People v. Anderson
Case Date: 09/14/2001
Court: 3rd District Appellate
Docket No: 3-00-0514 Rel
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September 14, 2001 No. 3--00--0514 ______________________________________________________________________________________________ IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS THIRD DISTRICT A.D., 2001
JUSTICE HOLDRIDGE delivered the Opinion of the Court: ______________________________________________________________________________________________ The defendant, Michael Anderson, failed to return from workrelease and was charged with escape (720 ILCS 5/31--6(a) (West1998)). Following a bench trial, the defendant was found guiltyand was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. On appeal, heargues that his trial counsel was ineffective by failing to moveto dismiss the charges based on violation of the Speedy Trial Act(725 ILCS 5/103--5 (West 1998)). We affirm. BACKGROUND The defendant was serving a sentence for felony unlawfulpossession of a controlled substance. On June 9, 1999, he failedto return to the Peoria Community Correctional Center from workrelease. On June 11 or 12, 1999, he was arrested in Cook Countyon unrelated charges and was transferred to the VandaliaCorrectional Center, an Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC)facility, to serve the remainder of his drug sentence. A warrant issued for his arrest on the escape charge andbond was set in his arrest warrant on September 21, 1999, thesame date as he was indicted for this offense. He was not servedwith this warrant and was not arrested for escape until April 13,2000, the date he was scheduled to be released from DOC custodyon the drug charge. On April 20, 2000, he was arraigned on theescape charge and was appointed counsel by the court. During June 2000, the defendant filed three pro se"Dismissal" motions. The third pleading, titled "Motion forDismissal 'Amended,'" consisted of most of the language of theIntrastate Detainers Act (730 ILCS 5/3--8--10 (West 1998)), thestatutory citation for this act, and a photocopy of the warrantfor the defendant's arrest. This third dismissal motioncontained no argumentation accompanying the language of theIntrastate Detainers Act. On June 26, 2000, the court held a hearing on thedefendant's three dismissal motions. At this hearing, thedefendant's court-appointed counsel argued that his "Motion forDismissal 'Amended'" asserted that the defendant had been denieda speedy trial under the Intrastate Detainers Act. At theconclusion of the hearing, the court agreed with the State'sargument that the Intrastate Detainers Act placed a burden on thedefendant, rather than the State, to "start the ball rolling"toward a speedy trial when the defendant is committed to a DOCfacility. Nothing in the record indicates that the defendant hadfollowed the procedures outlined in the Intrastate Detainers Actto "start the ball rolling"--for example, he had not submitted awritten demand to the State's Attorney of the county where he wascharged. 730 ILCS 5/3--8--10 (West 1998). Immediately following this hearing, the court held a benchtrial in which the defendant was found guilty of escape and wassentenced to two years' imprisonment. It is from this judgmentthat the defendant appeals. ANALYSIS The right of the accused to counsel in preparation for trialis a fundamental constitutional right guaranteed by the sixth andfourteenth amendments of the Constitution of the United States,and article I, section 8, of the Constitution of the State ofIllinois. U.S. Const., amends. VI, XIV; Ill. Const. 1970, art.I, |
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