Shaun Brame v. State of Illinois

OPINION

GAGLIARDO, J. This matter appearing before the Illinois Court of Claims, and this Court being fully advised in the premises:

BACKGROUND

On June 6, 2011, an order of commitment (mittimus) was issued regarding Claimant. The order stated that Claimant was found guilty of two class one felonies: indecent solicitation of an adult and criminal sexual assault. He received two fifteen-year sentences that were to run consecutively, and he was given four years mandatory supervised release (MSR), which he was to serve after his 15-year sentences were served. A calculation sheet was made accounting for all good behavior and other credit for time served prior to sentencing, and Claimant’s projected release date (the date he was to start MSR) was July 21, 2027.

After Claimant was sentenced, he filed an appeal with the Illinois Appellate Court, which was granted in part on July 10, 2013. Specifically, Claimant’s 15-year sentence for criminal sexual assault was overturned.

In response to the Appellate Court mandate, the Circuit Court judge who originally sentenced Claimant had the responsibility of issuing a corrected mittimus reflecting the new sentence without the criminal sexual assault charge. IDOC was to then recalculate Claimant’s incarceration time based on the new mittimus and enter the new release date into its system. A corrected mittimus should have been issued soon after the Appellate Court mandate of July 10, 2013; but it was not issued until February 19, 2016, and that is why problems arose in this case.

Claimant’s then counsel filed a motion for a corrected mittimus in September of 2013, but the motion was indefinitely continued over the next few years. Sometime after the Illinois Appellate Court issued its July 10, 2013, mandate, Claimant’s then counsel also notified the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) that Claimant’s 15-year sentence for criminal sexual assault had been overturned.

So on November 1, 2013, Sharon Burtch, the Office Coordinator at IDOC Record Office, sent a letter from LeAnn Whittler, Record Office Supervisor at IDOC, to Lola Johnson at the Cook County Circuit Clerk’s Office. The letter requested a copy of the corrected mittimus in this [*139] case and a copy of the Appellate Court mandate. Ms. Whittler also tried contacting Lola Johnson - to no avail - two more times: once on November 4, 2013, and once on December 23, 2013.

Not having heard back from anyone at the Cook County Circuit Clerk’s Office, IDOC personnel eventually figured out how to access the Appellate Court mandate online. After the mandate was verified by IDOC on February 18, 2014, a new calculation sheet was completed on February 24, 2014. Claimant’s projected release and MSR date was now October 3, 2014.

However, because IDOC does not have the authority to change sentences (which includes MSR terms) on its own, IDOC personnel still were not sure if the mandate alone, absent a new corrected mittimus from the sentencing judge, was enough to change Claimant’s release date in the IDOC system. Thus, they still awaited a corrected mittimus from the sentencing judge.

Issues persisted in September of 2014. IDOC still had not received a corrected mittimus from the sentencing judge. Adding to the confusion, IDOC personnel accessing the Cook County Clerk of Court’s computer network discovered on the computer screen an entry made on the day the mittimus was issued stating Claimant’s MSR term was two years (not four years as stated on the mittimus). Either this was the same network IDOC personnel had been accessing all along to check if a new mittimus had been entered, and no one had noticed the discrepancy before; or this was a different network that they had never before accessed. It is unclear from the record.

Regardless, upon discovering the discrepancy, on September 12, 2014, Ms. Burtch faxed Lola Johnson at the Cook County Circuit Clerk’s Office and again requested a corrected mittimus and also requested a clarification of whether the MSR term was two years or four years.

She also apprised Ms. Johnson that Claimant’s release date was coming up on October 3, 2014.

However, no one replied to Ms. Burtch.

So again, Ms. Burtch, on September 22, 2014, emailed Ms. Johnson, following up on the September 12, 2014 FAX she had sent her. This time Ms. Johnson replied. About thirty minutes after Ms. Burtch’s email had been sent, Ms. Johnson replied that the judge had not corrected the mittimus yet and that the motion for corrected mittimus was continued to September 29, 2014.

Ms. Johnson said she would bring this to her supervisor’s attention because the date of the motion was so close to when Claimant was to be released on MSR. Neither party mentioned the discrepancy between the two-year MSR term on the Clerk’s screen and the four-year MSR term on the original mittimus.

Ms. Burtch followed up on September 29, 2014, to see if the corrected mittimus had been received and entered, but it had not been received or entered. On September 30, 2014, Ms.

Johnson informed Ms. Burtch that she did not know why, but the judge had continued the date for the motion for a corrected mittimus to October 6, 2014. Again, neither party mentioned the discrepancy between the two-year MSR term on the Clerk’s screen and the four-year MSR term on the original mittimus.

On September 30, 2014, Ms. Whittler then discussed with Glenn Jackson in the IDOC legal department whether they could change Claimant’s release date in the system without the amended mittimus. It was decided that the Appellate Court mandate was sufficient to change [*140] Claimant’s release date in the system. Since the Appellate Court mandate only addressed reversal of the criminal sexual assault charge, the four-year MSR imposed on the original mittimus was left unchanged.

When Claimant was set to be released on October 3, 2014, he was “violated at the door.”

This means that, because he would be unable to meet housing terms of his MSR, he was to remain incarcerated for his MSR term of four years. However, he would earn one-year credit for every year served. So his release date from MSR/incarceration was October 3, 2016. Once Claimant was violated at the door on October 3, 2014, no one from IDOC followed up with the Circuit Court Clerk’s Office about the discrepancy regarding the MSR term being four years on the original mittimus but two years on the Clerk’s screen.

On November 9, 2015, the Illinois Supreme Court issued an Order granting Claimant’s writ of habeas corpus. Claimant was released the next day. Apparently, Claimant was to serve only a two-year term of MSR and should have been released 37 days earlier on October 3, 2015.

It is unknown whether the writ being granted had anything to do with the discrepancy between the Clerk’s screen and original mittimus. When the corrected mittimus in this case was eventually issued on February 19, 2016, the overturned criminal sexual assault conviction had been removed, and the MSR term had been changed to two years.

ANALYSIS

Claimant here brings an action for negligent incarceration for the 37 days he was incarcerated beyond October 3, 2015, which is when he would have been released if he served a two-year MSR term instead of a four-year MSR term. This Court recognizes cases of negligent incarceration. See Evans v. State of Illinois, 55 Ill. Ct. Cl. 395 (2002).

Like any claim for negligence, Claimant bears the burden of establishing each of the elements of a claim for negligence by a preponderance of the evidence. For Claimant to prevail, he must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Respondent had a duty, it breached that duty, there were damages, and Respondent’s negligence was the proximate cause of those damages. Rogers v. State, 44 Ill. Ct. Cl. 149, 152 (1991).

Here, there were two issues Respondent had to deal with. First, there was the issue about re-calculating Claimant’s sentence based on the Appellate Court mandate. Respondent attempted endless calls and emails to the Cook County Circuit Clerk’s Office that led nowhere. Undeterred, Respondent still was able to resolve this issue by tracking down and verifying the Appellate Court mandate on its own and recalculating Claimant’s sentence based on reversal of the criminal sexual assault charge. The Respondent resolved the sentencing imprisonment issue correctly by changing the sentence but necessarily left intact the original four-year MSR because the Appellate Court mandate was silent about the MSR term. Thus, Respondent successfully discharged its duty to investigate and was not negligent regarding the recalculation of sentence issue.

That takes us to the second issue, which is the discrepancy between the two-year MSR term written on the Clerk’s screen and the four-year MSR term written on the original mittimus.

[*141] Claimant argues that Respondent was negligent for not continuing to try obtaining clarification on this issue. But any duty IDOC had was fulfilled when IDOC on multiple occasions attempted to have an amended mittimus filed by the sentencing court. The sole authority to issue an amended mittimus is with the sentencing judge and the courts.

The Court finds that absent the sentencing court filing an amended mittimus after the Appellate Court mandate of July 10, 2013, and forwarding the amended mittimus to IDOC, IDOC could not discharge its duty with certainty by calculating the correct sentence and MSR term. Despite repeated requests by IDOC to the Clerk of the Court for an amended mittimus and MSR clarification, the sentencing court - for over two years until February 19, 2016 - did not issue an amended mittimus with the correct sentence and MSR after the Appellate Court reversal and mandate of July 10, 2013.

ACCORDINGLY, Claimant’s claim is hereby denied.