Quick Takes on Illinois Supreme Court Opinion Issued Thursday, April 3, 2025

Leading appellate attorney reviews the Illinois Supreme Court opinion handed down Thursday, April 3.

People v. Williams, 2025 IL 129718

By Kerry J. Bryson, Office of the State Appellate Defender

In 2011, Michael Williams pled guilty to two charges of aggravated battery with a firearm in exchange for the dismissal of a charge of armed robbery and two consecutive terms of 10 years of imprisonment. The instant appeal arose out of Williams’s filing of a post-conviction petition alleging, among other things, that he had received ineffective assistance from trial counsel when counsel allowed the trial court judge’s son to participate in a privileged attorney-client meeting prior to the guilty plea. On the State’s motion, the circuit court dismissed Williams’s petition at the second stage. 

The appellate court reversed, agreeing with Williams’s argument that his retained post-conviction counsel had provided unreasonable assistance by failing to shape Williams’s claim into a viable legal form in that counsel failed to offer any factual support for the prejudice prong of Williams’s ineffective assistance claim. And, the appellate court held that post-conviction counsel’s failure led to an inadequate appellate record from which to ascertain whether Williams was prejudiced by post-conviction counsel’s unreasonable assistance, requiring remand for new second-stage proceedings.

The Supreme Court disagreed, reversed the appellate court, and affirmed the trial court. The Court first noted the well-established principle that proceedings under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act require counsel, whether appointed or retained, to provide a reasonable level of assistance. Whether counsel satisfied that requirement depends on the unique facts of each case.

Here, Williams’s petition alleged that trial counsel’s performance was deficient where counsel brought the trial judge’s son to a pre-plea meeting with Williams at the jail. And, it alleged prejudice by stating that there was a “substantial likelihood” that the result of the plea hearing and sentencing would have been different had the judge’s son not been present at that meeting. The appellate court found this deficient in that post-conviction counsel had not supported the claim with either an assertion or innocence or an articulation of a plausible defense that could have been raised at trial, a necessary component of demonstrating prejudice where the defendant has pled guilty.

In reversing, the Supreme Court held that the appellate court incorrectly assumed there were additional facts or allegations counsel could have included in the petition despite the absence of anything in the record to suggest that Williams had a viable defense to the charges. Williams had previously stated on the record that he accepted the plea because he was facing a substantially longer term of imprisonment of 31-years-to-life if convicted. Williams had also acknowledged that his likelihood of success at trial was low. In the face of this record, post-conviction counsel made the only arguments he could and would not be found to have provided unreasonable assistance. “[W]here, as here, the record shows that under the circumstances the arguments that postconviction counsel raised were the best options available, counsel cannot be said to have rendered an unreasonable level of assistance even if the arguments lacked legal merit, were not particularly compelling, and were ultimately unsuccessful.”