People v. Treadwell

233 N.E.3d 856

2022 IL App (1st) 191905

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Marvin TREADWELL, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-19-1905

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, FIFTH DIVISION.

Filed September 9, 2022

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County. No. 00 CR 7694, Honorable Carol M. Howard, Judge Presiding.

James E. Chadd, Douglas R. Hoff, Deborah K. Pugh, and Cara Fillipelli (law student), of State Appellate Defender’s Office, of Chicago, for appellant.

Kimberly M. Foxx, State’s Attorney, of Chicago (Enrique Abraham, Tasha-Marie Kelly, and Sara McGann, Assistant State’s Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

OPINION

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

¶ 1 On June 5, 2006, the defendant-appellant, Marvin Treadwell, filed a pro se postconviction petition in the circuit court of Cook County, making numerous allegations regarding his trial and sentence. On May 24, 2018, the defendant’s postconviction counsel filed an amended petition and clarification of the defendant’s postconviction claims. The circuit court dismissed the petition at the second stage of postconviction proceedings. The defendant now appeals, arguing, inter alia, that his postconviction counsel provided unreasonable assistance. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the judgment of the circuit court of Cook County and remand this case to the circuit court for new second-stage proceedings, after allowing the defendant leave to amend his petition following appointment of new postconviction counsel.

¶ 2 BACKGROUND

¶ 3 In 2004, the defendant was convicted, in a bench trial, of the first degree murder and armed robbery of Howard Thomas. The crimes were committed in 1999, when the defendant was 17 years old. He was sentenced to concurrent terms of 32 years’ imprisonment for first degree murder and 15 years’ imprisonment for armed robbery. The facts of this case will be repeated here only as is necessary to resolve this appeal. For a full recitation of facts leading up to the defendant’s conviction and sentence. See People v. Treadwell, 367 Ill. App. 3d 1095, 340 Ill.Dec. 866, 929 N.E.2d 170 (2006) (table) (unpublished order under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23).

¶ 4 Following his arrest, the defendant retained a private attorney, Chester Slaughter. Mr. Slaughter first filed his appearance on the defendant’s behalf in 2000. In February 2004, the defendant told the trial judge that he wanted to have a public defender appointed because Mr. Slaughter was "not representing [him] right" and the defendant cited Mr. Slaughter’s repeated failures to appear in court. The trial judge informed the defendant that it was "fine" to have another lawyer represent him, but Mr. Slaughter would have to come into court personally to withdraw. On March 2, 2004, the case was continued before a different judge, who confirmed that the defendant was eligible to be represented by a public defender instead of by Mr. Slaughter. The judge then directed the clerk to tell Mr. Slaughter to appear in open court in order to withdraw. On March 8, 2004, the case was continued before yet a third judge, and Mr. Slaughter appeared in court and informed the court that he wanted to withdraw. The judge told Mr. Slaughter that he had to stay with the case until it was assigned to its permanent judge, at which point he could withdraw. On March 12, 2004, a permanent trial judge, Judge Dennis Dernbach, was assigned to the case. Judge Dernbach denied Mr. Slaughter’s request to withdraw, citing the length of time the case had been pending. Mr. Slaughter did not explain to the judge that it was the defendant’s wish that he withdraw. Rather, he suggested that his request to withdraw was because he was not being paid. The defendant’s bench trial was set to commence on October 18, 2004, with Mr. Slaughter as his counsel.

¶ 5 On September 24, 2004, Mr. Slaughter’s law license was suspended by the Illinois Supreme Court on the recommendation of the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC). The suspension was for five months, beginning October 15, 2004. The suspension was based on Mr. Slaughter having provided false information on five different credit card and loan applications.

¶ 6 On October 7, 2004, Mr. Slaughter filed a motion, in the Illinois Supreme Court, seeking to stay his suspension for 30 days. In his motion to stay the suspension, Mr. Slaughter stated that he had been "working diligently to complete his pending cases or make arrangements for the handling of those cases during the pendency of his suspension." He explained, in his motion, that he had a pending murder trial for a client named David White. According to Mr. Slaughter’s motion, that case had been continued to October 12, 2004, at which time the State was planning to call three witnesses before resting. His motion stated:

"If the State completes its case and the defendant [White] is found not guilty on that date, [Mr. Slaughter] would be prepared to begin his suspension as ordered. However, if the defendant [White] is found guilty, he would have to be sentenced which would probably take place later in October. If the trial is not completed on the 12th of October or, if the matter is continued at that time for a sentencing hearing, [Mr.] Slaughter would have to withdraw, and a new at-torney, who did not try the case, would have to come in and complete the trial or sentencing. This would undoubtedly be a burden to the trial court and could prejudice the criminal defendant in a case involving very serious charges."

Therefore, Mr. Slaughter asked the Illinois Supreme Court to stay his suspension for 30 days so that he could "complete the trial already commenced" in that case. The motion did not mention defendant Marvin Treadwell’s¹ trial, which was set to commence 11 days later, on October 18, 2004.

¶ 7 On October 12, 2004, six days prior to the start of the defendant’s trial, our supreme court granted Mr. Slaughter’s motion to stay his suspension for 30 days, until November 15, 2004. The order stated that the motion was granted "to allow completion of pending murder trial."

¶ 8 Although there was no mention of the defendant’s trial in Mr. Slaughter’s motion to stay his suspension, on October 18, 2004, the defendant’s bench trial commenced, with Mr. Slaughter representing him. Mr. Slaughter continued to represent the defendant throughout his trial and sentencing, which concluded on November 4, 2004. Thereafter, the defendant filed an appeal in this court.

¶ 9 On direct appeal, the defendant argued that Mr. Slaughter rendered ineffective assistance of counsel. Specifically, he claimed that Mr. Slaughter neglected his case and failed to provide a vigorous defense. The defendant argued that because Mr. Slaughter was embroiled in proceedings affecting his law license before the ARDC, he was busy defending himself and was therefore unable to devote appropriate attention to representing the defendant in his murder case. The defendant also complained that Mr. Slaughter’s representation of another defendant in the unrelated White murder trial, which was the subject of the motion to stay, was an additional distraction for Mr. Slaughter, thus preventing him from representing the defendant effectively. The defendant asserted that Mr. Slaughter’s ineffectiveness was demonstrated by his failure to (1) file a meaningful motion to suppress, (2) appear in court between December 2002 and March 2004, and (3) file a timely notice of appeal.

¶ 10 On direct appeal, this court rejected the defendant’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim. This court found that the defendant had failed to show that he suffered prejudice by Mr. Slaughter’s actions. We also noted that recent case law debunked the assertion of a per se conflict simply because disciplinary proceedings are pending before the ARDC against a lawyer who is representing a defendant. We therefore affirmed the defendant’s conviction and sentence. Id.

¶ 11 On June 5, 2007, the defendant filed a pro se postconviction petition, again alleging that Mr. Slaughter rendered ineffective assistance of counsel for a variety of reasons. None of the reasons cited by the defendant mentioned Mr. Slaughter’s suspension or ARDC issues. The postconviction petition advanced to second-stage proceedings and postconviction counsel, Assistant Public Defender (APD) Jeffrey Walker, was appointed to represent the defendant.

¶ 12 On March 4, 2014, the defendant filed a pro se petition for relief from judgment.² In that pleading, the defendant al- leged that Mr. Slaughter operated under a per se conflict of interest at the time of his trial in 2004 because Mr. Slaughter was "actually not allowed to practice law," since he had "lied by omission to the Illinois Supreme Court" in his motion to stay his suspension.

¶ 13 On August 4, 2016, the defendant, through APD Walker, filed a supplemental postconviction petition. The supplemental postconviction petition alleged, inter alia, that Judge Dernbach slept through significant portions of the trial; that the defendant was denied effective assistance of counsel where Mr. Slaughter failed to notify him or the trial court "of [Mr. Slaughter’s] problems with the ARDC"; and that the defendant’s 32-year sentence is unconstitutional because he was 17 years old at the time of the crimes. Attached to the supplemental postconviction petition was the defendant’s original pro se petition and an Illinois Supreme Court Rule 651(c) (eff. Feb. 6, 2013) certificate.

¶ 14 In 2017 and again in 2018, the State asked the trial court to require the defendant to file an amended pleading that would supersede all previous pleadings in order to clarify which claims were at issue, as numerous postconviction pleadings had been filed by the defendant. The trial court granted that request.

¶ 15 On January 31, 2018, new postconviction counsel, APD James Jacobs, was appointed to replace APD Walker. On May 24, 2018, APD Jacobs filed...