THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellant, v. MICHAEL TAYLOR, Appellee.
Docket No. 99756.
SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
May 18, 2006.
CHIEF JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion. Justices Freeman, McMorrow, Fitzgerald, Kilbride, Garman, and Karmeier concurred in the judgment and opinion.
This appeal presents the question of whether a minor who has been adjudicated delinquent in proceedings conducted
BACKGROUND
On the evening of December 23, 1998, defendant was a 16-year-old juvenile incarcerated at the Audy Home, a juvenile temporary detention center located in Cook County. On that night, Terrance Willis, who was also a juvenile incarcerated at the facility, escaped from his cell and cut the throat of a detention center counselor. Defendant was locked in his cell during the attack, but Willis took the jail keys from the stricken counselor and opened defendant‘s cell. According to eyewitness testimony, defendant then aided Willis in shoving the counselor into a cell and locking it. Defendant and Willis were apprehended a short time later after they had fled in separate directions.
Pursuant to the Juvenile Court Act, the juvenile division of the circuit court of Cook County held a discretionary-transfer hearing in connection with the December 23, 1998, incident. The court transferred defendant to the jurisdiction of the criminal division on December 20, 1999, on charges of attempted first degree murder, attempted escape, aggravated battery and aggravated unlawful restraint. The cause then proceeded to a jury trial on these charges.
To prove one of the elements of the attempted escape charge—i.e., that defendant was a “person convicted of a felony” at the time of the attempted escape—the State introduced a certified copy of a finding of delinquency entered by the juvenile court on August 7, 1998, that was based on an allegation that defendant had committed a robbery. The record shows that following a dispositional hearing on this delinquency adjudication for robbery, the juvenile court committed defendant to the Department of Corrections, Juvenile Division. Consequently, defendant was incarcerated at the Audy Home on December 23, 1998, awaiting transport to the Department of
Defendant testified at his criminal trial that he was asleep at the time Willis broke out of his cell on December 23, 1998, that defendant had no plan to escape, and that he was ordered out of his cell. He denied participating in putting the counselor in the cell, but instead claimed that he ran to the bathroom first and then to summon help for the counselor.
At the completion of his jury trial, defendant was convicted of the offenses of attempted escape, aggravated battery and unlawful restraint, but was acquitted of the attempted first degree murder count. The trial court sentenced him to five years in prison on the attempted escape charge to run concurrently with sentences of five years’ and three years’ imprisonment on the other two charges.
Defendant appealed, and the appellate court reversed. 353 Ill. App. 3d 462. The State conceded before the appellate court that defendant did not commit the substantive offenses of aggravated battery and aggravated unlawful restraint. Instead the State argued that defendant was guilty of these charges on an accountability theory for his participation in the escape. Because defendant‘s accountability on these two charges depended on whether he was guilty of the escape attempt, the appellate court first examined the escape charge. It noted that the escape statute requires as an element of the offense that a defendant must be a “person convicted of a felony” or “charged with the commission of a felony” at the time of the offense. 353 Ill. App. 3d at 471. It then concluded that defendant‘s delinquency adjudication was not a “conviction” for purposes of the escape statute. 353 Ill. App. 3d at 472-75. Accordingly, the appellate court held that under the plain language of the escape statute, defendant could not be found guilty of the offense of escape as a matter of law. 353 Ill. App. 3d at 475. We allowed the State‘s petition for leave to appeal.
ANALYSIS
The State‘s argument raises a question of statutory interpretation, and the principles governing our analysis are well known. The construction of a statute is an issue that is reviewed de novo. In re Michelle J., 209 Ill. 2d 428, 434 (2004). Courts should consider the statute in its entirety, keeping in mind the subject it addresses and the legislature‘s apparent objective in enacting it. People v. Davis, 199 Ill. 2d 130, 135 (2002). But our inquiry must always begin with the language of the statute itself, which is the surest and most reliable indicator
The statute at issue here is the escape statute, which provides that “[a] person convicted of a felony or charged with the commission of a felony who intentionally escapes from any penal institution or from the custody of an employee of that institution commits a Class 2 felony.”
” ‘Conviction’ means a judgment of conviction or sentence entered upon a plea of guilty or upon a verdict or finding of guilty of an offense, rendered by a legally constituted jury or by a court of competent jurisdiction authorized to try the case without a jury.”
720 ILCS 5/2-5 (West 1998).
Under both the plain language of this statute and the various provisions of the Juvenile Court Act cited by the State, juvenile adjudications are not mentioned as being included in the Code‘s definition of conviction. Nor has any Illinois case ever held that a juvenile adjudication constitutes a criminal conviction—although Illinois cases have specifically held that juvenile adjudications do not constitute convictions. See In re W.W., 97 Ill. 2d 53, 57 (1983); People v. Rankin, 297 Ill. App. 3d 818, 824 (1998). Additionally, we emphasize that the escape statute requires a prior felony conviction, not merely a conviction. We simply do not believe that the term “person convicted of a felony” can be read to include juvenile adjudications under the plain meaning of the existing statutory framework at issue here, especially when the nature of such adjudications are closely examined in comparison with the statutory language.
The Code‘s definition of “conviction” has two basic parts, both of which must be satisfied for a conviction to take place. The first clause requires a judgment or sentence entered upon a plea of guilty or upon a verdict or finding of guilty of an offense. The second clause requires that any verdict or finding of guilty must be rendered by a jury or a court authorized to try the case without a jury. Neither part of the definition has been satisfied under the facts of this case.
With respect to the first clause, we note that defendant was adjudicated delinquent on August 7, 1998, on an allegation of robbery. This is the predicate offense that is supposed to serve as his prior felony conviction for purposes of the escape charge. The Juvenile Court Act, however, did not provide for a “plea of guilty” or a “finding of guilty” of an offense at the time that defendant was adjudicated delinquent on an allegation of robbery in August 1998. Nor did the Act provide for a “sentence.” Instead a minor named in a delinquency petition in
The Juvenile Court Act was radically altered, however, after the date of defendant‘s August 7, 1998, delinquency adjudication and after the alleged offenses were committed in the present case. The General Assembly amended the Act with Public Act 90-590, effective January 1, 1999.
“(1) It is the intent of the General Assembly to promote a juvenile justice system capable of dealing with the problem of juvenile delinquency, a system that will protect the community, impose accountability for violations of law and equip juvenile offenders with
competencies to live responsibly and productively. To effectuate this intent, the General Assembly declares the following to be important purposes of the this Article: (a) To protect citizens from juvenile crime
(b) To hold each juvenile offender directly accountable for his or her acts.
(c) To provide an individualized assessment of each alleged and adjudicated delinquent juvenile, in order to rehabilitate and to prevent further delinquent behavior through the development of competency in the juvenile offender. As used in this Section, ‘competency’ means the development of educational, vocational, social, emotional and basic life skills which enable a minor to mature into a productive member of society.
(d) To provide due process, as required by the Constitution of the United States and the State of Illinois, through which each juvenile offender and all other interested parties are assured fair hearings at which legal rights are recognized and enforced.
(2) To accomplish these goals, juvenile justice policies developed pursuant to this Article shall be designed to:
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(b) Provide secure confinement for minors who present a danger to the community and make those minors understand that sanctions for serious crimes, particularly violent felonies, should be commensurate with the seriousness of the offense and merit strong punishment;
(c) Protect the community from crimes committed by minors;
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(j) Hold minors accountable for their unlawful behavior and not allow minors to think that their delinquent acts have no consequence for themselves and others.”
705 ILCS 405/5-101 (West 2000).
These amendments support the notion that a juvenile adjudication in 1998 was not considered a “sentence entered upon a plea of guilty” or a “verdict or finding of guilty of an offense.” As previously mentioned, the above-discussed changes to the Juvenile Court Act did not become effective until January 1, 1999, several months after defendant‘s juvenile adjudication. Accordingly, they have no application here other than to illustrate that the legislature could have satisfied the
The second clause of the definition requires that the finding of guilt be rendered by a “legally constituted jury or by a court of competent jurisdiction authorized to try the case without a jury.”
In Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 149 (1968), the Supreme Court called the right to trial by jury in criminal cases “fundamental to the American scheme of justice” and held that the right applied to state prosecutions under the due process clause whenever the right would attach under federal law in a criminal case. A right to trial by jury is afforded criminal defendants to prevent oppression by the government. Duncan, 391 U.S. at 155-56. As the Court in Duncan noted,
“The framers of the constitutions strove to create an independent judiciary but insisted upon further protection against arbitrary action. Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge. If the defendant preferred the common-sense judgment of a jury to the more tutored but perhaps less sympathetic reaction of the single judge, he was to have it.” Duncan, 391 U.S. at 156.
We believe that when the Code uses the phrase “authorized to try the case without a jury” (
Even if we were to consider the escape statute to be ambiguous, as the State urges, we still would not find that the legislative intent, as expressed in various provisions of the Juvenile Court Act, requires a different result. The policy that seeks to hold juveniles accountable for their actions and to protect the public does not negate the concept that rehabilitation remains a more important consideration in the juvenile justice system than in the criminal justice system and that there are still significant differences between the two, indicating that “the ideal of separate treatment of children is still worth pursuing.” McKeiver, 403 U.S. at 546 n.6.
More importantly, if we were to accept the State‘s position, it would mean that juveniles would have the “worst of both worlds,” one in which, unlike their adult counterparts, they are denied a right to a jury trial, yet their adjudications are deemed prior criminal convictions for the purpose of criminal statutes that require a prior conviction as an element of an offense, all the while without the statute specifically identifying an adjudication as a prior conviction. See United States v. Kent, 383 U.S. 541, 556 (1966) (“there may be grounds for concern that the child receives the worst of both worlds: that he gets neither the protections accorded to adults nor the solicitous care and regenerative treatment postulated for children“). When the United States Supreme Court held in McKeiver that a jury trial is not guaranteed by the federal Constitution in juvenile adjudications, it rested its holding mainly on the notion that juvenile proceedings are fundamentally different from criminal proceedings. McKeiver, 403 U.S. at 541-51. The plurality of the Court noted that juvenile proceedings are undergirded by the ideal of rehabilitation rather than punishment. The plurality feared the possibility that if a jury trial were mandated in juvenile proceedings, it would “put an end to what has been
“Finally, the arguments advanced by the juveniles here are, of course, the identical arguments that underlie the demand for the jury trial for criminal proceedings. The arguments necessarily equate the juvenile proceeding—or at least the adjudicative phase of it—with the criminal trial. Whether they should be so equated is our issue. Concern about the inapplicability of exclusionary and other rules of evidence, about the juvenile court judge‘s possible awareness of the juvenile‘s prior record and of the contents of the social file; about repeated appearances of the same familiar witnesses in the persons of juvenile and probation officers and social workers—all to the effect that this will create the likelihood of pre-judgment—chooses to ignore, it seems to us, every aspect of fairness, of concern, of sympathy, and of paternal attention that the juvenile court system contemplates.
If the formalities of the criminal adjudicative process are to be superimposed upon the juvenile court system, there is little need for its separate existence. Perhaps that ultimate disillusionment will come one day, but for the moment we are disinclined to give impetus to it.” McKeiver, 403 U.S. at 550-51.
McKeiver‘s reluctance to extend the right to a jury trial to juvenile proceedings and the absence of such a right in the Juvenile Court Act is ample reason to reject the notion that the 1999 amendments to the Act should be read to equate an adjudication with a criminal conviction in the present context. We are well aware that the 1999 amendments represent a shift from “the singular goal of rehabilitation to include the overriding
The question before us is to be distinguished from the somewhat analogous issue of whether a juvenile adjudication is considered a “prior conviction” for sentencing enhancement purposes under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000). In Apprendi, the Court stated that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” (Emphasis added.) Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 490. The federal circuits are divided over the question of whether nonjury juvenile adjudications can be characterized as “prior convictions” as that term is used in Apprendi. See United States v. Burge, 407 F.3d 1183 (11th Cir. 2005); United States v. Jones, 332 F.3d 688 (3d Cir. 2003); United States v. Smalley, 294 F.3d 1030 (8th Cir. 2002); United States v. Tighe, 266 F.3d 1187 (9th Cir. 2001). In each of these cases, defendants were charged with violating the Armed Career Criminal Act (the federal Act) (
The Ninth Circuit has held that nonjury juvenile adjudications may not be considered as prior convictions for Apprendi purposes to enhance a sentence under the federal Act (Tighe, 266 F.3d at 1191-95), but the Third, Eighth and Eleventh Circuits have held that they may be so used (Burge, 407 F.3d at 1187-91; Jones, 332 F.3d at 694-96; Smalley, 294 F.3d at 1031-33).3 In Tighe, the Ninth Circuit quoted the following language from Apprendi: ” ‘There is a vast difference between accepting the validity of a prior judgment of conviction entered in a proceeding in which the defendant had the right to a jury trial and the right to require the prosecutor to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and allowing the judge to find the required fact under a lesser standard of proof.’ ” Tighe, 266 F.3d at 1194, quoting Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 496. Tighe interpreted this language to require that “the ‘prior conviction’ exception to Apprendi‘s general rule must be limited to prior convictions that were themselves obtained through proceedings that included the right to a jury trial and proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” (Emphasis added.) Tighe, 266 F.3d at 1194. Accordingly, Tighe held that the defendant‘s sentence could not stand because the fact that the prior nonjury adjudication had actually occurred was not something that was presented to the jury. Tighe, 266 F.3d at 1194-95.
The majority of courts have not followed Tighe. See United States v. Burge, 407 F.3d 1183, 1190 (11th Cir. 2005)
We take no position here with respect to the division among the federal circuits. We only discuss the jurisprudence on the use of nonjury juvenile adjudications for Apprendi purposes because we find it helpful to our analysis to illustrate the important differences between the case before us and the federal cases cited above. In each of the federal cases, a statute specifically defined a “conviction” as a prior juvenile adjudication for purposes of the offense at issue. Here, in contrast, the legislature has not defined the term “conviction” in the escape statute to include juvenile adjudications. Moreover, the key issue in the present case involves proof of a prior conviction as an element of the offense where the applicable statute fails to define an “adjudication” as a “conviction.” Thus, the primary issue here turns on a question of statutory construction, while the principal issue in the federal cases turned on whether an adjudication could be classified as a prior conviction for Apprendi purposes, not on whether it could be
In the absence of a statute expressly defining a juvenile adjudication as a conviction, Illinois courts have consistently held that juvenile adjudications do not constitute convictions. See In re W.W., 97 Ill. 2d 53 (1983); People v. Rankin, 297 Ill. App. 3d 818 (1998). In In re W.W., a juvenile was adjudicated delinquent. On appeal, the appellate court assessed a $50 fee against the minor pursuant to a statute that entitled the State‘s Attorney to the fee for each appeal prosecuted or defended by him upon “conviction” of “the defendant.”
In Rankin, the defendant was convicted of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon. A prior criminal conviction for aggravated battery was used to serve as the predicate felony for the charge. In support of its sentencing argument, the State maintained that the defendant‘s prior juvenile adjudication, based on an allegation of residential burglary, could constitute a “conviction” for purposes of extended-term sentencing. The appellate court rejected the State‘s argument. In doing so, the appellate court noted that section 5-5-3.2 of the Unified Code of Corrections authorized extended-term sentencing when a defendant is convicted of a felony, ” ‘after having been previously convicted in Illinois or any other jurisdiction of the same or similar class felony or greater class
“This definition does not include juvenile adjudications. Further, a term of well-known legal significance can be presumed to have that meaning in a statute. Advincula v. United Blood Services, 176 Ill. 2d 1, 17 (1996). ‘Conviction’ is commonly known to mean ‘the result of a criminal trial which ends in a judgment or sentence that the accused is guilty as charged.’ Black‘s Law Dictionary 333 (6th ed. 1990).” (Emphasis added.) Rankin, 297 Ill. App. 3d at 824.
Rankin contrasted the situation before it with the use of juvenile delinquency adjudications in sentencing generally. It noted that subsection (a)(3) of section 5-5-3.2 of the Code expressly provides that courts may consider as aggravating factors in sentencing ” ‘a history of prior delinquency or criminal activity.’ ” (Emphasis added.)
We find In re W.W. and Rankin to be well reasoned and supportive of our position here. Similar to Rankin, we conclude that the legislature could have included juvenile adjudications within its general definition of “conviction” in the Code, or it could have mentioned juvenile adjudications in section 31-6 of the escape statute itself. It did not do so, and we are constrained to find that it had no intent to do so.
It is readily apparent that the legislature understands the need for specifically defining a juvenile adjudication as a
The State contends that the “excluded jurisdiction” provision contained in section 5-130(5)(a) of the Juvenile Court Act warrants a different result. We reject that contention. Section 5-130(5)(a) provides as follows:
“The definition of delinquent minor under Section 5-1204 of this Article shall not apply to any minor who is charged with a violation of subsection (a) of Section 31-6 or Section 32-10 of the Criminal Code of 1961 when the minor is subject to prosecution under the criminal laws of this State as a result of the application
of the provisions of Section 5-125, or subsection (1) or (2) of this Section. These charges and all other charges arising out of the same incident shall be prosecuted under the criminal laws of this State.” 705 ILCS 405/5-130(5)(a) (West 1998).
The State mistakenly believes that this statute cannot be read in harmony with the escape statute as interpreted by the appellate court. Section 5-130(5)(a) does not purport to define the offense of escape in any way. Rather, it only ensures the prosecution of a minor as an adult under the criminal laws for escape where the minor escapes from custody when he is subject to prosecution under the criminal laws of this state as a result of the transfer provisions listed in section 5-130(5)(a), namely, sections 5-125 and subsections (1) and (2) of section 5-130. These transfer provisions list situations in which a minor must be charged and tried as an adult. Section 5-130(5)(a) is thus consistent with the escape statute‘s alternative element that “[a] person *** charged with the commission of a felony who intentionally escapes from any penal institution or from the custody of an employee of that institution commits a Class 2 felony.” (Emphasis added.)
The legislative distinction apparently drawn between minors with juvenile delinquency adjudications and minors who have been convicted of felonies or who are currently subject to prosecution for felonies under the criminal law does not mean that a juvenile who has been adjudicated delinquent may leave a detention center at his own whim without consequences. Because the circuit court in juvenile proceedings maintains jurisdiction until the minor turns 21 years of age, the court would be free to exercise its discretion in modifying a minor‘s term of commitment, when possible, for any infraction involving a minor leaving a detention facility without authorization. See
Finally, we note that the cases relied upon by the State are easily distinguishable. See People ex rel. Madigan v. Snyder, 208 Ill. 2d 457 (2004); People v. Woods, 193 Ill. 2d 483 (2000); Fitzsimmons v. Norgle, 104 Ill. 2d 369 (1984); People v. Smith, 345 Ill. App. 3d 179 (2004); People v. Baaree, 315 Ill. App. 3d 1049 (2000). None of the State‘s cases hold that a juvenile adjudication is tantamount to a “conviction” in any context, nor do any of the cases even consider the question. Moreover, the general principles articulated in the State‘s cases are supportive of our analysis here. For example, in Baaree, the issue turned on defendant‘s age at the time he was “convicted”
In the present case, we hold that under the plain meaning of the escape statute, a juvenile who is adjudicated delinquent is not a “person convicted of a felony.” However, even if we were to consider the term “conviction” to be ambiguous, we still would not find a juvenile adjudication to be a conviction for purposes of the escape statute. Like Baaree, we would conclude that the State‘s interpretation is not favored over defendant‘s, and therefore the statute must be strictly construed in favor of the accused.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the appellate court.
Affirmed.