People v. Maxwell

Tyrone Maxwell pleaded guilty in 2013 to six counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and received a 40-year sentence. In 2014, he moved to withdraw his guilty plea, arguing the State's factual basis at the Rule 402 conference failed to establish two separate acts of penis-to-anus sexual penetration as alleged in the indictment. Due to administrative error, his appeal was not docketed for over a decade until the Illinois Supreme Court granted supervisory relief in December 2024.

On appeal, Maxwell raised three issues: whether the circuit court abused its discretion in denying his motion to withdraw the plea based on insufficient factual basis; whether he received ineffective assistance of post-plea counsel for failing to raise the sufficiency claim; and whether post-plea counsel complied with Illinois Supreme Court Rule 604(d). The appellate court affirmed the denial of the motion to withdraw, holding that the specific manner of penetration is not an element of aggravated criminal sexual assault and that the State's proffer established six distinct acts of sexual penetration sufficient to support the convictions. The court also rejected the ineffective assistance claim, finding it waived because Maxwell never raised it in his motion to withdraw.

However, the court remanded the case because the State conceded that post-plea counsel failed to comply with Rule 604(d) in preparing the motion to withdraw the guilty plea, requiring an opportunity to cure this procedural deficiency.