Opinion ID: 2077350
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Mitigation Testimony of Defendant's Mother

Text: Defendant's mother, Virginia McCallister, testified on behalf of defendant during the aggravation-mitigation phase of sentencing. Near the conclusion of McCallister's direct examination by defense counsel, the following exchange occurred: Q. Mrs. McCallister, do you love your son? A. Yes I do sir. I love all my children. Q. And you sat here, and you've heard what justwhat this jury has convicted him of. Has that changed your love for him? A. God knows it don't. I'm a little moreI always showed Maynard a little more attention than I did the rest of the children because Maynard always had a problem, and I knew it. Q. Mrs. McCallister, do you want your son to live? [Assistant State's Attorney:] Objection, Your Honor. That is irrelevant. That has A. With all my heart. THE COURT: Sustained. A. With all my heart. Please do not because I've lost his father. I've lost a [Assistant Public Defender:] Mrs. McCallister. [Assistant State's Attorney:] That's a violation of the Court Order. THE COURT: I sustain the objection. Defendant argues that the trial court's ruling excluding McCallister's testimony violated defendant's rights under the eighth and fourteenth amendments to a fair and reliable death penalty hearing. Defendant concedes that this court has held that a witness' opinion that a defendant should not be sentenced to death is not admissible at a capital sentencing hearing. People v. Howard, 147 Ill.2d 103, 162, 167 Ill.Dec. 914, 588 N.E.2d 1044 (1991). Defendant maintains, however, that there is a difference between a witness' opinion about what sentence a defendant deserves, and a witness' personal feeling that she wants the defendant to live. The former, according to defendant, is an inadmissible expression of opinion on the ultimate question for the sentencer. The latter, defendant argues, is an expression of the witness' feeling that she does not want her relationship with the defendant severed by his death, and constitutes relevant mitigating evidence of the defendant's character. Thus, according to defendant, McCallister should have been allowed to testify that she wanted defendant to live. Assuming, without deciding, that defendant's rationale is correct, and that it was error to exclude McCallister's testimony, we find any such error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The aggravating evidence introduced against defendant during the sentencing hearing was overwhelming. That evidence showed, inter alia, that defendant was involved in an incident in which he attacked a man with a machete; that on the same day defendant murdered the three victims in this case, he attacked one man and murdered another during a drug dispute; and that, approximately two weeks after defendant murdered the three victims in this case, he murdered another man following an argument over his car. Furthermore, it cannot be seriously argued that the jury in this case was unaware that McCallister, defendant's mother, wanted defendant to live. Given these facts, we hold that, even assuming it was error to exclude McCallister's testimony, such error could not have contributed to the imposition of the death sentence and was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See People v. Wilkerson, 87 Ill.2d 151, 157, 57 Ill.Dec. 628, 429 N.E.2d 526 (1981) (setting forth the approaches for measuring whether error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt).