2018 IL App (1st) 152125 FIRST DISTRICT FIRST DIVISION August 27, 2018 No. 1-15-2125 THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, ) Appeal from the ) Circuit Court of Plaintiff-Appellee, ) Cook County. ) v. ) No. 15 CR 743 ) OSCAR RAMIREZ, ) Honorable ) Arthur F. Hill, Jr., Defendant-Appellant. ) Judge Presiding. JUSTICE MIKVA delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion. Presiding Justice Pierce and Justice Walker concurred in the judgment and opinion. OPINION ¶1 Defendant Oscar Ramirez pled guilty to one count of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon (AUUW) and was sentenced to one year in prison. He filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea and vacate the judgment because he was not told of the immigration consequences of that plea. The trial court denied Mr. Ramirez’s motion. We affirm the decision of the trial court. ¶2 I. BACKGROUND ¶3 On December 28, 2014, Chicago police officers observed Mr. Ramirez riding his bicycle on a sidewalk on 26th Street. They stopped him to issue a city ordinance violation and noticed a large bulge in his right pants pocket. The officers asked Mr. Ramirez whether he had any dangerous weapons on him, and Mr. Ramirez responded that he had a gun. The officers searched Mr. Ramirez, recovered a fully loaded .22-caliber revolver and a small amount of what appeared No. 1-15-2125 to be cannabis, and placed Mr. Ramirez in custody. ¶4 Mr. Ramirez was charged with six counts of AUUW, which is a felony. 720 ILCS 5/24 1.6(d) (West 2014). A hearing was held, pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 402 (eff. July 1, 2012), to discuss a guilty plea. At that hearing, Mr. Ramirez agreed to plead guilty to a single count of AUUW (720 ILCS 5/24-1.6(a)(1), (a)(3)(A-5) (West 2014)) in exchange for the one- year prison sentence proposed by the trial court. The court gave Mr. Ramirez sentencing admonishments, but did not mention any possible immigration consequences. The court accepted Mr. Ramirez’s plea and sentenced him to one year in prison. ¶5 Mr. Ramirez timely filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea and vacate the judgment, on the basis that he was not told of the immigration consequences of his plea. At a preliminary hearing on the motion, the trial court acknowledged that it had not given Mr. Ramirez its usual admonishment regarding possible immigration consequences for noncitizens. The trial court pointed out that what it referred to as an “arrest report” in the court file stated that Mr. Ramirez’s place of birth was Illinois, and it was the court’s practice, when considering a guilty plea, to look at the place of birth on the defendant’s arrest report. ¶6 At the hearing on the motion to withdraw his guilty plea, Mr. Ramirez testified that he was born in Mexico, came to the United States as a 3-year-old child, and was not a U.S. citizen. He did not know that pleading guilty to AUUW would have adverse immigration consequences, i.e., that he would ...
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