People v. Montanez
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Montanez was convicted based on the 2002 murder of Villalobos and Ramirez. The court sentenced him to mandatory natural life for two first-degree murder convictions, a 20-year consecutive sentence for an aggravated vehicular hijacking conviction, and a 27-year consecutive sentence for an aggravated kidnapping conviction.
Montanez challenged the denial of his request for leave to file a successive postconviction petition. He sought to raise a claim that the prosecution violated “Brady” by failing to disclose evidence relevant to his defense that was stored in a file in the basement of the Chicago Police Department and was discovered after his convictions. Montanez claims that although he became aware of the file during his first postconviction proceedings (which included 46 constitutional claims) he was unable to obtain the file during those proceedings to establish that it contained material that would have been helpful to his defense.
The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the denial. In addition to failing to raise a Brady violation claim based on the entirety of the CPD file in his proposed successive petition, Montanez’s attempt to raise this claim on appeal was barred by res judicata. Montanez’s motion for leave to file a successive postconviction petition falls short of demonstrating that the procedural hurdles for filing a successive petition should be lowered in this case.
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