Illinois Supreme Court

Trial clock doesn't stop for some juveniles

THE STATE Supreme Court ruled April 16 on the rights of juveniles charged with deliquency but whose cases are complicated with interlocutory appeals. In the consolidated case, Davis v. Vazquez and Daley v. Vazquez, the high court was forced to deal with the effect of its earlier ruling in People v. Martin, in which the court had said that the state has the right to appeal a lower court's ruling that a juvenile could not be tried as an adult.

In the present case two juveniles were charged with murder, and the state's motions to have them tried as adults were denied. The state appealed the denials based on the Martin case. The Juvenile Court set bail for each of the minors at $100,000, but the minors appealed based on section 4-2 of the Juvenile Court Act which mandates the release of juveniles to the custody of their parents without bail if the delinquency petitions against them are not adjudicated within 30 days. The state's appeals of the trial court's denial of its motions to try them as adults had stretched beyond the 30-day period.

In delivering the high court's ruling, Justice William G. Clark said that the time limit did not strictly apply in this case: "Section 4-2 was enacted in 1973, prior to People v. Martin. . .at a time when interlocutory appeals of transfer orders were not permitted. It is unreasonable to suppose that, had the General Assembly contemplated the possibility of such appeals, it would have required that they be completed within the maximum 30-day period. . . ."

On the question of bail for the juveniles, the court said: "When the State is appealing a transfer order [i.e. the denial of its motion to have a juvenile tried as an adult]. . .it is incumbent on the State to show the 'compelling reasons' that necessitate holding the minor to bail before bail can be required. . . . We hold that the minors in these cases were entitled to be admitted to bail, and that the juvenile court therefore had authority to set bail in an appropriate amount. . . ."

The third issue decided was that the Juvenile Court could order the state's attorney to file a neglect petition on behalf of a juvenile.

Justice Seymour Simon dissented on the first and second issues. He compared section 4-2 of the Juvenile Court Act with the speedy trial provision applied to adults, and noted that the legislature had provided for stopping the "clock" due to interlocutory appeals in the latter but not in the former.

Another section of the Controlled Substances Act ruled unconstitutional

SECTION 404 of the Illinois Controlled Substances Act violates the due process clause of the Illinois Constitution, the state Supreme Court ruled February 17, reversing both the circuit and appellate courts in the case of People v. Wagner. This was the second time the Supreme Court had found a section of the Controlled Substances Act unconstitutional. In an earlier decision, People v. Bradley, the court had ruled that section 402 (b) permitted a greater penalty for possession of a schedule IV controlled substance than section 401 (e) permitted for "delivery" of the same controlled substance.

In delivering the high court's ruling, Justice William G. Clark stated, "The defendant here was subject to a greater penalty for delivery of .4 grams of a harmless brown powder than a person who would have actually delivered any amount of a schedule IV or V controlled substance. . . . Here, as in Bradley, the less serious threat to the public carries a harsher punishment than the greater threat. . .it is not reasonable to assume that a person selling large dosages of valium should be subject to a less severe sentence than a person giving away a No-doz pill representing it to be an amphetamine."

The high court found that Wagner was not properly convicted and was entitled to a reversal of the conviction and expungement of the recorded felony. "Section 404 is not reasonably designed to remedy the evil which the legislature determined to be a greater threat to the public [delivery or possession of a controlled substance]. As such [it] violates the due process clause of the Illinois Constitution. The defendant's conviction under Section 404 cannot stand," concluded Clark.

In the dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Howard C. Ryan noted the legislature's concern with the problem of look-alike drugs and stated: "The majority of this court in this case, by holding that section 404 of the Illinois Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional, has substituted its opinion for that of the legislature. This court, and not the legislature, has determined that the delivery of a substance represented to be a controlled substance is not as great a threat to the public as is the delivery of a controlled substance."

36 | July 1982 | Illinois Issues