People v. Grant
People v. Grant
Opinion
¶ 1 Defendant, Nathan Grant, appeals the trial court's order denying his motion to amend mittimus. He concedes the issue raised in his motion is moot because he has fully served his sentence, but he uses the opportunity of this appeal to raise an issue regarding the propriety of the imposition of fines by the circuit clerk. The State does not dispute defendant's claim regarding the fines but argues the appeal should be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. We agree and dismiss the appeal for a lack of jurisdiction.
¶ 2 I. BACKGROUND
¶ 3 In December 2013, defendant pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance, and as part of the plea agreement, he agreed to a sentence of two years in prison. His sentence was to be served consecutively to his three-year sentence he was then serving from a prior felony (Douglas County case No. 11-CF-70). Defendant did not file a postplea or postsentencing motion. See Ill. S. Ct. R. 604(d) (eff. Mar. 8, 2016).
¶ 4 In June 2015, defendant filed a pro se "motion to amend mittimus," asking the trial court to clarify the mittimus for the Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC).
*1042 In particular, defendant requested that the sentencing order specify that his two-year prison term began at the end of his prior three-year prison term, not at the end of his mandatory-supervised-release term (MSR) on this three-year sentence. He claimed: "The MSR on [case No.] 11-CF-70 should [run] concurrent to [his two-year sentence] or shouldn't [have] existed at all once [case No.] 12-CF79's time was calculated to the finished time on [case No.] 11-CF-70." He requested the court "order a new mittimus with orders to [DOC] to calculate defendant's sentence consecutive pursuant to Illinois statutes."
¶ 5 In July 2015, the trial court denied defendant's motion by docket entry, noting the "issue has already been addressed by the court in previous orders." This appeal followed.
¶ 6 II. ANALYSIS
¶ 7 Defendant abandons his mittimus issue because his sentence has already been served, and therefore, he acknowledges the issue is moot. However, he uses the opportunity presented by this appeal to argue that certain fines imposed upon him after sentencing should be vacated because they were improperly imposed by the circuit clerk. The State does not disagree. In fact, the State "acknowledges that defendant appears to owe multiple void clerk-imposed fines, according to recent records of the circuit clerk." But the State claims we cannot consider this issue because we are without subject matter jurisdiction.
¶ 8 The First District recently issued an opinion addressing the issue presented here. See
People v. Griffin
,
¶ 9 Not only do we adopt the First District's analysis on the substantive issues, we also adopt the court's
dicta
regarding the frequency of "fines-and-fees issues" raised for the first time on appeals. We agree with the court that such issues are more appropriately resolved at the trial level. It is likely that many such issues could be resolved by the parties' (1) routine review of the judgment orders and (2) cooperation among the parties to correct any errors discovered. See
Griffin
,
*1043
Griffin
,
¶ 10 Because defendant did not file a timely Rule 604(d) motion after his guilty plea, the trial court retained jurisdiction only to "correct clerical errors or matters of form," not to review any substantive issue.
Griffin
,
¶ 11 The trial court's order denying defendant's motion to amend mittimus is not a final order for purposes of appeal over which this court has jurisdiction. After the court's denial, the original judgments remained in place. "Where, as here, a court does not enter or modify a judgment *** there is no new final order from which to appeal."
Griffin
,
¶ 12 Without the filing of a Rule 604(d) motion, this court has no jurisdiction to review the propriety of a trial court's order denying a motion to amend mittimus. The judgments originally entered must stand.
¶ 13 III. CONCLUSION
¶ 14 For the reasons stated, we dismiss this appeal for want of jurisdiction.
¶ 15 Appeal dismissed.
Presiding Justice Turner and Justice Steigmann concurred in the judgment and opinion.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.