Remand for resentencing; Compliance with the remand order; People v. Russell; Principle that a court speaks through its written orders & judgments, not through its oral pronouncements; The law of the case doctrine; People v. Herrera (On Remand)

Concluding that the trial court did resentence defendant on each of his convictions, and that it did not ignore or violate the remand order by again imposing the same sentence for his FIP conviction, the court affirmed his amended judgment of sentence (JOS). On remand for resentencing, he was sentenced as a second-offense habitual offender to concurrent terms of 35 to 60 years for his second-degree murder conviction and 1 to 5 years for his FIP conviction, to be served after his 5-year sentence for his felony-firearm, second offense conviction. He argued that the trial court did not comply with the court’s remand order because it did not specifically address his FIP sentence. However, while “the trial court did not orally mention” his FIP sentence during the resentencing hearing, it issued a written amended JOS that expressly included a 1 to 5-year sentence for his FIP conviction. “Because ‘[a] court speaks through its written orders and judgments, not through its oral pronouncements,’” the amended JOS showed that it did resentence him for each of his convictions. Further, the trial court did not have to specifically address his FIP sentence at the resentencing hearing because his “original sentence for that conviction was not subject to the concerns that” the court expressed when it remanded the case. Unlike his original sentence for the murder conviction, his FIP “sentence was not at the top of his guidelines range for that offense, given his status as a habitual offender. Nor did this Court specify the imposition of a particular sentence on remand. Simply put,” nothing in the remand order required the imposition of a different sentence for his FIP conviction or any statements on the record by the trial court about “that sentence, particularly where neither of the parties elected to speak on the matter.” While defendant also asserted on appeal that the trial court violated the law of the case doctrine, he failed to explain how it did so.