{ "id": 4305289, "name": "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MICHAEL A. PETERSON, Defendant-Appellant", "name_abbreviation": "People v. Peterson", "decision_date": "2010-09-10", "docket_number": "No. 2\u2014 08\u20141086", "first_page": "145", "last_page": "154", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "404 Ill. App. 3d 145" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "222 Ill. 2d 495", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3602282 ], "year": 2006, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "520-21" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/222/0495-01" ] }, { "cite": "396 Ill. App. 3d 127", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 4292676 ], "weight": 2, "year": 2009, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "130" }, { "page": "130", "parenthetical": "\"A court should not construe a statute in a manner that would lead to consequences that are absurd, inconvenient, or unjust\"" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/396/0127-01" ] }, { "cite": "443 U.S. 307", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6182418 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1979, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "319" }, { "page": "573" }, { "page": "2789" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/443/0307-01" ] }, { "cite": "106 Ill. 2d 237", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3138930 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1985, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "261" }, { "page": "261" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/106/0237-01" ] }, { "cite": "312 Ill. App. 3d 232", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 411589 ], "year": 2000, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "234" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/312/0232-01" ] }, { "cite": "258 Ill. App. 3d 205", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 2881167 ], "year": 1994, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "208", "parenthetical": "a case should not be dismissed as moot where the record does not rule out effective relief" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/258/0205-01" ] }, { "cite": "233 Ill. 2d 345", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3621581 ], "year": 2009, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "354-55" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/233/0345-01" ] }, { "cite": "221 Ill. 2d 464", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 5703570 ], "weight": 2, "year": 2006, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "470", "parenthetical": "at a discharge hearing, if the evidence is sufficient to establish the defendant's guilt, no conviction is entered; instead, a finding of not not guilty is entered" }, { "page": "469-70" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/221/0464-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 908, "char_count": 22525, "ocr_confidence": 0.792, "pagerank": { "raw": 6.380125665320789e-08, "percentile": 0.3934976517935988 }, "sha256": "2048ab118e6ff08d8a6905ef0d203f34bacc981b409282da773d18afa97e4459", "simhash": "1:b6782468d1501b62", "word_count": 3732 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T16:58:54.131587+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MICHAEL A. PETERSON, Defendant-Appellant." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "JUSTICE O\u2019MALLEY\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nAfter the court found defendant, Michael A. Peterson, unfit to stand trial, it held a discharge hearing and found defendant \u201cnot not guilty\u201d (see People v. Waid, 221 Ill. 2d 464, 470 (2006) (at a discharge hearing, if the evidence is sufficient to establish the defendant\u2019s guilt, no conviction is entered; instead, a finding of not not guilty is entered)) of failing to comply with sex-offender registration requirements. Defendant asserts that the evidence at that hearing was insufficient and that the court should have therefore acquitted him. We agree with defendant; we therefore reverse the \u201cnot not guilty\u201d finding and hold him to be acquitted.\nI. BACKGROUND\nThe parties agree that defendant had a misdemeanor sex-crime conviction in Michigan and was, as a result, subject to the provisions of the Sex Offender Registration Act (Act) (730 ILCS 150/2 et seq. (West Supp. 2007)). He was indicted on one count of \u201cknowingt ] fail[ure] to register a change of address\u201d as required by the Act. See 730 ILCS 150/3(a) (West Supp. 2007).\nThe court found defendant unfit to stand trial because of his cognitive deficits and lack of knowledge of the legal system. It said that he had \u201climited ability to recollect obvious occurrences and events.\u201d\nAfter defendant had been treated for months in a facility of the Department of Human Services, the Department reported that he was unlikely to be restored to fitness within the one-year statutory period. The report stated that defendant, who was then in his 40s, had an IQ of 63 and the functionality of a 71/2-year-old. He suffered from a seizure disorder and had moderately impaired long- and short-term memory.\nBased on the report, defense counsel sought a discharge hearing under section 104 \u2014 25 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (Code) (725 ILCS 5/104 \u2014 25 (West 2008)).\nOn the day of the discharge hearing, the parties stipulated that defendant would not be restored to fitness within a year.\nThe first witness for the State, William Homeier, a community service officer with the Elgin police, testified that he was responsible for taking sex-offender registrations. On August 14, 2007, defendant came to register himself as a sex offender. He said that he was homeless, and Homeier told him that he would have to register weekly. Homeier explained the difference between registering as homeless and registering with a permanent address.\nDefendant returned on August 21, 2007, and reported an address of 635 North Spring Street in Elgin. Homeier told him that, with a fixed address, he would be required to register only once a year. Defendant said that he was renting from someone named \u201cJohn,\u201d whose last name and phone number he could not remember. Defendant said that he had gone to Michigan to visit his mother, and he brought in documentation showing that he had registered with Michigan authorities while there. Homeier said that defendant would sometimes stop by the police department just to say \u201chello\u201d and to use the men\u2019s room.\nRoberto Romero testified that he lived at 635 North Spring Street with his family. He did not know defendant. On the second floor the building had a separate apartment with the address 637 North Spring Street. He and his father owned the building. He did not remember the names of the tenants in August 2007, but he said they were a married man and his girlfriend, both Hispanic. He said that the second-floor apartment had three bedrooms.\nOfficer Travis Hooker of the Elgin police testified that he had arrested defendant for disorderly conduct on September 23, 2007. After looking at defendant\u2019s booking card, he recalled that defendant had said that he was homeless. He could not recall whether defendant was intoxicated when he arrested him.\nDetective Kevin Senne of the Elgin police testified that, on August 10, 2007, he met with defendant to check on the details of a sex-offender registration that defendant made on August 9, 2007. He advised defendant that he would have to register weekly. On September 12, 2007, Senne went to try to verify defendant\u2019s Spring Street address. He spoke to Romero; because of that conversation, Senne continued investigating. On September 21, 2007, he reached defendant by phone at the Wayside Center, a homeless shelter. Senne told defendant that they needed to meet and that defendant was violating the Act, but he did not give him a specific deadline by which to meet. He also asked defendant if he was really \u201cstaying with John.\u201d Defendant told him that he stayed there some nights and stayed other places other nights.\nOn September 23, 2007, after Hooker arrested defendant, Senne met with him in jail. Because defendant was \u201cextremely intoxicated,\u201d Senne did not attempt to interview him there.\nDefendant did not put on any evidence.\nThe State\u2019s closing argument was a mixture of arguments that defendant had falsely reported a permanent residence and that he had failed to comply with the requirement that homeless offenders register weekly. Defendant argued that the State had not proven the charge in the indictment, knowing failure to register a change of address. The State responded with an argument that defendant had knowingly given a false address.\nThe court ruled that, taking into account that the owner of the building, also a resident, was not aware of defendant and that defendant had admitted his homelessness on September 23, the State had put on sufficient evidence of defendant\u2019s guilt, so that it would not enter an acquittal. It ordered 15 months of further treatment of defendant, a period to end on January 5, 2010.\nDefendant moved to reconsider, asserting only that the State had failed to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The court denied the motion, and defendant appealed.\nOn appeal, defendant argues that, because under section 3(a) of the Act (730 ILCS 150/3(a) (West Supp. 2007)), an offender must register as a \u201cplace of residence\u201d any addresses at which he or she stays for five or more days in aggregate in a calendar year, defendant\u2019s admission on September 23, 2007, that he was then homeless was not necessarily inconsistent with his having a \u201cplace of residence.\u201d He further argues that, given the two addresses at the building at which he claimed to have stayed, the State failed to prove that he knowingly gave the police an address that was not an address at which he had stayed for five days.\nThe parties disagree whether this matter is moot. Initially, defendant argued that this matter fell under a supposed general mental-health-case exception to the mootness doctrine. The State responded that the supreme court, in In re Alfred H.H., 233 Ill. 2d 345, 354-55 (2009), has held that no general mental-health exception to the mootness doctrine exists. Defendant has now replied that the case is not moot at all \u2014 that reversal would remove the possibility that, under section 104 \u2014 25(g)(1) of the Code (725 ILCS 5/104\u2014 25(g)(1) (West 2006)), he would face conviction on the charge involved here should he become fit. Neither party has provided evidence of what disposition the court made of defendant on January 5 of this year, when the 15-month extended treatment period ended.\nII. ANALYSIS\nWe begin by considering whether the matter is moot. On the record before us, we cannot conclude that it is. We will not dismiss an appeal where the issue involved is only possibly moot. See Pinnacle Corp. v. Village of Lake in the Hills, 258 Ill. App. 3d 205, 208 (1994) (a case should not be dismissed as moot where the record does not rule out effective relief). Here, several possibilities exist under which the matter would not be moot. We describe only one of these. Under the Code:\n\u201c(d) If the discharge hearing does not result in an acquittal of the charge the defendant may be remanded for further treatment and the one year time limit set forth in Section 104 \u2014 23 shall be extended as follows:\n(1) If the most serious charge upon which the State sustained its burden of proof was a Class 1 or Class X felony, the treatment period may be extended up to a maximum treatment period of 2 years; if a Class 2, 3, or 4 felony, the treatment period may be extended up to a maximum of 15 months;\n* * *\n(g) At the expiration of an extended period of treatment ordered pursuant to this Section:\n(2) If the defendant continues to be unfit to stand trial, the court shall determine whether he or she is subject to involuntary admission under the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code or constitutes a serious threat to the public safety. If so found, the defendant shall be remanded to the Department of Human Services for further treatment and shall be treated in the same manner as a civilly committed patient for all purposes, except that the original court having jurisdiction over the defendant shall be required to approve any conditional release or discharge of the defendant, for the period of commitment equal to the maximum sentence to which the defendant would have been subject had he or she been convicted in a criminal proceeding.\u201d 725 ILCS 5/104\u2014 25(d)(1), (g)(2) (West 2006).\nWe do not know what happened to defendant at the end of the 15-month treatment period that the court ordered pursuant to section 104 \u2014 25(d)(1). However, one possibility is that the court civilly committed defendant under section 104 \u2014 25(g)(2) (725 ILCS 5/104\u2014 25(g)(2) (West 2006)). The matter could not be moot while he remained committed; section 104 \u2014 25(g)(2) is available only when the court does not acquit an unfit defendant. It imposes conditions on the commitment to which persons under ordinary civil commitment are not subject. Reversal would, if nothing else, remove those conditions. Because the record does not exclude the possibility of effective relief, such as removal of those conditions, the State has not established mootness.\nTurning to the merits of the matter, we hold that the evidence was insufficient to establish that defendant committed the offense, so that the court should have entered a judgment of acquittal.\n\u201c[A discharge hearing] is an \u2018innocence only\u2019 proceeding that results in a final adjudication of charges only if the evidence fails to establish the defendant\u2019s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (resulting in the defendant\u2019s acquittal) or the defendant is found not guilty by reason of insanity. If the evidence is found to be sufficient to establish the defendant\u2019s guilt, no conviction results. Instead, the defendant is found not not guilty ***.\u201d (Emphasis in original.) Waid, 221 Ill. 2d at 469-70.\n\u201cAlthough a court\u2019s determination at a discharge hearing that the State has proved the defendant\u2019s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt does not constitute a technical determination of guilt, the standard of proof is the same as that required for a criminal conviction.\u201d People v. Williams, 312 Ill. App. 3d 232, 234 (2000). Therefore, the standard of review is the familiar one outlined in People v. Collins, 106 Ill. 2d 237, 261 (1985):\n\u201cWhen presented with a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, it is not the function of [the reviewing] court to retry the defendant. *** [Rather,] \u2018the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.\u2019 \u201d (Emphasis in original.) Collins, 106 Ill. 2d at 261, quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 61 L. Ed. 2d 560, 573, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 2789 (1979).\nThe first problem here is deciding what violation the court thought the State had proven. The indictment said that defendant had failed to register a change of address. The State presented no evidence tending to prove that \u2014 if anything, its evidence tended to prove that defendant had been homeless over the entire period. (Defendant has not discussed the variance from the indictment.) The State argued both that defendant gave a false address and that he failed to comply with the Act\u2019s requirement that a person lacking a fixed residence register weekly. The court\u2019s comments when entering the \u201cnot not guilty\u201d finding are not completely clear, but they suggest that it accepted both theories.\nBefore examining the evidence against defendant, we review the Act\u2019s registration requirements:\n\u201c(a) A sex offender *** shall, within the time period prescribed in subsections (b) and (c), register in person and provide accurate information as required by the Department of State Police. Such information shall include a *** current address ***. *** The sex offender *** shall register:\n(1) with the chief of police in the municipality in which he or she resides or is temporarily domiciled for a period of time of 5 or more days ***; ***[.]\n* Hi *\nFor purposes of this Article, the place of residence or temporary domicile is defined as any and all places where the sex offender resides for an aggregate period of time of 5 or more days during any calendar year. Any person required to register under this Article who lacks a fixed address or temporary domicile must notify, in person, the agency of jurisdiction of his or her last known address within 5 days after ceasing to have a fixed residence.\nAny person who lacks a fixed residence must report weekly, in person, with *** the chief of police in the municipality in which he or she is located. The agency of jurisdiction will document each weekly registration to include all the locations where the person has stayed during the past 7 days.\nHi Hi *\n(b) Any sex offender, *** regardless of any initial, prior, or other registration, shall, within 5 days of *** establishing a residence ***, or temporary domicile in any county, register in person as set forth in subsection (a) or (a \u2014 5).\n(c) The registration for any person required to register under this Article shall be as follows:\n(5) The person shall provide positive identification and documentation that substantiates proof of residence at the registering address.\u201d 730 ILCS 150/3(a)(l), (b), (c)(5) (West Supp. 2007).\nPer section 2(1) of the Act, a \u201cfixed residence\u201d means \u201cany and all places that a sex offender resides for an aggregate period of time of 5 or more days in a calendar year.\u201d 730 ILCS 150/2(1) (West Supp. 2007).\nThe Act thus defines \u201cfixed residence,\u201d \u201cplace of residence,\u201d and \u201ctemporary domicile\u201d all as places an offender stays an aggregate of five or more days in a calendar year. An offender who has an arrangement that provides accommodations for five days in a year has to register that residence within five days of establishing it, and that offender is then not a person lacking a fixed residence. Under the most straightforward reading of the section, an offender who waits to register an occasional address until after he or she has stayed five days has waited too long, at least if he or she could have anticipated the length of the stay. A person can be homeless by any normal standards and still have a \u201cfixed residence\u201d if he or she has an occasional but predictable place to stay.\nWith this background, we start by considering the theory that defendant violated the Act by giving a false address. The Act requires an offender to provide a \u201ccurrent address,\u201d a term that (unlike \u201cfixed residence\u201d and \u201ctemporary domicile\u201d) it leaves undefined. The Act also requires the offender to provide accurate information. Giving an address to which one has no connection does not satisfy the requirement to give an accurate current address. Defendant argues that, given his intellectual limitations and the unusual configuration of the addresses at the building with the address he reported, the probability that defendant made an error in reporting his address is too high for the court\u2019s ruling to stand. The State argues initially that this would not matter, that giving accurate information is a registration requirement and that any failure to comply, intentional or not, with a registration requirement is a violation.\nResolving this issue requires us to interpret the applicable portion of the Act\u2019s penalty provision, section 10(a):\n\u201c[1] Any person who is required to register under this Article who violates any of the provisions of this Article *** is guilty of a Class 3 felony. *** [2] Any person who is required to register under this Article who knowingly or wilfully gives material information required by this Article that is false is guilty of a Class 3 felony. Any person convicted of a violation of any provision of this Article shall, in addition to any other penalty required by law, be required to serve a minimum period of 7 days confinement in the local county jail. The court shall impose a mandatory minimum fine of $500 for failure to comply with any provision of this Article.\u201d 730 ILCS 150/10(a) (West Supp. 2007).\nThe State\u2019s interpretation would render the second clause of section 10(a) meaningless. \u201c[A] court should avoid an interpretation of a statute that would render any portion of it meaningless or void.\u201d People v. Isunza, 396 Ill. App. 3d 127, 130 (2009). If the requirement for a knowing or willful violation in the second clause is to have any meaning, the first clause cannot apply to the requirement that an offender give accurate information. This holding comports with that of the supreme court in People v. Molnar, 222 Ill. 2d 495, 520-21 (2006), which, while holding that the first clause created an absolute liability offense, specifically noted that the second clause had a mental state requirement. Contrary to what the State argues, we do not think the fact that the offense has an enhanced minimum sentence can possibly suggest an intent by the legislature to create an absolute liability offense.\nGiven defendant\u2019s documented cognitive limitations, the evidence that he knowingly or willfully gave a false address is insufficient. Undoubtedly, the evidence showed that defendant was not living at 635 North Spring Street. However, particularly when a person has \u201climited ability to recollect obvious occurrences and events,\u201d the fact that he gave wrong information is insufficient to show that he did so knowingly or willfully. Nothing in the evidence ruled out defendant\u2019s temporary residence at an address that defendant might easily have confused with \u201c635 North Spring Street.\u201d The evidence that a Hispanic couple stayed at 637 North Spring Street might make it somewhat unlikely that that was defendant\u2019s temporary address, but it certainly does not make it impossible. Further, the State presented no evidence that he did not make another understandable mistake, such as 635 for 653, or North for South.\nWe would agree that a clear showing that defendant never had any place he had expected to stay regularly would be sufficient, but that was not present here. The State and the court apparently placed great weight on defendant\u2019s statement on arrest that he was homeless. Although that was relevant, it was insufficient. A person could have a \u201cfixed residence\u201d by the Act\u2019s definition and yet be homeless by the ordinary way of speaking. That defendant showed the Elgin police that he had registered during a short visit to Michigan shows that he was aware that he needed to register even temporary addresses.\nThe evidence most harmful to defendant was Homeier\u2019s description of him as saying that he was \u201crenting\u201d from someone. \u201cRenting\u201d typically connotes an arrangement of some permanence. However, \u201crenting\u201d could also apply to an arrangement in which a person pays for occasional use of a space.\nHomeier\u2019s testimony that defendant stopped in at the police station regularly, if only to use a men\u2019s room, weakens the State\u2019s theory that defendant made up a false address to avoid the weekly registration requirement. Given that he was already going to the police station regularly, it seems unlikely that he would risk arrest merely to avoid weekly visits to the police station.\nConsidering all these factors, we agree with defendant that the State failed to show beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant knowingly gave false registration information.\nWe turn now to the State\u2019s theory that defendant failed to comply with the weekly registration requirement. We determine that the State\u2019s contention on this point fails because there is insufficient evidence that defendant knowingly provided a false address.\nOur reasoning starts with further consideration of the Act\u2019s registration requirements. Reading section 3(b) literally, if defendant had any \u201cfixed residence,\u201d even one he had failed to report, the section would not require weekly reporting. Thus, to prove a violation, the State would have to prove that defendant did not have any place that he could be staying for five days during a year. Such a reading is inconvenient and probably absurd. Surely the weekly reporting requirement applies both to those with no \u201cfixed residence\u201d at all and to those who have a \u201cfixed residence,\u201d but have not reported it. Ordinary principles of statutory construction require that expansion. See Isunza, 396 Ill. App. 3d at 130 (\u201cA court should not construe a statute in a manner that would lead to consequences that are absurd, inconvenient, or unjust\u201d).\nHowever, in keeping with section 10(a)\u2019s second clause, requiring proof that an offender has knowingly or willfully given false information, the accidental misreport of the address of a real fixed residence cannot be bootstrapped into a violation of the weekly reporting requirement for those with no \u201cfixed residence.\u201d Thus, an offender who tries to register a real \u201cfixed residence\u201d but makes a mistake is not subject to the weekly reporting requirement. Because the State proved neither that defendant lacked a \u201cfixed residence\u201d nor that he deliberately lied about his address, it did not prove enough to show that defendant was subject to the weekly reporting requirement.\nIII. CONCLUSION\nFor the reasons stated, we reverse the trial court\u2019s finding of \u201cnot not guilty\u201d and acquit defendant of violating the registration requirements of the Act.\nReversed.\nBOWMAN and SCHOSTOK, JJ., concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "JUSTICE O\u2019MALLEY" } ], "attorneys": [ "Thomas A. Lilien and Mark G. Levine, both of State Appellate Defender\u2019s Office, of Elgin, for appellant.", "John A. Barsanti, State\u2019s Attorney, of St. Charles (Lawrence M. Bauer, of State\u2019s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor\u2019s Office, of counsel), for the People." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MICHAEL A. PETERSON, Defendant-Appellant.\nSecond District\nNo. 2\u2014 08\u20141086\nOpinion filed September 10, 2010.\nThomas A. Lilien and Mark G. Levine, both of State Appellate Defender\u2019s Office, of Elgin, for appellant.\nJohn A. Barsanti, State\u2019s Attorney, of St. Charles (Lawrence M. Bauer, of State\u2019s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor\u2019s Office, of counsel), for the People." }, "file_name": "0145-01", "first_page_order": 161, "last_page_order": 170 }