concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I would affirm the appellate court’s judgment in full. Section 5 — 8—2(a) of the Unified Code of Corrections (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1991, ch. 38, par. 1005 — 8—2(a)) states that a judge cannot sentence an offender to a term of imprisonment in excess of the maximum authorized sentence for the class of the most serious offense of which the offender was convicted, unless the statutory factors in aggravation are present. What this means, as our court held in People v. Jordan (1984), 103 Ill. 2d 192, 206, is that extended-term sentences may only be imposed for the offenses within the most serious class of offense of which the accused is convicted. The circuit court therefore erred when it imposed extended-term sentences on defendant’s armed robbery convictions. Defendant should have received an extended term only on his conviction for first degree murder.
The majority reaches a contrary result by arguing that section 5 — 8—2(a)’s limit on extended terms is inapplicable where, as here, the offenses in question involved separately charged offenses arising from unrelated courses of conduct. The statute, however, contains no such restriction, and this court is not at liberty to depart from the plain language and meaning of the statute by reading into it exceptions, limitations or conditions that the legislature did not express. Solich v. George & Anna Portes Cancer Prevention Center of Chicago, Inc. (1994), 158 Ill. 2d 76, 83.
To the extent that there is any ambiguity in the law, that ambiguity should be resolved in favor of the defendant, not the State. A criminal or penal statute is to be strictly construed in favor of an accused, and nothing is to be taken by intendment or implication against him beyond the literal meaning of the statute. If a statute creating or increasing a penalty or punishment can be construed in more than one way, the construction that operates in favor of the accused is the one that must be adopted. People ex rel. Gibson v. Cannon (1976), 65 Ill. 2d 366, 370-71.
While I can sympathize with my colleagues’ desire to see this particular defendant remain in jail for as long as possible, that is no justification for ignoring these settled and accepted principles of law. Contrary to the majority’s view, giving the statute its plain meaning would not produce unusual results. Rather, it would provide the State with an additional mechanism to induce defendants to negotiate pleas, in one consolidated proceeding, for every crime they had committed until that time. Although such an inducement was not necessary here, no one can seriously doubt that the possibility of avoiding extended terms for lesser offenses will make guilty pleas a more attractive option for defendants who have committed multiple offenses. If defendants can limit the amount of jail time they face, they are much more likely to plead guilty to everything at once.
Under the majority’s construction, that incentive has now been eliminated. In future cases, defendants represented by competent counsel will have no sound reason for agreeing to the sort of plea arrangement involved in this case. As a result, the State will be required to pursue separate plea and sentencing proceedings in virtually every prosecution involving separate and unrelated offenses. I fail to see why we should impose this extra burden on the State, whose criminal enforcement resources are already overtaxed, when the General Assembly has not required us to do so. On this issue, I therefore dissent.