Opinion ID: 2027457
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: evidence of earlier misconduct

Text: Finally, I believe a serious error occurred at the sentencing stage which requires a remand for a new sentencing hearing. The trial judge improperly relied on two of the defendant's earlier contacts with the law in concluding that the death penalty should be imposed. First, he stated for the record that in 1969, at the age of 14, the defendant was adjudged a juvenile delinquent for robbery. This is a mischaracterization of the incident. The juvenile court's disposition of the petition relating to defendant's conduct at that time was to place the defendant on juvenile supervision without entry of any findings, a disposition which does not constitute an adjudication of delinquency. ( In re A.M. (1981), 94 Ill. App.3d 86; see Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 37, par. 704-7.) Inasmuch as the defendant was not adjudicated a delinquent on this occasion, this incident could not properly be considered at a later sentencing hearing. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 37, par. 702-9. Also, the trial judge, in commenting on the defendant's proclivity for crime after he graduated from the juvenile court, as the judge put it, referred to his conviction for theft in 1973. Here again the trial judge mischaracterized the episode, for that charge too was disposed of by supervision, and this disposition did not constitute a conviction. People v. Breen (1976), 62 Ill.2d 323. The trial judge referred to these two incidents and others as part of a pattern which revealed, in the judge's words, proclivity for crime by the defendant. Inasmuch as neither incident involved an adjudication of delinquency or a conviction, reliance upon them in determining the appropriate sentence was error. This error cannot properly be regarded as harmless, as the State urges, in a case such as this where the sentencing judge's reliance on the two incidents appears so prominently in the record. In Townsend v. Burke (1948), 334 U.S. 736, 92 L.Ed. 1690, 68 S.Ct. 1252, where erroneous information regarding a defendant's criminal record was considered in sentencing, the court observed that it was not at liberty to assume that the sentencing court was not influenced by that information. See also People v. Brownell (1980), 79 Ill.2d 508, 535-36. The majority opinion does not discuss this issue, for it views it as having been waived by the defendant's failure to object to the introduction of this evidence before the trial judge. (101 Ill.2d at 494-95.) I do not believe that it is appropriate to give such short shrift to a serious objection which a defendant seeks to raise in an attempt to escape execution, a penalty which is irreversible should it later appear that a mistake was made. As I pointed out in my dissent in People v. Free (1983), 94 Ill.2d 378, 435 (Simon, J., dissenting), few propositions have a longer pedigree in the common law of this State than that any irregularity not expressly waived in the trial of a capital case must be heard on review. ( Nomaque v. People (1825), 1 Ill. (1 Breese) 145, 149; see People v. Fisher (1930), 340 Ill. 216, 259.) Moreover, I believe that the error alleged here was so substantial and cut so deeply into the fairness of the proceeding as to call for its treatment as plain error. (87 Ill.2d R. 615(a); see People v. Whitlow (1982), 89 Ill.2d 322, 342; People v. Roberts (1979), 75 Ill.2d 1, 14; People v. Sullivan (1978), 72 Ill.2d 36, 42; People v. Burson (1957), 11 Ill.2d 360, 370-71; compare People v. Baynes (1981), 88 Ill.2d 225, 233-34, 244 (admission of polygraph evidence ruled plain error even though defendant had stipulated to it at trial).) The trial court's misreading of the character of defendant's earlier antisocial conduct derives no support from the evidence, and its use for the purpose of establishing his tendency to commit serious crimes notwithstanding that fact deprived him of the substantial means of receiving a fair sentencing hearing. For the foregoing reasons I dissent.