Opinion ID: 2086125
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure to Impeach Moore

Text: Defendant next argues that trial defense counsel was ineffective for failing to impeach a key witness about an alleged arrest for a prior sexual assault. Defendant does not specify in his brief the witness to whom he refers, but defendant argued in his post-conviction petition that defense counsel missed an important area of impeachment, namely that Moore's testimony was unreliable because he had been arrested previously for sexual assault. Attached to defendant's petition was a police report detailing Moore's death. In this report, the reporting officer noted that police sources informed him that Moore had been previously arrested for sexual offenses. As the State argues, however, even if the information in the police report were true, and defense counsel had obtained Moore's arrest record, evidence of a witness' arrest is not admissible to discredit the witness. (See People v. Norwood (1973), 54 Ill.2d 253, 257, 296 N.E.2d 852.) Thus, defense counsel could not have used this information to impeach Moore.