Supreme Court Summaries

Opinions filed February 22, 2008

No. 104468 People v. Smith

      Appellate citation: 371 Ill. App. 3d 817.

      JUSTICE FREEMAN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

      Chief Justice Thomas and Justices Fitzgerald, Kilbride, Garman, Karmeier, and Burke concurred in the judgment and opinion.

      This Champaign County defendant pled guilty in 2004 to possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. Over a year after this judgment, and after affirmance on appeal, he filed a pro se motion for sentence correction, challenging the constitutionality of the mandatory supervised release portion of his sentence. This motion was denied as frivolous, and after it was, the circuit court informed the warden of the institution where Smith was confined that, pursuant to statute, his good-conduct credit should be reduced because of his latest unsuccessful legal maneuver.

      Smith filed a notice of appeal. In his brief in the appellate court, he contested reduction of his good-conduct credit, but his notice of appeal had referred only to the original judgment. The appellate court affirmed the results reached below, and the defendant appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.

      Rather than reach the merits, the supreme court found a defect in the appellate court’s jurisdiction. Smith’s notice of appeal to that court specified what was being appealed from as the underlying judgment, rather than the circuit court’s action on the motion to correct sentence.

      The cause was remanded to the appellate court so that it could give consideration to the issue of its jurisdiction.