A state appellate panel on Wednesday upheld the conviction of a man who was arrested for fighting with a sheriff’s deputy in a Daley Center courtroom.

The 1st District Appellate Court rejected Ronnie Freneey’s arguments that would overturn his conviction of attempting to disarm a peace officer and aggravated battery of a peace officer in the 2012 skirmish.

Freneey argued on appeal that the prosecution’s witnesses were discredited by his own witnesses’ testimony. He also contended he was defending himself from the deputy and that there was insufficient evidence showing he intended to take the deputy’s service weapon.

But the panel upheld Freneey’s conviction in a 12-page opinion. Freneey was sentenced to three years in prison.

“The state showed that [the officer]’s force against Freneey was not unlawful,” Justice Michael B. Hyman wrote, and that “it was in response to Freneey’s threatening behavior towards another litigant.”

The fight — and Freneey’s arrest — came following a Jan. 27, 2012, probate court hearing before Circuit Judge Ann Collins-Dole in which Freneey was a party.

Freneey and his niece, Erica Freneey, each sought to become the guardian of Freneey’s wheelchair-bound mother. Neither side was represented an attorney; Ellen E. Douglass, the owner of the Law Offices of Ellen E. Douglass, was appointed as guardian ad litem for Freneey’s mother.

According to multiple witnesses who testified during Freneey’s trial, Freneey was “very emotional” during the probate hearing.

Following the bench trial, Colllins-Dole exited Courtroom 1809 while Freneey, Douglass and others waited in the courtroom. At that time, Erica Freneey went to hug her great aunt.

This prompted Freneey to yell obscenities at his niece and approach her with his arm raised, according to Cook County Sheriff’s Deputy Matthew Crawley.

Crawley said he told Freneey he was under arrest. Freeney fought back, and the two tumbled to the ground. During the fight, Crawley said he felt Freneey pulling at his gun, but he said he kept one hand on his holster to protect it.

The ensuing commotion led Circuit Judge John P. Callahan Jr. and additional sheriff’s deputies to flood into the courtroom. Callahan held Freneey’s legs down while Crawley handcuffed him, according to details in the prosecutors’ appellate brief.

Crawley had cuts and bruises on his face; he said he didn’t notice when he started bleeding.

Freneey testified he did not curse or raise his arm at his niece, but that Crawley attacked him when he stood up to leave.

Freneey voiced fear that Crawley was staging a fight between them as a pretense for shooting him. Freneey admitted to feeling for Crawley’s gun, but he said it was only to check to see if it was there, and that he was not trying to take it.

Freneey was convicted in November 2013 after a bench trial and sentenced to three years in prison by Cook County Associate Judge Dennis J. Porter.

According to state records, Freneey was incarcerated at Shawnee Correctional Center in Vienna until he was paroled on Jan. 21, 2015.

On appeal, Freneey argued prosecutors never showed he intended to take Crawley’s gun. The panel responded, however, that all they needed to show was that Freneey was resisting arrest and that the gun was being touched.

“[T]he trial court could reasonably find that Freneey would have been capable of taking Crawley’s gun if he was capable of grabbing the holster long enough for Crawley to pin the gun in place with one hand,” Hyman wrote.

Freneey also contended his witness testimony discredited Crawley’s testimony because they contradict each other. But the panel pointed out that Crawley’s testimony was corroborated by evidence of his injuries.

“The trial court could credit Crawley’s version of events — that Freneey was about to strike Erica Freneey and then struck Crawley while Crawley attempted to restrain him — over Freneey’s story that Crawley pantomimed an entire wrestling match to make Freneey look like the aggressor,” Hyman wrote. “The trial judge resolves conflicts in the evidence.

The panel also soundly rejected Freneey’s self-defense claim on multiple grounds. It sided with Crawley that the force he used to restrain Freneey was not excessive. The fact that other police officers came in to restrain him does not show Crawley used excessive force.

Hyman also noted that Freneey’s appeal tried to have it both ways: He cannot argue he was passive and also that he fought back against Crawley in self-defense.

“Self-defense is an all-or-nothing proposition,” Hyman wrote.

But even if Freneey’s claim wasn’t hampered by this contradiction, Hyman wrote that prosecutors defeated one of the six elements needed for a successful self-defense claim: that Freneey was faced with unlawful force.

Freneey also argued he was denied a fair trial because Porter “misremembered” a portion of Douglass’ testimony.

But this had no impact on Porter’s decision because other parts of Douglass’ testimony were corroborated by the other witnesses in the courtroom, the panel said.

Freneey was represented by Assistant State Appellate Defender Rachel M. Kindstrand.

Kindstrand’s supervisor, Charles W. Hoffman, expressed disappointment over the panel’s ruling in an interview. However, he said the office has not decided whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

The state was represented by Cook County Assistant State’s Attorneys Alan J. Spellberg, Christine Cook and Tasha Marie Kelly. Spellberg said he was happy with the justices’ ruling.

Justices Daniel J. Pierce and John B. Simon concurred with the opinion.

The case is People v. Ronnie Freneey, 2016 IL App (1st) 140328.