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People v. Carroccia

Case Date: 10/18/2004
Court: 2nd District Appellate
Docket No: 2-03-0465 Rel

No. 2--03--0465

IN THE

APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS

SECOND DISTRICT

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF
ILLINOIS,

          Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

JOHN CARROCCIA,

          Defendant-Appellant.

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)		 Appeal from the Circuit Court
of Kane County.



No. 00--CF--1385

Honorable
Grant S. Wegner,
Judge, Presiding.


JUSTICE GROMETER delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant, John Carroccia, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder (720 ILCS 5/9--1(a) (West 2000)). After a jury trial, he was acquitted. Defendant petitioned under section 5(a) ofthe Criminal Identification Act (Act) (20 ILCS 2630/5(a) (West 2002)) to expunge the records of hisarrest. The trial court denied the petition with prejudice. Defendant appeals, arguing that (1) the trialcourt abused its discretion in denying the petition; and (2) even if the trial court properly denied thepetition, it erred in doing so with prejudice. The State argues that the trial court acted properly, but agrees with defendant that the judgment should have been entered without prejudice. We affirm thedenial of the petition to expunge, and we conclude that the trial court did not err in denying thepetition with prejudice. However, we find that the doctrine of res judicata does not bar defendantfrom filing a new petition for expungement alleging additional facts not extant on the date the trialcourt denied defendant's initial petition to expunge.

On June 2, 2000, defendant was arrested by the Kane County sheriff's department and chargedwith the first-degree murder of Hampshire police officer Gregory Sears. On March 27, 2002, a juryfound defendant not guilty. On October 4, 2002, defendant filed his petition to expunge. Thepetition alleged that because defendant had never been convicted of any criminal offense or municipalordinance violation, had never been arrested for any offense other than the murder of Sears, and hadno pending criminal charges against him, the trial court had the power to expunge his arrest records.

The State responded that the court should preserve defendant's arrest records. The Statereasoned that because defendant was 52 years old and had "no significant record of employment,"he had little need to have the records destroyed. Moreover, under People v. Wells, 294 Ill. App. 3d 405 (1998), several factors supported preserving the records. These included the strength of theevidence against defendant; the relatively short time since his arrest; and defendant's ongoing federalcivil rights suit (see 42 U.S.C.