that have on the instant case.”
¶ 9 As discussed below, we hold that, in light of Castleberry, defendant‘s
¶ 10 ANALYSIS
¶ 11 I
¶ 12 As a preliminary matter, we consider defendant‘s forfeiture argument. Defendant contends that, even if Castleberry could apply retroactively to his case, the State forfeited any argument that his
¶ 13 We also note that while this case was pending before this court, our appellate court considered the retroactivity of Castleberry but did not come to a uniform conclusion. Compare People v. Smith, 2016 IL App (1st) 140887, ¶ 30 (holding that Castleberry did not announce a new rule under Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989) (plurality opinion) and, thus, cannot be applied retroactively on collateral review), pet. for leave to appeal pending, No. 121060 (filed Jul. 18, 2016), with People v. Stafford, 2016 IL App (4th) 140309, ¶ 33 (holding that because Castleberry did not establish a new rule under Teague, its holding does apply retroactively),
¶ 14 II
¶ 15 In People v. Arna, 168 Ill. 2d 107, 113 (1995), we held that a “sentence which does not conform to a statutory requirement is void,” and thе appellate court has the “authority to correct it at any time.” Thus, in Arna, we rejected the defendant‘s argument that the appellate court was without authority to correct his sentence, sua sponte, on direct review. Id. at 112-13. So began the history of the “void sentence rule.”
¶ 16 Arna implicitly relied on the then-prevailing view that a court which lacks the “inherent power” to enter the particular judgment involved renders that judgment void. Id. at 113 (citing People v. Wade, 116 Ill. 2d 1 (1987)). Although we anticipated that, as a general rule, the State and the courts, rather than defendants, would be raising Arna errors (People v. Garcia, 179 Ill. 2d 55, 75 (1997)), defendants embraced Arna‘s void sentence rule because it allowed them to attack a statutоrily nonconforming sentence at any time, in any court, either directly or collaterally (see People v. Thompson, 209 Ill. 2d 19, 27 (2004)). Thus, as to defendants, the void sentence rule functioned as a judicially created exception to the forfeiture doctrine. People v. Marshall, 242 Ill. 2d 285, 302 (2011) (“challenge to an alleged void order is not subject to forfeiture“); Thompson, 209 Ill. 2d at 27 (“argument that an order or judgment is void is not subject to waiver“).
¶ 17 Castleberry abolished the void sentence rule because it was constitutionally unsound. Castleberry, 2015 IL 116916, ¶¶ 1, 19. Specifically, Castleberry determined that the “inherent power” view of jurisdiction, on which the rule was based, could not be reconсiled with the constitutional grant of jurisdiction and was at odds with opinions from this court rejecting that view of jurisdiction in the civil context. Id. ¶ 18. Thus, pursuant to Castleberry, a statutorily nonconforming sentence is not void; it is merely voidable and subject to the usual rules of forfeiture or other procedural restraints. Id. ¶¶ 11-18. In addition to our constitutional jurisprudence, Castleberry relied on the policy favoring finality of judgments. Id. ¶ 15 (citing LVNV Funding, LLC v. Trice, 2015 IL 116129). After Castleberry, a reviewing court may no longer, sua sponte, correct a statutorily nonconforming sentence (id. ¶¶ 20-24), the State may no longer seek to correct such a sentence on direct review but must seek a writ of mandamus to do so (id. ¶¶ 26-27), and a defendant may no longer rely on the void sentence rule to overcome forfeiture of a claimed sentencing error or tо challenge a statutorily nonconforming sentence in perpetuity (id. ¶¶ 17-19). See also People v. Thompson, 2015 IL 118151, ¶ 33 (stating that after Castleberry, it is “no longer valid” to argue that a sentence that does not conform to a statutory requirement is void).
¶ 18 As directed by this court, both parties filed supplemental briefs addressing whether Castleberry applies to matters on collateral review. Although both parties rely on the
¶ 19 The Supreme Court‘s decision in Teague is a refinement of its earlier retroactivity jurisprudence that arose largely in response to the expansion of the rights of criminal defendants in the 1960s. See Mackey v. United States, 401 U.S. 667, 676 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring in the judgments in part and dissenting in part) (recognizing that the Court‘s retroactivity doctrine, which came into being in 1965, was the “product of the Court‘s disquietude with the impacts of its fast-moving pace of constitutional innovation in the criminal field“); Lyn S. Entzeroth, Reflections on Fifteen Years of the Teague v. Lane Retroactivity Paradigm: A Study of the Persistence, the Pervasiveness, and the Perversity of the Court‘s Doctrine, 35 N.M. L. Rev. 161, 166-67 (2005). Having expanded the constitutional rights of criminal defendants, the Court was faced with the question of which defendants should receive the benefit from those changes in the law. Entzeroth, supra, at 166-67.
¶ 20 The Court‘s retroactivity jurisprudence distinguished between (i) cases on direct review at the time a new rule is announced, i.e., those cases in which the conviction is not yet final, and (ii) cases on collateral review at the time a new rule is announced, i.e., those cases in which the conviction is final. Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348, 351-52 (2004). Teague addressed the latter situation, clarifying and limiting the circumstances under which a defendant whose conviction was final could claim the benefit of a new rule. Id.; Teague, 489 U.S. at 300.
¶ 21 Underlying the application of the Teague analysis is the notion that the new rule, had it been in effect at the time of trial, could have made a difference in the outcome. In Teague, for example, the defendant, who was convicted by an all-white jury, sought to benefit from the Court‘s decision in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), which was decided after his conviction became final.
¶ 22 Here, the rule we adopted in Castleberry can make no difference in the outcome of a criminal trial. We simply eliminated the void sentence rule. Neither the void sentence rule nor its elimination impacts the accuracy of a defendant‘s conviction, the accuracy or constitutionality of a sentence, or the fundamental fairness of a defendant‘s trial. In short, Castleberry did not change any rule affecting the conduct of criminal prosecutions. Castleberry comes into play, if at all, only after judgment is rendered in the criminаl trial. Thus, the Teague analysis is simply not triggered here.
¶ 23 This conclusion finds support in Welch v. United States, 578 U.S. ___, 136 S. Ct. 1257 (2016). There, the Supreme Court explained that the Teague retroactivity framework creates a balance between the need for finality in criminal cases and the countervailing need to ensure that criminal punishment is only imposed when authorized by law. Id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 1266. This balance depends “on whether the new rule itself has a procedural function or a substantive function—that is, whether it alters only the procedures used to obtain the conviction, or alters instead the range of conduct or class of persons that the law punishes.” Id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 1266. Castleberry does neither.
¶ 25 We emphasize that when we ask whether a new rule or decision of this court should apply to “matters on collateral review,” the “matter” to which we are referring is defendant‘s underlying conviction or sentence. Thus, when we conclude, based on Teague and its progeny, that a new rule should apply retroactively to “matters on collateral review,” whаt we mean is that we will treat the new rule as if it were in existence at the time of, and applied to, the trial proceeding being challenged by the defendant in his or her collateral pleading. In this respect, the issue we directed the parties to brief—whether Castleberry “should apply [to] matters on collateral review“—was misleading. The issue assumed that Castleberry “could” be applied to a defendant‘s conviction or sentence and the only question was whether, under Teague, it “should” be applied where the conviction and sentence were final and were challenged on collateral review. This assumption was incorrect because, as discussed above, Castleberry has no application to criminal trials to begin with, rendering the Teague analysis inapplicable.
¶ 26 The question yet remains whether the rule announced in Castleberry should apply to defendant‘s
¶ 27 Unquestionably, Castleberry applies not only to the parties in that case but also prospectively. As we recognized in Thompson, 2015 IL 118151, ¶ 33, after our decision in Castleberry, it is “no longer valid” to argue that a sentence that does not conform to a statutory requirement is void. As to defendant‘s case, in which his
¶ 28 In Castleberry, we did not limit the reach of our decision, and defendant offers no equitable or other reason that militates against applying Castleberry to his pending
¶ 29 Defendant argues, however, that Castleberry is irrelevant because it only dealt with one type of void judgment. According to defendant, a judgment is also void “where it was imposed in violation of a substantive new rule,” as defined by Teague and its progeny. Defendant maintains that his sentence was imposed in violation of a substantive new rule—the rule
¶ 30 Void judgments occupy a “unique place” in our legal system. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id. When we say that a judgment is void, that judgment may be challenged “at any time, either directly or collaterally, and the challenge is not subject to forfeiture or other procedural restraints.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id. Therefore, only the most fundamental defects warrant declaring a judgment void. Id.
¶ 31 This court has recognized only three circumstances in which a judgment will be deemed void: (1) where the judgment was entered by a court that lacked personal or subject-matter jurisdiction, (2) where the judgment was based on a statute that is facially unconstitutional and void ab initio, and (3) where a judgment of sentence did not conform to a statutory requirement (the void sentence rule). Thompson, 2015 IL 118151, ¶¶ 31-33. Castleberry eliminated the third type of void judgment, thus narrowing the universe of judgments subject to attack in perpetuity.
¶ 32 Defendant would have us reverse course and expand our voidness doctrine by declaring as void all judgments of conviction and sentence that do not conform to a later announced substantive rule, although the judgment conformed to constitutional standards at the time of trial. We decline to do so. If a new rule qualifies as a “substantive rule” under Teague, then defendants whose convictions are final may seek the benefit of that rule through appropriate collateral proceedings. See Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. ___, ___, 136 S. Ct. 718, 729 (2016) (“when a new substantive rule of constitutional law controls the outcome of a case, the Constitution requires state collateral review courts to give retroactive effect to that rule“). Declaring the underlying judgments “void” is not warranted.
¶ 33 Finally, defendant argues that even if this court applies Castleberry to his pro se
¶ 34 In Shellstrom, we reaffirmed, in conformity with our precedents, that the circuit court may treat a pro se petitioner‘s pleading, alleging a deprivation of a constitutional right, as a postconvictiоn petition although the pleading was not labeled as such. Shellstrom, 216 Ill. 2d at 51-53. Shellstrom does not support defendant‘s argument for recharacterizing a pro se pleading for the first time on appeal before this court. We also agree with the State that defendant should not be permitted to avoid satisfying the cause-and-prejudice test for successive postconviction petitions by appealing to the “spirit” of Shellstrom.
¶ 35 For the reasons stated above, we hold that Castleberry applies to defendant‘s
¶ 36 Appellate court judgment reversed.
¶ 37 Circuit court judgment affirmed.
¶ 38 JUSTICE KILBRIDE, specially concurring:
¶ 39 Although I agree in principle with the majority‘s conclusion that our decision in People v. Castleberry, 2015 IL 116916, should apply retroactively to cases on collateral review, I do not believe that defendant‘s claims should be resolved under Castleberry. Instead, I would address the issue actually raised by the State and presented by the parties in their original briefs to this court. See People v. Givens, 237 Ill. 2d 311, 323-24 (2010) (observing the well-established principle that a reviewing court should honor the parties’ presentation of the issues on appeal and should not raise new issues).
¶ 40 In 2012, defendant filed an untimely pro se
¶ 41 Relying exclusively on Smith, defendant argued that his
¶ 42 The appellate court reversed, rejecting the State‘s challenge to the timeliness of the petition, holding that “[w]hen a defendant challenges a void judgment, the two-year time limitation does not apply.” 2014 IL App (1st) 130037-U, ¶ 15. The appellate court explained, “[i]t is well established that a sentence entered without statutory authorization is void and may be attacked at any time, even on collateral review.” 2014 IL App (1st) 130037-U, ¶ 16. On the merits, the appellate court held that Smith announced a “new” and “substantive” rule that thus had retroactive application to defendant‘s case. 2014 IL App (1st) 130037-U, ¶¶ 24-25. We granted the State‘s petition for leave to appeal from that decision.
¶ 43 After oral argument, this court issued an order sua sponte directing the parties to file supplemental briefs addressing two issues: whether our recent decision in Castleberry ” ‘should apply retroactively [to] matters on collateral review’ ” and, if so, ” ‘what impact would that have on the instant case.’ ” As the majority itself now concedes, the issues we
¶ 44 In my opinion, Castleberry has limited, if any, application to this case and is certainly not dispositive. Our holding in Castleberry, the abolition of the void sentence rule, has practically nothing to do with this appeal. The void sentence rule originated in People v. Arna, 168 Ill. 2d 107 (1995), a decision that preceded the filing of defendant‘s pro se petition by approximately 17 years. If defendant sought to rely on Arna‘s “void sentence rule,” he certainly would have raised such a claim in his petition. He did not. That is, of course, perfectly understandable. The now-abolishеd void sentence rule held that a “sentence which does not conform to a statutory requirement is void.” Arna, 168 Ill. 2d at 113. Because the void sentence rule depends on the construction of a sentencing statute, it presents a completely different challenge than that presented under the distinct rule articulated in Smith and reaffirmed in Bailey. The rule from Smith hinges on the omission of separate verdict forms in cases involving multiple murder charges. Although defendant‘s pro se
¶ 45 Despite the distinction between these two types of challenges, the majority determines that our abrogation of the void sentence rule in Castleberry not only applies to a defendant‘s petition that never relied on the void sentence rule but also requires its dismissal. The majority even goes so far as to state that “defendant cannot rely on the void sentence rule, which Castleberry eliminated, to escape the two-year statutory time bar.” Supra ¶ 35. This statement is unfair to defendant.
¶ 46 As I have already noted, defendant has never relied on Arna‘s void sentence rule. Instead, defendant alleged that his natural life sentence constituted a void judgment under the rule from Smith. The majority seems to imply, with no explanation, that Castleberry, a decision limited to overruling the Arna void sentence rule, now controls all allegations of void judgments in
¶ 47 More troubling, the majority‘s approach has the potential to cause confusion on the application and proper scope of our decision in Castleberry. As the majority explains, “the rule we adopted in Castleberry can make no difference in the outcome of a criminal trial” and “[n]either the void sentence rule nor its elimination impacts the accuracy of a defendant‘s conviction, the accuracy or constitutionality of a sentence, оr the fundamental fairness of a defendant‘s trial.” Supra ¶ 22. The same statements cannot be made about the rule from Smith. That rule requires, in the appropriate circumstances, the interpretation of a general verdict as a finding of felony murder and commensurate sentencing. Bailey, 2013 IL 113690, ¶ 61 (citing
¶ 48 Unlike the majority, I would not graft Castleberry and the void sentence rule onto this appeal. Instead, I would address the original threshold issue raised in the State‘s petition for leave to appeal—whether an alleged violation of the Smith rule on special verdict forms results in a “void judgment” for purposes of excusing the untimeliness of a defendant‘s
¶ 49 As the majority correctly observes, this court has already explained what constitutes a void judgment for purposes of avoiding the two-year bar applicable to a
¶ 50 The first type of challenge is jurisdictional. A petitioner raises a jurisdictional voidness challenge by alleging that the underlying judgment is void because the court that entered the judgment lacked personal or subject-matter jurisdiction. Thompson, 2015 IL 118151, ¶ 31. A
¶ 51 The second type of
¶ 52 The third type of voidness challenge formerly available under
¶ 53 Thompson‘s explanation of the limited types of void judgment challenges is entirely consistent with this court‘s recognition that void judgments occupy a “unique place” in the legal arena. Castleberry, 2015 IL 116916, ¶ 15. Because of the drastic consequences of labeling a judgment as void, we have explained that ” ‘only the most fundamental defects’ ” justify a determination that a judgment is void. Castleberry, 2015 IL 116916, ¶ 15 (quoting LVNV Funding, LLC v. Trice, 2015 IL 116129, ¶ 38).
¶ 54 In Bailey and Smith, this court did not hold that a violation of the rule from those decisions resulted in a void judgment or sentence.1 Nor did we find that the trial court lacked jurisdiction
¶ 55 Because a violation of the Smith rule constitutes an abuse of discretion and is remedied by sentencing on felony murder, it cannot be said that a violation of that rule results in a void judgment. In other words, a violation of the rule from Smith cannot render a judgment void for purposes of
¶ 56 For these reasons, I specially concur.