People v. Galarza

2023 IL 127678

216 N.E.3d 834

466 Ill.Dec. 1

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee,

v.Mattison J. GALARZA, Appellant.

Docket No. 127678

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Filed February 2, 2023

James E. Chadd, State Appellate Defender, Thomas A. Karalis, Deputy Defender, and Adam N. Weaver, Assistant Appellate Defender, of the Office of the State Appellate Defender, of Ottawa, for appellant.

Kwame Raoul, Attorney General, of Springfield (Jane Elinor Notz, Solicitor General, and Katherine M. Doersch and Jason F. Krigel, Assistant Attorneys General, of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

JUSTICE HOLDER WHITE delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Following a March 2018 stipulated bench trial, the Will County circuit court found defendant, Mattison J. Galarza, guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) ( 625 ILCS 5/11-501(a)(1) (West 2016)), failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident (id. § 11-601(a)), and operating an uninsured motor vehicle (id. § 3-707). Defendant appealed, arguing (1) the State failed to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident and operating an uninsured motor vehicle and (2) his stipulated bench trial was tantamount to a guilty plea, such that the trial court erred in failing to admonish him pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 402(a) (eff. July 1, 2012). The appellate court affirmed defendant's conviction for failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident, finding the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant drove carelessly and failed to reduce speed to avoid colliding with the tree. 2021 IL App (3d) 190129-U, ¶¶ 19-20, 2021 WL 9748196. As to the conviction for operating an uninsured motor vehicle, the State conceded error, and the court accepted the State's confession of error and reversed the operating an uninsured motor vehicle conviction. Id. ¶ 24. The court further determined the trial court was not required to admonish defendant pursuant to Rule 402(a), as defendant's stipulated bench trial was not tantamount to a guilty plea. Id. ¶ 27.

¶ 2 In this appeal, defendant argues (1) the State failed to prove him guilty of failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident beyond a reasonable doubt and (2) his stipulated bench trial was tantamount to a guilty plea, thus the trial court erred when it failed to admonish him pursuant to Rule 402(a). For the following reasons, we affirm.

¶ 3 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 4 In August 2016, defendant was charged with two counts of DUI ( 625 ILCS 5/11-501(a)(1) (West 2016)), one count of failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident (id. § 11-601(a)), and one count of operating an uninsured motor vehicle (id. § 3-707). The charges stemmed from a single-vehicle accident that occurred on August 27, 2016, at approximately 5 a.m.

¶ 5 A. Trial Court Proceedings

¶ 6 In March 2018, the matter proceeded to a stipulated bench trial. At the stipulated bench trial, the trial court considered the following evidence: (1) a case report written by responding officer Ryan Albin from the Will County Sheriff's Office, (2) patient care reports from the Wilmington Fire Protection District describing the care and treatment paramedics provided to defendant and Jordan Taylor, a passenger in the vehicle when the accident occurred, and (3) the vehicle's registration information.

¶ 7 Reports from the Wilmington Fire Protection District showed paramedics responded to the scene of the accident on August 27, 2016, at approximately 5 a.m. Upon arrival, paramedics observed a single vehicle crashed "into a tree head on with airbag deployment." Paramedics found Taylor alert and sitting in the vehicle's driver's seat. Taylor told paramedics "her boyfriend was driving and jerked the wheel hitting the tree." Paramedics detected the odor of an alcoholic beverage on Taylor's breath.

¶ 8 Paramedics found defendant sitting on the ground outside of the vehicle. Defendant told paramedics he injured his knee in a prior accident and aggravated the injury "when he went to step out of the vehicle and slipped in the grass." While defendant told paramedics he was fine, he was unable to stand on his own because of his injured knee. Both Taylor and defendant refused medical treatment.

¶ 9 Officer Albin's case report further provided that he and another officer arrived on the scene shortly after the paramedics and observed a gray Chevrolet Cruze with "heavy front end damage against a tree." Officer Albin found an empty bottle of vodka on the floor in front of the vehicle's passenger seat and discovered defendant's cell phone wedged in the driver's seat.

¶ 10 When Officer Albin spoke with defendant, he noted that defendant's eyes were bloodshot and glassy, he smelled a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage on defendant's breath, and defendant slurred his speech when he spoke. Defendant told Officer Albin that he and Taylor consumed mixed alcoholic beverages at a bar earlier that night but stated "he or Taylor did not have any alcohol in his vehicle." Defendant also admitted to Officer Albin that "he was the driver." The vehicle's registration information showed the Chevrolet Cruze was registered to defendant.

¶ 11 Officer Albin noted he attempted to conduct standardized field sobriety testing on defendant but that defendant could not complete the walking portion of the test due to the "knee pain [he] sustained from the accident." Officer Albin further provided that defendant failed a horizontal gaze nystagmus test. Defendant took a portable breath test that showed his blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) was 0.203. Subsequently, Officer Albin placed defendant under arrest for DUI.

¶ 12 Following the presentation of the stipulated evidence, defense counsel argued, "our main position is that [defendant] was not the driver of the vehicle." Rather, counsel argued Taylor was the driver when the accident occurred. Specifically, counsel stated,

"I think what's pretty clear from an unbiased perspective are the paramedics who are the first to arrive on scene and actually saw the repercussions of an accident. And when they arrived, they saw Jordan Taylor in the driver's seat with the air bags deployed, Judge, and they saw [defendant] as the passenger kind of on the floor.

While the vehicle was registered to [defendant], there is plenty of situations where other people let someone else drive. That's his car so the cell phone could be anywhere, Judge. It's really the paramedics [that] saw someone else as the driver, Jordan Taylor. There should be no weight according to any other testimony or statements, just that's clear, unbiased eyewitnesses, Judge."

Subsequently, the trial court took the matter under advisement.

¶ 13 In May 2018, the trial judge found defendant guilty of DUI, failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident, and operating an uninsured motor vehicle. As to the failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident charge, the judge stated, "I guess it's an appropriate charge for a one car accident in that fashion. The Court finds him guilty on that."

¶ 14 In June 2018, defendant filed a motion to reconsider the finding of guilty or, in the alternative, a motion for a new trial. In the motion to reconsider, defendant asked the trial court to reconsider its finding of guilty where evidence showed Taylor was the driver, not defendant. In the alternative, defendant asked the court to reopen proofs to allow defendant and the paramedics to testify or grant him a new trial. Following a February 2019 hearing on the motion to reconsider, the court denied the motion.

¶ 15 In March 2019, the trial court sentenced defendant to 24 months’ conditional discharge, 17 days in jail, and 240 hours of community service and ordered him to pay several fines and fees.

¶ 16 B. Appellate Court Proceedings

¶ 17 On appeal, defendant argued (1) the State failed to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident and operating an uninsured motor vehicle and (2) his stipulated bench trial was tantamount to a guilty plea, such that the trial court erred in failing to admonish him pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 402(a) (eff. July 1, 2012). 2021 IL App (3d) 190129-U, ¶ 2.

¶ 18 The Third District affirmed defendant's conviction for failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident and reversed his conviction for operating an uninsured motor vehicle. Id. ¶¶ 21, 24. As to defendant's conviction for failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident, the appellate court found the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant drove carelessly and failed to reduce speed to avoid colliding with the tree. Id. ¶¶ 19-20.

The court determined "the combination of defendant's act of jerking the wheel and a high BAC readily established the careless driving element." Id. ¶ 19. The court found the record also established defendant failed to reduce speed to avoid colliding with the tree. Id. ¶ 20. Specifically, the court stated, "[t]he very fact that defendant hit the tree establishes that he failed to reduce speed to avoid this accident." Id. The court acknowledged that People v. Brant , 82 Ill. App. 3d 847, 852, 38 Ill.Dec. 194, 403 N.E.2d 282 (1980), and People v. Sampson , 130 Ill. App. 3d 438, 444, 85 Ill.Dec. 403, 473 N.E.2d 1002 (1985), had reached the opposite conclusion, finding the "failure to reduce speed cannot be inferred from the fact that a defendant was involved in an accident because any individual involved in an accident would then be guilty of the offense." 2021 IL App (3d) 190129-U, ¶ 21. However, the court was unpersuaded by the rationale in Brant and Sampson . Id.

¶ 19 The appellate court further concluded defendant's bench trial was not tantamount to a guilty plea. Id. ¶ 27. The court acknowledged that there are two circumstances under which a stipulated bench trial is considered tantamount to a guilty plea but found neither circumstance existed in this case (see People v. Clendenin , 238 Ill. 2d 302, 322, 345 Ill.Dec. 467, 939 N.E.2d...