People v. WashingtonPeople v. Washington
¶ 1 Held: We affirm the circuit court‘s denial of defendant-appellant‘s motion for pretrial release following a continued detention hearing where defendant posed a real and present threat to the community.
¶ 2 On February 11, 2024, defendant-appellant, Aaron Washington, was arrested and subsequently charged by indictment for violation of various sections of the Criminal Code of 2012, including (1) armed habitual criminal, a Class X felony (
¶ 3 On February 12, 2024, the State filed a verified petition for a pretrial detention hearing, pursuant to sections 110-2 and 110-6.1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (Procedure Code) (
¶ 4 Now, in this interlocutory appeal, defendant argues that the circuit court erred in ordering continuing pretrial detention, in that the court improperly conducted the hearing, and that defendant did not constitute a real and present threat. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the decision of the circuit court.
¶ 5 I. BACKGROUND
¶ 6 A. Pretrial Detention Petition
“Arresting [o]fficers were alerted that defendant was waving a gun on public transportation, was subsequently found to have a gun in his possession, and carried a total of 28 bags of suspect heroin on his person. Furthermore, defendant has been convicted of six felonies, including a reduced armed robbery charge in 2001, aggravated battery in 2002, and attempt murder in 2007.”1
¶ 8 The petition included a supplemental “Public Safety Assessment” (PSA), conducted by “pretrial services.” The assessment rated defendant‘s “new criminal activity score” as a “4” out of “6,” and a “failure to appear” score as a “3” out of “6.” It rated his “new violent criminal activity flag” as a “no,” but noted that he had both prior misdemeanor and felony convictions, including one violent felony, as well as a prior sentence. It also noted that defendant had failed to appear in court on a matter older than two years old. Its overall assessment was that defendant‘s “pretrial supervision level” was a “2.”
¶ 9 B. Initial Pretrial Detention Hearing
¶ 11 Second, the court found that “defendant pose[d] 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.” Specifically, the court found that defendant “possessed a gun” and had a “history of violence including an armed robbery reduced,” “attempt murder in 2002,” “aggravated [battery] in 2002,” and a “history of violence and using weapons.” The court further noted that defendant had possessed a gun on the CTA and also reported having mental health issues.
¶ 12 Third, the court found that “[n]o condition or combination of conditions set forth” in section 110-10(b) of the Procedure Code could “mitigate the real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons or community based on the specific articulable facts of the case,” and that “[l]ess restrictive conditions would not avoid a real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons or the community, based on the specific and articulable facts of the case.” As to this point, the court found that defendant had “a history of events over [the] last 20 years,” had fled from CTA and law enforcement, had possessed a weapon on the CTA, and suffered from “mental
¶ 13 Finally, also on that same day, the court entered a “Healthcare Order,” which indicated that defendant had reported that he was suffering issues related to “mental health.” As such, the order required that defendant be promptly evaluated by appropriate healthcare personnel.
¶ 14 C. Other Proceedings
¶ 15 On March 7, 2024, an order entered by the circuit court indicated that defendant‘s charges had been superseded by direct indictment.3 At some point prior to March 28, 2024, defendant filed a motion for pretrial release. However, this motion does not appear in the appellate record.
¶ 16 D. March 28 Hearing
¶ 17 On March 28, 2024, a hearing was held on what presumably was defendant‘s motion for release. However, this is not expressly indicated in the report of proceedings by any of the parties, including the court. Specifically, the following exchange occurred:
“THE COURT: This is up for discovery check today.
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: It is up for detention. [Defendant] was just arraigned on Wednesday last week.
THE COURT: Okay. Oh, all right. State, are you ready to proceed?
[THE STATE]: Yes, your Honor.
***
[THE STATE]: Thank you, your Honor. The defendant is before you charged with a Class X armed habitual actual criminal, which is non-probationable felony. Based upon the charge, as well as, your Honor, I‘ll go into his background in a moment. Your Honor, the facts of this matter are on February 12th of 2024 at approximately 10:40 in the evening, police dispatched to a call of a person [waving] a gun at the CTA Red Line station.
***
[THE STATE]: Police proceeded to the CTA Red Line and they observed the defendant running out the station matching the description that was given to the 911 dispatch.
Police approached the defendant and asked the defendant if he had any weapons on him to which he related no. The police conducted a protective pat-down and revealed a hard L-shaped object that was weighted in the defendant‘s pocket, they believed to be a firearm.
They then recovered a loaded—they did recover a loaded handgun, your Honor from the defendant‘s pocket[.]”
¶ 18 1. The State‘s Continued Proffer
¶ 19 The State further indicated that during a custodial search, police officers recovered four small plastic bags of suspect heroin from defendant‘s person and learned that defendant did not have a valid Firearm Owner‘s Identification Card or a valid concealed carry license. A further
¶ 20 Regarding defendant‘s background, the State proffered that defendant had seven prior felony convictions. His most recent conviction was in 2021, for possession of a controlled substance, for which he served one years’ time at the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC), with discharge in August 2022. In 2007, defendant was convicted of aggravated battery, which had been reduced from an initial charge of attempted murder,4 for which he served eight years at IDOC. In 2002, defendant was convicted of aggravated battery of a police officer “where he received it years in Illinois Department (sic).” In 2001, defendant was convicted of attempted aggravated robbery, for which he served four years at IDOC. In 2000, defendant was convicted of retail theft, for which he served two years at IDOC. Last, in 1992, defendant was convicted of two separate felonies for residential burglary, for which he received a four-year sentence at IDOC for both convictions.
¶ 21 In its conclusion, the State said that it believed the defendant to “pose a real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons in the community based on the articulable facts.” It then requested that the court “deny [its] motion to release the defendant based upon the pretrial detention hearing.”5
¶ 22 2. Defendant‘s Argument in Mitigation and for Pretrial Release
¶ 23 In mitigation, defense counsel asserted that defendant was a lifelong Chicago resident who had attended Hyde Park High School and had received his GED. Defendant also earned an
¶ 24 Defense counsel further indicated that defendant had various health issues—specifically, that he was going blind in his left eye and was currently receiving treatment at University of Illinois Chicago. To prevent total blindness, defendant required surgery with extensive post-surgical care. Defense counsel further admitted that defendant suffered from substance abuse issues and had been planning to attend a 28-day rehabilitation program, if he were to be released.
¶ 25 E. Circuit Court Oral Ruling
¶ 26 At the conclusion of the hearing, the following colloquy occurred:
“THE COURT: Well, the court would note that the defendant has a long criminal history with several times having been in [IDOC], including violent crimes. The nature of this case where it‘s a man [waving] [sic] a gun, it‘s not just possessing a gun, he‘s [waving] [sic] it and then when the police arrive, he‘s running, those are concerns. In addition—and during the course of the search and arrest, he‘s found to have 28 baggies containing—which apparently contained heroin, charged with that in Count 3, you know, these *** dope and guns seem to go together in a bad way. I‘m concerned about the safety of the public. He‘s a convicted felon. He‘s running around with dope and guns. I don‘t think electronic monitoring would be appropriate given this—the nature of his background and the charges before the [c]ourt that would be an appropriate consideration given that he gets two days off for personal care, there will be no monitoring—I don‘t know that the Sheriff‘s office is equipped to monitor what could be a violent felon. He‘s charged with a Class X felony, which is non-probationable.
THE COURT: It sounds like the State has a pretty good case. The proof is evident and the presumption great, the defendant will be detained.”
¶ 27 Following the court‘s ruling, the court asked if the State had a “petition or order” for the court to sign. Subsequently, the following exchange occurred:
“[THE STATE]: I do have an order, your Honor, just one moment.
THE COURT: I mean, was he already in first appearance court? Was he held?
[THE STATE]: Yes, your honor.
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Yes.
[THE STATE]: He was held on, it looks like, February 12, 2024. There was a petition that we filed—
THE COURT: Okay.
[THE STATE]: —and it was granted at that time.
THE COURT: Okay. So, Mr. Washington, you [have] a right to appeal this decision. You have to do it within 14 days. So this was just recently arraigned. We need a date to check on the status of discovery?
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Yes, please, Judge. I would ask if we could go into May.”
¶ 28 F. Circuit Court Written Ruling
¶ 29 The court‘s oral ruling was memorialized in a written order, titled “Order after Pretrial Detention Hearing,” which was entered that same day. First, the court found that the State had shown, by clear and convincing evidence, that the proof was evident or the presumption great that defendant had committed an eligible offense for pretrial detention, but the order did not list the specific offense. With regard to the second element, concerning real and present threat, the court
¶ 30 This appeal followed.6
¶ 31 II. ANALYSIS
¶ 32 A. The Procedure Code
¶ 33 The Procedure Code presumes that all persons charged with an offense shall be eligible for pretrial release prior to conviction.
¶ 35 The appeal before us involves a different subsection of the Procedure Code following an order of initial detainment, which shares some commonalities but is not identical. See People v. Thomas, 2024 IL App (1st) 240479, ¶ 14. Specifically, section 110-6.1(i-5) provides that,
“[a]t each subsequent appearance of the defendant before the court, the judge must find that 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.”
725 ILCS 5/110-6.1(i-5) (West 2022).
See also People v. Harris, 2024 IL App (2d) 240070, ¶ 37 (applying this subsection to motions made by a party or on the court‘s own motion). Both the State and defendant may appeal an order resulting from those proceedings.
¶ 36 With this framework in mind, we now turn to the merits of defendant‘s appeal.
¶ 37 B. Standard of Review
¶ 39 As noted prior, section 110-6.1(i-5) requires that, at any subsequent appearance of a defendant following initial detention findings, the circuit court must conduct some review of the appropriateness of defendant‘s continued detention. Although it must similarly make findings based on the specific and articulable facts of the case, continued detention determinations “are not subject to every statutory requirement that applies” to the initial hearing. Harris, 2024 IL App (2d) 240070, ¶ 37; see Mulbrandon Casey, 2024 IL App (3d) 230568, ¶ 13 (“[T]he Code does not require the court to again make specific findings that the State proved the three propositions by clear and convincing evidence as required at the initial hearing.“). Rather, the court need only consider whether continued detention is necessary to avoid a safety threat or to prevent willful flight.
¶ 40 The appropriate standard of review for pretrial detention orders remains unresolved and the subject of considerable debate among the appellate districts, and even among different
¶ 41 C. Arguments
¶ 42 Procedurally, the State contends that defendant‘s appeal is forfeited for a variety of reasons.7 It first points out that defendant‘s basis for appeal as contained within his notice of appeal explicitly challenged the State‘s failure to meet its burden in demonstrating that there were no conditions or combination of conditions to mitigate any threat posed by defendant. According to the State, this language tracks the defendant‘s original detention order of February 12, 2024, which had not been previously appealed. Assuming that defendant actually challenges the original
¶ 43 We turn to the notice of appeal. The form order indicates that defendant expressly sought to challenge the findings and rulings made by the court on March 28, 2024, and not the February 12, 2024 initial detention order. However, upon further examination of the notice of appeal, we agree with the State that defendant‘s notice and the memorandum filed in support of the appeal are inconsistent. Specifically, on the form order, defense counsel did not check the box indicating that he sought to challenge any findings that defendant constituted a real and present danger. Instead, counsel solely checked the following box:
“The State failed to meet its burden by proving by clear and convincing evidence that no condition or combination of conditions can mitigate the 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 defendant‘s willful flight.”
Defense counsel then wrote, in a single sentence, that defendant “could be placed on [EMS] or pretrial curfew.” Thus, defendant did not challenge what would have been the sole issue before the court on a continued detention hearing—namely, that “continued detention [was] necessary to avoid a real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons or the community, based on
¶ 44 In contrast, defendant‘s brief is dedicated to the lack of evidence proffered in support of him continuing to be a real and present threat, none of which was actually discussed by defense counsel during the hearing or raised in the notice of appeal. Moreover, defendant does not make any comment on the discrepancies between the filed brief and what was expressly challenged in the notice.
¶ 45 Initially, we must comment on defendant‘s barebones notice filed in support of his appeal. At the time of filing, our rules required defendant to describe his grounds for appeal in his notice in detail. See
¶ 46 However, the inconsistencies between the notice of appeal and the filed memorandum are more concerning. It was presumably defendant‘s motion for release that triggered the March 28,
¶ 47 On that point, however, and notwithstanding forfeiture, we pause to comment on the circumstances of the March 28, 2024 hearing. Defendant‘s first argument for reversal, which also was not raised in the notice of appeal and thus must also be considered forfeited, was that the circuit court improperly assessed the merits of his continued detention by the wrong section and standard of the Procedure Code. Specifically, defendant asserts that section 110-6.1(i-5) should be assessed by “subsequent review” standards, which are distinctive from initial detention hearings, citing Thomas, 2024 IL App (1st) 240479, in support. Defendant reasons that the court did not follow protocol when it determined that the proof was evident or presumption great that defendant committed a detainable offense, and as such engaged in a full-blown detention hearing without having the statutory authority to do so, citing People v. Jones, 2024 IL App (1st) 240515-U. In
¶ 48 Based on the report of proceedings and documentary record, it is clear to us that there was confusion regarding the proper procedures for the continued detention hearing. First, it appears that the March 28, 2024 hearing was triggered by defendant‘s motion for release. However, as we have noted prior, no such motion was included in the record, which we add was defendant‘s burden to bear. Therefore, we cannot discern the reasons articulated by defense counsel concerning defendant‘s continued detention beyond what was stated during the hearing.
¶ 49 Next, we can glean from the record that it was unclear to the circuit court at what stage of proceedings defendant‘s case was currently situated. However, this confusion can be attributed to all involved. Beginning with the initial exchange between the parties, the circuit court appeared to believe the matter was placed on its docket for status on discovery. Although the circuit court was corrected by defense counsel that the matter was up for “detention,” defense counsel did not indicate to the court that it was actually up for continued detention proceedings, let alone on his own motion for release. Moreover, the court never acknowledged that it had read any such motion, let alone received a copy of it to begin with. Finally, despite the matter being procedurally up on defendant‘s motion, the State proceeded first and proffered the reasons for why it believed detention was necessary. Indeed, the State never once indicated that defendant was already detained until the very end of its argument, when it included a request for relief that defendant‘s motion should be denied “based upon the pretrial detention hearing.”
¶ 50 Moving forward, it is also clear from the court‘s oral ruling and subsequent post-ruling comments that it believed it was conducting a full-fledged pretrial detention hearing. The court
¶ 51 Finally, we look to the written order entered by the court that same day. The record reflects that the court entered findings on all three elements required for an initial detention hearing. See
¶ 52 However, our observations are not fatal to the circuit court‘s ultimate finding that defendant should continue to be detained. Our court has recognized that the Procedure Code does not provide for repeated, comprehensive detention hearings. See People v. Stokes, 2024 IL App (1st) 232022-U, ¶ 36. The State also does not need to file a new petition each and every time it seeks continued detention of a given defendant, which it did not do here. See
¶ 54 Of course, although there are fewer findings for the court to make in a continued detention hearing, the court must still expressly adhere to the statute in finding that continued detention is necessary. See People v. Shaw, 2024 IL App (1st) 232021-U, ¶¶ 25-26 (continued detention hearings still require findings of a defendant‘s real and present threat based on the specific and articulable facts of the case and cannot be based on acceptance of a different judge‘s prior ruling for initial detention); Stokes, 2024 IL App (1st) 232022-U, ¶¶ 27-28, 31-32; but see Jones, 2024 IL App (1st) 240515, ¶¶ 5-6 (although acknowledging that subsequent detention hearings do not
¶ 55 Here, the court also appeared to make full-fledged findings regarding defendant‘s detention, but only did so after hearing the State‘s proffer and taking into account defendant‘s arguments for mitigation. Notwithstanding the confusion apparent from the report of proceedings, we do not believe the court‘s overly comprehensive findings exceeded its powers under the Procedure Code. Put simply, the court still found that defendant constituted a real and present threat, and thus still made the requisite finding required under section 110-6.1(i-5). Moreover, as discussed above, this type of hearing requires fewer findings than what would otherwise be required on an initial detention petition, which implies that the court found that the State had satisfied an even more stringent burden of proof than necessary.
¶ 56 Finally, when examining the court‘s overall ruling, we cannot say that the ultimate decision to detain was unjustified. In determining whether a given defendant continues to pose a real and present threat to the safety of the community, the Procedure Code allows courts to consider, among others, the nature and circumstances of the charged crimes; defendant‘s history and characteristics, including prior criminal and psychological background; defendant‘s access to any weapons; and any other factors speaking to defendant‘s propensity or reputation for violent or assaultive behavior. See
¶ 57 As such, when reviewing the record as a whole, we do not find reversible error in the circuit court‘s ultimate determination that defendant‘s continued detention was necessary. Accordingly, we affirm the detention order.
¶ 58 III. CONCLUSION
¶ 59 For the reasons stated, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
¶ 60 Affirmed.