Opinion ID: 2051869
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Defendant's Statements to Court-Appointed Psychiatrists Should Have Been Excluded at the Death Penalty Hearing

Text: When circumstances indicate that a defendant may rely on a defense of insanity, the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 provides that the trial court may order the defendant to submit to examination by a court-appointed psychiatrist. The Code, however, also provides that statements made by the defendant to the court-appointed psychiatrists shall not be admissible against the defendant unless he raises the defense of insanity    in which case they shall be admissible only on the issue of whether he was insane   . (Emphasis added.) (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1981, ch. 38, par. 115-6.) This limitation obviously is designed to protect the defendant against compelled self-incrimination and to encourage him to communicate freely with the court-appointed psychiatrist. In this case the defendant made various statements to three court-appointed psychiatrists which were admitted at the death penalty hearing. The prosecution relied on them, not to prove the defendant's sanity, but to show among other things that he is an incredibly violent man who has a very, very bad temper. Under section 115-6, these statements should have been excluded at his death penalty hearing, even though they were admitted at his trial. The failure to exclude them requires that we vacate the death penalty and remand for a new sentencing hearing. The majority avoids this result by relying on section 9-1(e) of the Criminal Code of 1961, which provides that during the sentencing hearing any information relevant to any    aggravating factors or any mitigating factors    may be presented by the State or defendant regardless of its admissibility under the rules governing the admission of evidence at criminal trials. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1981, ch. 38, par. 9-1(e).) This provision, however, was primarily designed to ensure that evidence of the defendant's character is admissible in the death penalty hearing. Such evidence, although ordinarily inadmissible at a criminal trial, is relevant to the sentencing decision. Section 9-1(e) should not be read, however, to abrogate evidentiary privileges like section 115-6, which are designed to foster free and open communication by ensuring the confidentiality of the communication or by limiting uses of the communication that are adverse to the defendant's interest. Certainly no one would contend that section 9-1(e) overrides the attorney-client privilege, the physician-patient privilege or the spousal communication privilege.