Case Title: People v. Sandham

Citation: 

Docket Number: 80130

State: illinois

Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Date: 1996-11-21T00:00:00Z

Document:
NOTICE: Under Supreme Court Rule 367 a party has 21 days after the 
filing of the opinion to request a rehearing. Also, opinions are 
subject to modification, correction or withdrawal at anytime prior 
to issuance of the mandate by the Clerk of the Court. Therefore, 
because the following slip opinion is being made available prior to 
the Court's final action in this matter, it cannot be considered 
the final decision of the Court. The official copy of the following 
opinion will be published by the Supreme Court's Reporter of 
Decisions in the Official Reports advance sheets following final 
action by the Court. 
 
                  Docket No. 80130--Agenda 8--May 1996. 
        THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellee, v. JOHN R. 
                           SANDHAM, Appellant. 
                    Opinion filed November 21, 1996. 
 
     JUSTICE HEIPLE delivered the opinion of the court: 
     Defendant, John R. Sandham, was convicted after a bench trial 
in the circuit court of Livingston County of one count of 
aggravated criminal sexual abuse (720 ILCS 5/12--16 (West 1992)) 
and sentenced to a five-year term of imprisonment. The appellate 
court affirmed (276 Ill. App. 3d 86), and this court subsequently 
granted defendant's petition for leave to appeal (155 Ill. 2d R. 
315). Defendant argues before this court that his conviction must 
be reversed and a new trial ordered because (1) the trial court 
failed to secure defendant's written jury waiver and his oral 
waiver was not made understandingly; (2) the trial court failed to 
conduct a fitness hearing when a bona fide doubt as to defendant's 
fitness arose and when evidence was elicited that defendant may 
have been taking psychotropic medication; (3) hearsay evidence was 
improperly admitted; and (4) the evidence was insufficient to find 
defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. For the reasons 
expressed below, we reverse defendant's conviction and remand for 
a new trial based upon our determination that a bona fide doubt as 
to defendant's fitness arose following which no fitness hearing was 
held. Accordingly, we do not reach defendant's remaining arguments. 
     In deciding this cause, we recount only those facts necessary 
to disposing of the issues raised in this appeal. 
 
                          I. Fitness of Defendant 
     Defendant's dual contentions regarding his fitness to stand 
trial are: (1) that a bona fide doubt regarding his fitness arose 
which required the trial court to, sua sponte, conduct a fitness 
hearing pursuant to section 104--11 of the Code of Criminal 
Procedure (725 ILCS 5/104--11 (West 1992)); and (2) that evidence 
of his ingestion of psychotropic medications at or about the time 
of trial required the court to conduct a fitness hearing pursuant 
to section 104--21(a) of the Code (725 ILCS 5/104--21(a) (West 
1992)). Insofar as the trial court never held a fitness hearing, 
defendant contends that his conviction must be reversed. The State 
counters that defendant has waived his fitness arguments by failing 
to raise them either at trial or in his post-trial motions. The 
right to be fit for trial, however, is fundamental. People v. 
Eddmonds,  143 Ill. 2d 501 , 512-13 (1991). Accordingly, prosecuting 
a defendant where there is a bona fide doubt as to that defendant's 
fitness renders the proceeding fundamentally unfair and we review 
this contention under the plain error rule. 134 Ill. 2d R. 615(a). 
     Due process bars prosecuting or sentencing a defendant who is 
not competent to stand trial. Eddmonds, 143 Ill. 2d  at 512-13. 
Fitness to stand trial requires that a defendant understand the 
nature and purpose of the proceedings against him and be able to 
assist in his defense. 725 ILCS 5/104--10 (West 1992). Although a 
defendant's fitness is presumed by statute (725 ILCS 5/104--10 
(West 1992)), the circuit court has a duty to order a fitness 
hearing, sua sponte, any time a bona fide doubt arises regarding a 
defendant's ability to understand the nature and purpose of the 
proceedings or assist in his defense. Whether a bona fide doubt as 
to a defendant's fitness has arisen is generally a matter within 
the discretion of the trial court. People v. Murphy,  72 Ill. 2d 421 , 431 (1978). 
     Here, defense counsel never requested a fitness hearing 
pursuant to section 104--11 of the Code and defendant maintains 
that the trial court abused its discretion in not recognizing, sua 
sponte, that a bona fide doubt as to defendant's fitness existed. 
In support defendant points to various portions of the record which 
he claims raised a bona fide doubt as to his fitness prior to trial 
or, in the alternative, prior to sentencing. 
     The first suggestion that there may have been a bona fide 
doubt as to defendant's fitness occurred on April 22, 1993, when 
defendant's public defender made an oral motion to the court 
requesting permission to engage a psychiatrist to determine whether 
defendant was fit to stand trial. The court granted leave and 
instructed defense counsel to prepare a written motion and proposed 
order to that effect. However, on that same date a private attorney 
appeared and was substituted as counsel for defendant. Once the 
public defender was discharged, the psychiatric evaluation motion 
that had been orally allowed by the judge was never referred to or 
acted upon by the newly retained counsel. The record provides no 
explanation for this. 
     The case was subsequently set for a bench trial on May 28, 
1993. However, on May 14, 1993, less than one month after the 
public defender's request to engage a psychiatrist, another event 
indicating that there was a bona fide doubt as to defendant's 
fitness occurred. On that date, defense counsel filed a motion to 
continue the trial indefinitely because defendant had been unable 
to cooperate with defense counsel except with difficulty up through 
May 4, 1993, and because defendant had been committed to the 
BroMenn psychiatric ward. The court granted the motion and reset 
the trial for July 16, 1993, which was later continued to September 
13, 1993. The record is silent as to the purpose, duration or 
treatment provided defendant in the psychiatric ward. 
     Not silent, however, was the defendant. On March 30, 1993, and 
July 8, 1993, defendant sent separate letters to the trial judge, 
both of which defendant argues evidence a bona fide doubt as to his 
fitness. The March 30 letter, which preceded the public defender's 
request for a psychiatric evaluation, asked the court to "give me 
14 years straight time. No good time or supplemental. 14 straight 
years. THEN I CAN PROCEED WITH MY REAL LIFE AND HAVE NO REGRETS 
ABOUT ENDING THIS ONE." (Emphasis added.) While the defendant's 
reference to his "real life" may have been odd, the letter was 
respectful in tone. This is in marked contrast to the letter of 
July 8, 1993, which was written after defendant's commitment to the 
BroMenn psychiatric ward. The July 8 letter was exceedingly hostile 
and profane, describing in explicit terms the sexual aggressions 
defendant associated with prison life. It further explained, rather 
incoherently, that the judge sends "innocents" such as defendant to 
prison whereupon the judge collects his paycheck and absolves this 
sin at the Lutheran church on Sundays. The letter then curses the 
judge using a variety of expletives and laments that defendant will 
be the next person to go to prison because the judge does not use 
his position and power to stop it. In a similar vein, we observe 
the judge's statement in the record that defendant also made 
several threatening phone calls to him during the time period 
defendant was writing these letters. 
     Defendant was eventually discharged from the psychiatric ward, 
whereupon a bench trial followed and defendant was convicted of 
aggravated criminal sexual abuse (720 ILCS 5/12--16 (West 1992)). 
Defendant argues that during the ensuing March 1, 1994, sentencing 
hearing, additional testimony transpired which raised a bona fide 
doubt as to defendant's fitness. First defendant notes the 
testimony of the complainant's mother, who testified that she knew 
the defendant personally and that the defendant, "wasn't all the 
way there *** [that there] would be days he would be okay, but 
there would be other days he'd run outside and start praying to God 
real loud. *** There was times he never did act normal." 
     Defendant next refers this court to his father's testimony at 
the sentencing hearing regarding the Carl Pfeiffer Treatment 
Center's psychological evaluation of defendant, which was conducted 
prior to the sentencing hearing. Though the trial court was 
provided a copy of and considered the evaluation at the sentencing 
hearing, the evaluation is not contained in the record. We thus 
consider only those references to the evaluation found in the 
record. 
     Defendant's father testified that the evaluation suggested 
that defendant had a slight chemical imbalance and that defendant 
had a slight case of schizophrenia. The Pfeiffer Center recommended 
a three-month treatment regimen after which defendant would be 
reevaluated. Part of the difficulty in evaluating defendant, 
according to defendant's father, was the medication prescribed to 
defendant at the Menard Correctional Center psychiatric ward, which 
included the psychotropic drugs lithium, Prolixin and Ativan. 
     Finally, defendant refers this court to the colloquy between 
the defendant, trial court and defense counsel at the close of the 
sentencing hearing. After the State requested a maximum nonextended 
term sentence, defense counsel pleaded with the court to sentence 
defendant to probation and psychological treatment instead of 
prison time. This plea was interrupted by defendant, who stated, 
"Cut my brain out. You'll be sorry, and I won't do nothing. I'll be 
brain dead." Defense counsel then observed for the court that "you 
can tell from the way he talks that this is something that we need 
to address." The court then ascertained from defense counsel that 
defendant was currently taking the prescribed psychotropic 
medication, after which the defendant stated, "I've already got my 
brain cut apart spiritually. Do you know what I mean? I know what 
I mean." The trial court then recessed for 15 minutes to read the 
presentence report. 
     Upon returning to the bench, the judge detailed why he found 
the defendant guilty and then stated as follows, with periodic 
interruptions from the defendant: 
               "THE COURT: The issue I have now is whether you are 
          competent to proceed with sentencing, whether you are 
          capable of participating in this. YOU DON'T EVEN SEEM TO 
          UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON. YOU ARE MAKING COMMENTS THAT 
          ARE OBVIOUSLY INAPPROPRIATE. *** I DON'T FULLY UNDERSTAND 
          THE NATURE OF MENTAL ILLNESS. I DON'T THINK ANYONE DOES-- 
          EVEN PSYCHIATRISTS AND PSYCHOLOGISTS. 
               The one thing I do know and am concerned about [is] 
          that since '90 things have gotten progressively worse *** 
          since getting out of prison *** he's been convicted of 
          disorderly conduct, trespass, retail theft, and also been 
          up on sentencing for trespass to real property. 
               THERE ARE VARIOUS REASONS FOR SENTENCING, JOHN. 
          WHETHER YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M SAYING OR NOT I AM NOT 
          SURE; but the important factors are doing things that 
          could rehabilitate you. I don't know what that is. *** 
               But although on the one hand sentences are many 
          times to try to rehabilitate people, and on the other 
          hand they are for society's protection, I'm trying to 
          look at it from both sides. 
               DEFENDANT: I DON'T SEE ANY WAY TO PROTECT ME FROM 
          THIS SOCIETY. *** 
               THE COURT: Considering all the evidence at trial 
          [and] the presentence report which is very thorough, I am 
          going to sentence you, John, with credit for time served 
          to five years in the Department of Corrections. I feel 
          that's appropriate; and on the misdemeanor, I'll just 
          sentence you to-- 
               DEFENDANT: I TALKED TO MY MOTHER. 
               THE COURT: Credit for time served. You'll be 
          eligible in all likelihood to get out-- 
               DEFENDANT: You don't know a lie from the truth 
          because you are sending me up, and I didn't do anything. 
          *** 
               THE COURT: *** Am I here to help [defendant], 
          protect society or both? *** I'M NOT DISAGREEING THAT 
          SENDING A PERSON TO PRISON WITH MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS IS 
          [NOT] GOING TO HELP HIM. IT MIGHT; IT MIGHT NOT. *** 
               Also a concern I have is the protection of the 
          public. *** 
               DEFENDANT: I'VE GOT THREE ALBUMS ON THE TOP OF THE 
          CHARTS AND COMIC BOOKS ALL OVER. (Emphasis added.) 
Defendant argues that his comments at sentencing were so unrelated 
to the proceedings at hand that they raised a bona fide doubt as to 
defendant's fitness. Moreover, defendant contends that even the 
trial judge realized this when he stated that defendant did not 
seem to know what was going on and that he did not know whether 
defendant even understood what the trial judge was saying. 
     The State counters each of defendant's individual suggestions 
of unfitness with a specific case holding that a similar 
circumstance did not raise a bona fide doubt as to fitness. See 
People v. Eddmonds,  143 Ill. 2d 501 , 519 (1991) (assertion by 
counsel of defendant's unfitness does not, in and of itself, create 
bona fide doubt); People v. Skorusa,  55 Ill. 2d 577 , 582 (1973) 
(granting defense counsel's request for a psychiatric examination 
does not raise a bona fide doubt); People v. Smith, 253 Ill. App. 
3d 948, 954 (1993) (hostile behavior on the part of defendant not 
necessarily reflective of a person utterly out of control or 
incapable of understanding the charges against him). The State 
further argues that each of defendant's letters are capable of a 
construction that does not raise a bona fide doubt as to 
defendant's fitness and argues likewise regarding the various 
irrational statements made by the defendant at his sentencing 
hearing. Accordingly, the State asks this court to conclude that 
the trial court did not abuse its discretion in not determining 
that there was a bona fide doubt as to defendant's fitness. This, 
however, we cannot do. 
     Summarized briefly, the trial court was aware of the following 
episodes and testimony relating to the issue of whether there was 
a bona fide doubt as to defendant's fitness: (1) the public 
defender's oral motion, which the trial court granted, to obtain a 
psychiatric evaluation to determine defendant's fitness; (2) the 
continuance of the trial due to defendant's inability to cooperate 
with defense counsel except with difficulty and the defendant's 
ensuing commitment to a psychiatric ward; (3) defendant's two 
letters to the court which were complimentary and exceedingly 
hostile, respectively, and which spoke of defendant beginning his 
"real life" after sentencing; (4) defendant's threatening phone 
calls to the trial judge; (5) the testimony of complainant's mother 
that defendant was not "all the way there" and would sometimes run 
outside and start praying loudly to God; (6) the Pfeiffer Center 
evaluation testimony which suggested that defendant had a slight 
chemical imbalance and was slightly schizophrenic; (7) defendant's 
ingestion of psychotropic medications at or about the time of trial 
and/or sentencing; and (8) defendant's irrational outbursts during 
the sentencing hearing regarding his brain being cut out, his 
conversation with his mother, his "top of the charts" albums and 
his comic books. 
     The State's attempt to explain away the individual episodes 
and testimony detailed above, as if each occurred in a vacuum, 
cannot be countenanced. As a reviewing court, we will not ignore 
the impact of these events and testimony when considered in 
relation to each other and the record as a whole. The State does 
not, and indeed cannot, cite to precedent holding that so many and 
varied suggestions that a defendant might be unfit did not raise a 
bona fide doubt as to the defendant's fitness. 
     While it is correct that a defendant may be competent to stand 
trial even though his mind is otherwise unsound and that some doubt 
as to a defendant's fitness is not necessarily enough to warrant a 
fitness hearing (Eddmonds, 143 Ill. 2d  at 513, 519), a trial 
court's discretion in so concluding is not unbridled. We hold that 
the trial court abused its discretion in not ruling, sua sponte, 
that the instant events and testimony combined to raise a bona 
fide doubt as to defendant's fitness to stand trial or be 
sentenced. Indeed, we observe that the trial judge himself appears 
to have recognized a bona fide doubt regarding defendant's fitness 
when he stated that defendant "[did not] even seem to understand 
what's going on" and "whether you understand what I am saying or 
not I am not sure." While it could well be argued that a bona fide 
doubt as to defendant's fitness arose prior to these observations, 
there is no question that the trial judge had no discretion and was 
required to conduct, sua sponte, a fitness hearing at the point he 
questioned defendant's capacity to comprehend what was transpiring 
at the sentencing hearing. 725 ILCS 5/104--11 (West 1992). This the 
court did not do. 
     We note that all the events and testimony cited by the 
defendant, including those occurring during the sentencing hearing, 
are relevant to defendant's fitness at the time of trial. We thus 
hold that the court's failure to conduct a fitness hearing pursuant 
to section 104--11 requires that defendant's conviction be vacated 
and the cause remanded for a new trial. Only in this manner can it 
be ensured that defendant was not convicted in violation of the due 
process clause of the fourteenth amendment (U.S. Const., amend. 
XIV), which provides that a defendant is unfit to stand trial or be 
sentenced if unable to understand the nature and purpose of the 
proceedings against him. Medina v. California,  505 U.S. 437 , 439, 
120 L. Ed. 2d 353, 359, 112 S. Ct. 2572, 2574 (1992). 
     Insofar as we are remanding this cause for a new trial due to 
the trial court's failure to conduct a fitness hearing pursuant to 
section 104--11, we need not pass on defendant's contention that he 
is also entitled to a new trial pursuant to section 104--21(a). 
Defendant's section 104--21(a) argument contends that he is 
entitled to a new trial because the trial court failed to conduct 
a fitness hearing despite evidence that defendant was ingesting 
psychotropic medication at the time of the trial and/or sentencing 
hearing. 725 ILCS 5/104--21(a) (West 1992). However, under the law 
as espoused by a majority of this court in People v. Kinkead,  168 Ill. 2d 394 , 397 (1995), this court would first have to remand this 
cause for a hearing to determine whether defendant was actually 
taking psychotropic medication at the time of trial and/or 
sentencing because of the uncertainty about this in the record as 
currently developed. We decline to order such a hearing on remand, 
as it would be redundant in light of our determination that a new 
trial is otherwise required under section 104--11. 
 
II. Failure to Secure a Written Jury Waiver in Violation of 
      Section 115--1, Hearsay Evidence Admitted Pursuant to Section 
               115--10 and Guilt Beyond a Reasonable Doubt 
     Because we reverse defendant's conviction on fitness grounds, 
we need not decide defendant's argument that the trial court erred 
in securing defendant's written jury waiver (see 725 ILCS 5/115--1 
(West 1992)) or that certain hearsay testimony was elicited in 
violation of section 115--10 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 
1963 (725 ILCS 5/115--10 (West 1992)). We do observe, however, that 
there was sufficient evidence to support defendant's conviction and 
sentence; consequently, there is no double jeopardy impediment to 
a new trial. People v. Brown, 169 Ill. 2d 132, 169 (1996). 
 
                                CONCLUSION 
     We conclude that because a bona fide doubt regarding 
defendant's fitness arose at trial after which a fitness hearing 
was not held, defendant's conviction must be reversed and the cause 
remanded for a new trial. 
     The judgments of the appellate and circuit courts are reversed 
and the cause is remanded to the circuit court for a new trial. 
 
Judgments reversed; 
                                                            cause remanded.