People v. Johnson
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In 2007, Johnson agreed to plead guilty to unlawful restraint. The court informed him that unlawful restraint is a Class 4 felony, punishable by one to three years’ imprisonment, and stated that he would be subject to mandatory supervised release. Johnson entered his plea. The factual basis for the plea indicated that Johnson and another threatened the victim with a gun, detained him, and rummaged through his pockets but did not specify the victim’s age. The court did not inform Johnson that a conviction of unlawful restraint committed against a victim under the age of 18 would trigger a requirement to register under the Child Murderer and Violent Offender Against Youth Registration Act, 730 ILCS 154/1. The court accepted the plea and imposed a two-year sentence. In 2016, Johnson sought leave to file a late post-conviction petition. He had discharged his sentence for unlawful restraint but was in prison for failing to register under the Act.
The appellate court and Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the summary dismissal of the petition as patently without merit. Johnson lacked standing to seek postconviction relief from the unlawful restraint conviction because he was no longer “imprisoned in the penitentiary” for that offense. Under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act, if a petitioner clearly lacks standing, the petition is necessarily patently without merit. Where there is no dispute that a petitioner’s liberty is not actually restrained due to the conviction, no further inquiry into his standing is necessary. The obligation to register under the Violent Offender Act was a collateral consequence of the unlawful restraint conviction and did not confer standing to challenge that conviction.
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