Mary Jane Theis
Thomas L. Kilbride
Note to Illinois lawmakers: Consider giving judges more power to decide when a child should be tried as an adult.
That’s the message the state’s top court sent in a written opinion Friday, though it validated most of the arguments against a defendant who was convicted of rape and sentenced in adult court to 36 years in prison.
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Thomas L. Kilbride authored the 6-1 decision, which concluded that his automatic transfer to adult court and subsequent sentence was not a “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment.
Although a string of U.S. Supreme Court rulings have stated that capital punishment and life without parole penalties are too harsh for minors, the 36-year sentence is “not comparable” to those punishments, the majority wrote.
And an Illinois statute, which requires juveniles who are at least 15 years old be sent to adult court if they are charged with crimes such as first-degree murder, armed robbery with a firearm or aggravated criminal sexual assault, is procedural instead of punitive, the court said.
But that doesn’t mean the court isn’t concerned about the transfer rule and the penalties it can create for juveniles.
“While modern research has recognized the effect that the unique qualities and characteristics of youth may have on juveniles’ judgment and actions, the automatic transfer provision does not,” the majority wrote.
“Indeed, the mandatory nature of that statute denies this reality. Accordingly, we strongly urge the General Assembly to review the automatic transfer provision based on the current scientific and sociological evidence indicating a need for the exercise of judicial discretion in determining the appropriate setting for the proceedings in these juvenile cases.”
Justice Mary Jane Theis took the majority’s concerns even further in an 18-page dissent, writing that the statute effectively acts as a punishment and should be considered unconstitutional.
She laced her dissent with excerpts of the legislative debate on the law, which echoed the “adult time for adult crimes” rally cry in the 1990s and which she said left “little doubt that legislators … considered the statute to be punitive.”
Theis wrote that criminal procedure laws that fail to take a defendant’s youth into account are problematic.
She added in her conclusion: “Our state, home of the country’s first juvenile court and once a leader in juvenile justice reform, should not be a place where we boast of locking up juveniles and throwing away the key.
“Illinois should be a place where youth matters, and we work to tailor punishment to fit the offense and the offender, as required by our federal and state constitutions. For juveniles, that starts with abolishing automatic transfers.”
Legislation to eliminate automatic transfers had been filed at the Statehouse as recently as this spring. However, state’s attorneys and others opposed it vigorously, and it may be a tough sell going forward.
‘A reasonable attempt’
The 36-page majority opinion overturned a 1st District Appellate Court ruling from 2012 authored by Justice P. Scott Neville Jr. and affirmed an earlier ruling by Cook County Associate Judge Ellen Beth Mandeltort.
Ronald Patterson was arrested in 2008 following a rape allegation by an employee at the mental health facility where he lived.
He was 15 years old at the time and had allegedly forced a female worker to park the van they were in and perform sex acts with him.
Police eventually found evidence of a struggle inside the van, and Patterson confessed to the attack after initially saying the worker was the one who attacked him.
However, Patterson claimed his confession should have been thrown out of court because police did not make a reasonable attempt to contact the Department of Child and Family Services — his legal guardian — before they questioned him.
Without a trusted adult by his side, Patterson argued, he was especially vulnerable to police questions.
The Supreme Court ruled the police did abide by a notification law that requires police to contact a minor’s legal guardian or someone concerned with his or her well-being after an arrest.
Police left voice messages with both the director of the treatment facility where he had lived for three years and his DCFS caseworker before questioning Patterson, the court noted.
Although the arrest and questioning took place on a Sunday night — a time few people are at work and able to answer their phones — and the Supreme Court indicated their efforts were “arguably not exemplary,” Kilbride wrote that the interrogating officers satisfied the requirement in Section 5-405(2) of the Juvenile Court Act that they make “a reasonable attempt” to notify a guardian.
“As enacted, the statute does not mandate the presence of a concerned adult or, even more critically, that actual notice be provided before the start of questioning,” Kilbride wrote.
“Section 5-405(2) simply requires that the police make a reasonable attempt to provide notification.”
‘Totality of the circumstances’
The “totality of the circumstances” supported the trial court’s initial finding that Patterson’s admission should not be suppressed, the court decided.
While finding that the police satisfied the notification requirement in the Juvenile Court Act, the court also shot down Patterson’s argument that he was a special-education student with limited comprehension and, thus, did not understand the weight of his confession.
The defense offered no evidence of his cognitive limitations, the court noted, and the trial judge found him to be “a very astute young man.”
The lack of evidence about Patterson’s mental abilities played into another one of his claims — that he had ineffective counsel at trial.
But the court again disagreed, writing that even if the trial judge had suppressed his statement, he failed to show how the outcome of his trial would have been any different.
Physical evidence of a struggle in the van, as well as fresh bruises on the victim’s body, contradicted Patterson’s testimony that she had initiated the sexual encounter.
“Given the overwhelming evidence corroborating the victim’s testimony and weighing against the defendant’s account, we are not persuaded that it is reasonably probable that a jury would have acquitted defendant even in the absence of a reference to his confession at trial,” Kilbride wrote.
The court also ruled against Patterson’s request that evidence of the woman’s sexual history be admitted at a new trial.
And although the court said the automatic-transfer rule was constitutional, it found the appellate court never determined whether Patterson’s sentence was excessive, so the 1st District justices should decide that issue on remand.
“I’m disappointed in the decision. We had a lot of good arguments to make on all the issues we raised,” said Assistant Appellate Defender Christopher M. Kopacz, who represented Patterson.
He said he hopes Theis’ dissent on automatic transfers “will pave the way for other courts to look at this issue more closely,” and his office hasn’t decided whether to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.
“A number of states have some (transfer) provisions similar to ours,” Kopacz said. “So it’s possible that it could be something the court could be interested in, but we haven’t decided yet.”
Alan J. Spellberg, a Cook County assistant state’s attorney, oversaw the case for the state. He could not be reached for comment.
The case is People v. Ronald Patterson, No. 115102.