Opinion ID: 2243679
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the home invasion charge

Text: Defendant argues that the home invasion charge must be vacated because it was the basis for the murder charge. He then goes on to argue that, since it was the basis for the murder charge, using the home invasion as an aggravating factor to establish eligibility for the death sentence constituted an unconstitutional double enhancement. Consequently, the death sentence must be vacated. Whether the home invasion charge itself must be vacated is resolved by this court's recent decision in People v. Scott (1992), 148 Ill.2d 479, 171 Ill.Dec. 365, 594 N.E.2d 217. There, the defendant was a man who strangled a woman to death. While strangling her, he bit her nipple and vagina. He was found guilty of murder and attempted robbery, and guilty but mentally ill of aggravated criminal sexual assault. He was sentenced to death, as the murder was committed in the course of committing the aggravated criminal sexual assault. Defendant argued, inter alia, that the death penalty was the result of an impermissible double enhancement, because the strangulation was used as the basis for the murder charge and also the aggravating factor which enhanced the offense of criminal sexual assault to aggravated criminal sexual assault, which was then used to establish his eligibility for death. This court rejected his argument, since the bitings alone could have sustained the aggravated criminal sexual assault charge. Because defendant's conviction for aggravated criminal sexual assault could be supported without relying on the acts which caused the victim's death, there is no impermissible double enhancement. Scott, 148 Ill.2d at 562, 171 Ill.Dec. 365, 594 N.E.2d 217. Here, on the other hand, the home invasion conviction cannot be supported without relying on the acts which caused the victim's death. In the count charging defendant with home invasion, the State alleged that defendant, not a police officer acting in the line of duty, knowingly and without authority, entered the dwelling of Donald Buske, having reason to know Donald Buske to be present within that dwelling and intentionally caused injury to Donald Buske in that he stabbed Donald Buske with a knife. Home invasion is the act of entering a home and injuring a person or using force or threat of force against a person. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1989, ch. 38, par. 12-11.) Although the sexual assaults could have been the underlying injury for the home invasion, this is not an allegation in the information to which defendant pleaded guilty. Rather, the underlying injury specified in the information is the stabbing. The acts that supported the conviction of the felony murder were the breaking into the home, the waking, the chasing, and ultimately, the stabbing. The home invasion charge is necessarily a lesser included offense of the murder. We therefore vacate the home invasion charge and its sentence of 60 years' imprisonment. Defendant also argues that the trial court impermissibly used the home invasion as an aggravating factor to support the imposition of the death sentence. However, this has no basis in fact, since the trial court did not use the home invasion as an aggravating factor. At the sentencing stage, the judge said: I believe the evidence in this case, as well as the defendant's guilty plea to [the counts charging aggravated criminal sexual assault], are sufficient to support a finding of felony murder for purposes of eligibility for imposition of the death penalty without regard to whether or not the plea to home invasion can be considered as an aggravating factor. Since the home invasion was not used as an aggravating factor, we need not address whether to do so would have been proper.