also specially concurring:
I agree with the majority’s ultimate holding that the secret compartment statute, section 12 — 612 of the Illinois Vehicle Code (625 ILCS 5/12 — 612 (West 2004)), is unconstitutional in that it violates substantive due process. However, I find the analysis employed in reaching this conclusion to be confusing and, at times, incorrect. Accordingly, I cannot join fully in the opinion and specially concur.
In this appeal, the court addresses the consolidated cases of People v. Carpenter, No. 103616, People v. Garibaldi, No. 103856, and People v. Montes-Medina, No. 103857. Defendant Carpenter was found guilty of violating the secret compartment statute. On appeal, the appellate court reversed the conviction, ruling the statute unconstitutional because it violates substantive due process by sweeping too broadly and potentially encompassing innocent conduct. The State then petitioned to appeal that ruling as a matter of right pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 612(b), which we granted. Subsequently, defendants Garibaldi and Montes-Medina were each charged, in separate cases, with violating section 12 — 612. In the circuit court they sought and obtained dismissal of the charges based on the ruling in Carpenter, 368 Ill. App. 3d 288. The State appealed the dismissals directly to this court, as permitted by Supreme Court Rule 603.
Before this court, the State’s main argument is that the lower courts’ orders should be vacated and remanded for consideration of nonconstitutional grounds that were not addressed by those courts. The State contends that in Carpenter the appellate court should have first considered whether there had been sufficient evidence to support the defendant’s conviction, and that the circuit court in People v. Garibaldi and People v. Montes-Medina should not have dismissed the matters before ruling on the defendants’ motions to quash arrest and suppress evidence.
Initially, this majority rejects the State’s arguments with respect to the Garibaldi and Montes-Medina cases, recognizing that once the appellate court held the secret compartment statute unconstitutional in Carpenter, the circuit court was bound by that ruling and that it would be “absurd” to require them to litigate other matters before obtaining dismissal based on Carpenter. 228 Ill. 2d at 260. Although this response is certainly sufficient to dispose of the State’s arguments with respect to Garibaldi and Montes-Medina, the majority, nevertheless, goes on to engage in a long discussion which is confusing, at best, and incorrect at worst. As Justice Kilbride points out in his special concurrence, the majority alludes to creating a “different rule” (see 228 Ill. 2d at 274 (Kilbride, J., specially concurring, joined by Freeman and Burke, JJ.)) for the treatment of criminal cases and supports this notion with a detailed discussion of Babbitt v. United Farm Workers National Union, 442 U.S. 289, 60 L. Ed. 2d 895, 99 S. Ct. 2301 (1979), a case that is wholly inapposite to the situation here.
I note, additionally, that despite repeated readings of the majority’s opinion, I have been unable to discern exactly what this “different rule” might be. The majority concludes its discussion by stating: “Our jurisprudence, like that of our federal counterparts, does not require criminal defendants to pursue other pretrial alternatives as a prerequisite to challenging the constitutionality of the statute under which they are charged; that is particularly true where a court of review has declared the statute unconstitutional.” 228 Ill. 2d at 262. However, this is not a new or different rule, but a statement of long-standing precedent. As the majority itself acknowledges, appellate court decisions have always been binding on circuit courts. People v. Harris, 123 Ill. 2d 113, 128 (1988). Confusion also stems from the fact that the majority’s conclusion — that “Defendants Garibaldi and Montes-Medina were not required to pursue other procedural alternatives prior to litigating their motions to dismiss” — speaks to a defendant’s ability to raise the issue of constitutionality, not the court’s ability to reach the issue of constitutionality, which is the focus of the State’s appeal.
The majority then turns to Carpenter and engages in a lengthy discussion to come to the already-settled rule— that a court of review should consider the constitutionality of a statute as a matter of last resort. The majority then concludes that the appellate court erred when it found section 12 — 612 unconstitutional because it did not first determine whether the State proved defendant Carpenter guilty of violating section 12 — 612 beyond a reasonable doubt. Although the majority, too, eventually addresses the constitutionality of the statute, it does so only after reviewing the evidence adduced at Carpenter’s trial to determine whether it sufficed to prove defendant guilty of violating the statute.
In my view, the majority’s analysis when reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence demonstrates the folly of engaging in this endeavor and underscores why the appellate court proceeded in the manner it did. In order to determine whether the State adduced sufficient evidence to convict defendant at trial, it is necessary to first decide the question of what evidence must be looked at to see whether it was sufficient. That inquiry can only be accomplished by construing the statute and, when the majority construes the statute, it reads into it a criminal-purpose requirement which is not in the language of the statute and which is precisely the infirmity complained of by defendant and found by the appellate court to render the statute violative of substantive due process.
I agree with Carpenter’s argument that “reasonable doubt and due process arguments are inextricably intertwined with arguments relating to the constitutionality of the statute under which he was convicted” and that, in order to determine whether he was properly convicted of the crime charged, the appellate court had to necessarily first consider what conduct, if any, the statute criminalized and whether the statute’s proscription of the conduct was constitutional. See 228 Ill. 2d at 259.
In sum, I join in the majority’s holding that section 12 — 612 of the Vehicle Code is unconstitutional. However, based on the above, I would affirm the appellate court judgment in Carpenter in its entirety and reject the State’s argument that the constitutionality of the statute should not have been reached by the lower court. Further, for the reasons stated in this special concurrence, I would affirm the circuit court orders in the Garibaldi and Montes-Medina cases.
JUSTICES FREEMAN and KILBRIDE join in this special concurrence.