Quick Takes on Illinois Supreme Court Opinions Issued Thursday, June 4, 2020
The Illinois Supreme Court handed down three opinions on Thursday, June 4. In People v. Coty, the court declined to extend the protections of Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), to an intellectually disabled adult. In Williamson County Board of Commissioners v. The Board of Trustees of the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, the court found that amended section 7-137.2(a) of the Illinois Pension Code was unconstitutional. In Rios v. Bayer Corp., the court dismissed the case for lack of specific personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant as to the claims of out-of-state plaintiffs for personal injuries suffered outside of Illinois from a device manufactured outside of Illinois.
By Kerry J. Bryson, Office of the State Appellate Defender
Today, the court declined to extend the protections of Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), to an intellectually disabled adult. William Coty was originally sentenced to a term of natural life imprisonment following his conviction of predatory criminal sexual assault committed when he was 46 years old. A natural life term was mandatory because Coty had a prior conviction for aggravated criminal sexual assault which also involved a child.
Coty subsequently obtained resentencing through a 2-1401 petition in which he alleged that his life sentence was unconstitutional under the eighth amendment of the United States constitution and the proportionate penalties clause of the Illinois constitution because the mandatory sentencing scheme prevented the sentencing judge from considering his intellectual disability. The trial court dismissed that petition, but the appellate court ultimately agreed with Coty and found the life sentence unconstitutional as applied.
Following the new sentencing hearing, Coty was resentenced to a term of 50 years of imprisonment, to be served at 85% pursuant to truth-in-sentencing requirements. On appeal from resentencing, Coty argued that the sentence was an abuse of discretion and that it was a de facto life sentence which was unconstitutional as applied to him.
The appellate court agreed that defendant’s sentence was unconstitutional as applied, in violation of the proportionate penalties clause, when it was imposed without the procedural safeguards of Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002) (precluding death sentence for intellectually disabled individuals) and Miller and its progeny. The appellate court was critical of the failure to present updated information about defendant’s intellectual disability at resentencing and remanded for a second resentencing, instructing the trial court to “give serious consideration to the attendant characteristics of the defendant’s intellectual disability”.
In the Illinois Supreme Court, the issue was whether a natural life sentence, either mandatory or de facto, is permissible for an intellectually disable adult twice convicted of a sex offense against a child, and to what extent Atkins factors must be considered prior to imposing a discretionary de facto life sentence. While the state had not appealed the original decision vacating the mandatory life sentence and remanding for resentencing, the court concluded that it could consider that judgment because the Supreme Court has broad authority over all matters addressed during the course of the litigation.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court concluded that a mandatory life sentence for an intellectually disabled individual is constitutionally permissible. In reaching this conclusion, the court noted that the mandatory life sentencing statute in question had already been upheld with regard to a non-intellectually disabled adult in People v. Huddleston, 212 Ill. 2d 107 (2004). And, despite Coty’s intellectual disability, the much of the reasoning of Huddleston was equally applicable here. Specifically, the legislature has the power to determine punishment and could reasonably conclude that a life sentence is appropriate for individuals who repeatedly commit sex offenses against children. The psychological impact of sex offenses on children are significant, and mandatory life sentences are aimed at protecting the physical and emotional well-being of youth. And, the legislature may mandate a life sentence as an appropriate means of addressing the risk of recidivism, especially here where the life sentence was triggered by conviction of a subsequent sex offense against a child.
The court rejected the arguments that an intellectually disabled person’s differences in culpability, future dangerousness, and rehabilitative potential warranted a different conclusion. While the legislature has recognized intellectual disability as a statutory mitigating factor, it can also indicate a probability of future dangerousness where the evidence supports such consideration. Here, the court found such evidence from the fact of Coty’s prior sexual assault conviction. Thus, the factors identified in Atkins as suggesting reduced culpability – specifically, a diminished capacity to (1) understand and process information, (2) communicate, (3) learn from experiences, (4) engage in logical reasoning, and (5) control impulses – were the same things which suggested Coty’s continuing danger to reoffend here.
The court also rejected the argument that diminished mental capacity was indicative of a greater rehabilitative potential similar to youth and its attendant characteristics as identified in the Miller line of cases. Unlike youth, intellectual disability is a relatively static condition, and is not the sort of transient characteristic suggesting potential for rehabilitation that lies at the heart of the Miller cases.
The court did not reimpose the original life sentence, although it concluded that its supervisory authority would have permitted it to do so. Instead, because the state asked only that the appellate court’s decision be reversed, the court limited the relief to that request, noting that there was no practical difference between allowing the 50-year de facto life sentence to stand or reimposing a natural life sentence.
By Joanne R. Driscoll, Forde & O’Meara LLP
Amendments in 2016 creating a new section 7-137.2(a) of the Illinois Pension Code (40 ILCS 5/7-137.2(a) (West 2016)), altered the certification process and eligibility requirements for participation by elected county board members in the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF). The question before the court was whether these amendments violate the pension protection clause of article XIII, section 5, of the Illinois Constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. XIII, § 5). In a unanimous decision written by Justice Kilbride, the court affirmed the circuit court’s holding that amended section 7-137.2(a) was unconstitutional.
Section 7-137.2 of the Pension Code, as amended, required for the first time that (1) all county boards certify within 90 days of each general election that their county board members were required to work sufficient hours to meet the hourly standard for IMRF participation and (2) county board members who participate in IMRF submit monthly time sheets demonstrating that they met the annual hourly standard. Thereafter, the IMRF issued a memorandum instructing that for a county board member to be eligible for IMRF participation, the county board must adopt a resolution within 90 days of each election or reelection of a county board member certifying that the position will require the performance of at least that county’s applicable hourly standard. The failure to do this would result in the entire board becoming ineligible for IMRF participation as of the last day of the month in which the resolution could have been adopted.
Plaintiff Gentry was reelected to the Williamson County Board of Commissioners in November 2016, but the required resolution by the board was not timely filed. The IMRF notified Gentry and the county’s other two commissioners, Ellis and Marlo, that they were no longer eligible for continued IMRF participation. There is no dispute that all three satisfied the requirements for IMRF participation prior to the 2016 amendment of section 7-137.2. They appealed, arguing among other things that their continued participation in the IMRF was constitutionally protected.
The court agreed. Its analysis began with a summary of “well-developed” jurisprudence on the Illinois Constitution’s pension protection clause, which effectively prohibits unilateral legislative action that diminishes or impairs the constitutionally protected benefit. That jurisprudence shows that, as to the plaintiffs in this case, their protections ensued when they became IMRF participants and continued so long as they satisfied the contractual terms for public pension system participation existing at the time of their initial application for membership in IMRF.
The court rejected the IMRF’s attempt to distinguish this case from other pension cases because in those cases pension benefits were decreased whereas, here, benefits remained the same and could be lost only by a failure to act by the county board. According to the court, the Constitution prohibits the legislature from unilaterally imposing any new limitations or requirements on public pension benefits that did not exist when the public employee was hired. Here, the legislature's unilateral decision to create section 7-137.2(a) effectively imposes a new requirement for continued IMRF participation that did not exist when plaintiffs began their public employment.
By Michael T. Reagan, Law Offices of Michael T. Reagan
Justice Theis’ lead sentence frames the issue and foreshadows the outcome of these claims for injuries alleged to have been caused by an implanted contraceptive device far more efficiently than paraphrasing could. “At issue in these consolidated interlocutory appeals is whether, consistent with the due process requirements of the Illinois Constitution and the Constitution of the United States, Illinois may exercise specific personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant as to the claims of out-of-state plaintiffs for personal injuries suffered outside of Illinois from a device manufactured outside of Illinois.” Noting that this case was to be resolved under federal constitutional principles in the absence of an argument to the contrary, and finding that Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017) was analogous and controlling, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed the courts below and held that defendant Bayer’s motion to dismiss the nonresident plaintiffs’ claims for lack of personal jurisdiction was to be granted.
Rios v. Bayer Corp. was consolidated with a similar action, Hamby v. Bayer Corp. Both cases involved Illinois residents as lead plaintiffs with a total of more than 150 non-resident plaintiffs from at least 25 states asserting that they were injured as the result of the implantation of Essure permanent birth control devices. The non-resident plaintiffs pointed to clinical trials conducted in Illinois, that Illinois was used as a testing ground for its physician training program for the device, and that a marketing program conducted in Illinois spread misinformation nationwide. The court noted that similar allegations were made in other cases about such conduct in other states.
The court stated that defendants do not dispute that they purposefully directed activities toward Illinois. “Yet, the question here is whether the nonresident plaintiffs’ claims arise out of, or relate to, those activities in any meaningful sense of the terms. We find that they do not.” In finding that Bristol-Myers Squibb controlled, the court noted the fate of the California Supreme Court, as having been “chided...for permitting the exercise of specific personal jurisdiction without identifying an adequate link between the state and the nonresidents’ claims.”
Justice Kilbride, joined by Justice Neville, specially concurred. That opinion was completely respectful of the court’s opinion, and joined in its reasoning. However, Justice Kilbride expressed his concern with the analysis of the Supreme Court of the United States in Bristol-Myers, and stated his agreement with Justice Sotomayor’s dissent. He further noted what he regarded to be the impracticality in forcing claims to be dispersed among states when the issues were still being tried in Illinois for the resident plaintiffs.
This opinion is a useful compendium of the structure of personal jurisdiction analysis. Also, an interesting innovation occurred in the circuit court. Each of these cases were assigned to separate trial judges. However, they conducted a joint hearing on Bayer’s motions to dismiss each case. Separate orders were then issued, each with the same outcome.