Opinion ID: 3134496
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reverse- Witherspoon

Text: Defendant argues that he should have been allowed to voir dire the potential jurors on whether they would always vote for the death penalty if certain statutory aggravating factors were present. The State argues that, under our prior decisions, the trial court's voir dire questioning adequately protected defendant's constitutional right to “life-qualify” potential jurors. A defendant has the right to “life qualify” the jury by having potential jurors asked if they would automatically vote for the death penalty in any case in which the defendant was found guilty of murder. In Morgan v. Illinois , the United States Supreme Court noted its prior holdings that the sixth and fourteenth amendments require an impartial jury, that jurors who would not vote for the death penalty in any case are not impartial jurors, and that the State may challenge such jurors for cause. See Morgan v. Illinois , 504 U.S. 719, 726-34, 119 L. Ed. 2d 492, 500-06, 112 S. Ct. 2222, 2228-32 (1992), citing, inter alia , Witherspoon v. Illinois , 391 U.S. 510, 20 L. Ed. 2d 776, 88 S. Ct. 1770 (1968). Following this reasoning, the Court held in Morgan that the converse is also true: that “[a] juror who will automatically vote for the death penalty in every case will fail in good faith to consider the evidence of aggravating and mitigating circumstances as the instructions require him to do.” Morgan , 504 U.S. at 729, 119 L. Ed. 2d at 502, 112 S. Ct. at 2229. The Morgan Court found that, because such a juror has already formed an opinion on the merits of the case, he would not listen to the aggravating and mitigating factors in making a decision, and that juror cannot satisfy “the requirement of impartiality embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Morgan , 504 U.S. at 729, 119 L. Ed. 2d at 502-03, 112 S. Ct. at 2229-30. For this reason, a defendant may challenge for cause any juror who would automatically impose the death penalty upon conviction. Morgan , 504 U.S. at 729, 119 L. Ed. 2d at 503, 112 S. Ct. at 2230. This court has reviewed two cases in which the scope of the voir dire questions under Morgan was an issue. In People v. Hope , 168 Ill. 2d 1 (1995), the defendant was convicted of murder for an accomplice's shooting of a McDonald's employee during an armed robbery. The defendant had shot and killed a police officer while fleeing the McDonald's, and was convicted of that murder in a separate proceeding. As a result of the prior conviction, and the fact that the defendant was over the age of 17 at the time of the offense, the jury in the McDonald's murder conviction found him eligible for the death penalty under the multiple-murder eligibility factor. See 720 ILCS 5/9–1(b)(3) (West 1994). The jury then sentenced the defendant to death. The defendant challenged his conviction and sentence on a number of grounds, including the scope of the judge's voir dire questions. The judge had asked all potential jurors “whether they would automatically vote to impose death if they should convict the defendant of murder.” Hope , 168 Ill. 2d at 29. The trial court refused the defendant's request to ask 10 other reverse- Witherspoon questions. The defendant challenged the court's denial with respect to all 10, though he focused on the last two. The two key questions both asked “whether the potential juror would automatically vote to impose the death penalty if the jury should convict the defendant of murder and if they should be told that he was eligible for death because he had been convicted of another murder.” Hope , 168 Ill. 2d at 28. This court upheld the trial court's refusal to ask these additional questions. It interpreted Morgan as holding “only that the defendant is entitled to have potential jurors questioned as to whether they would automatically vote to impose the death penalty upon a finding of guilt, without regard to the aggravating or mitigating circumstances present in the case.” (Emphasis in original.) Hope , 168 Ill. 2d at 29. The court noted that the trial court complied with this mandate. “The further questioning desired by the defendant, inquiring into how the venire members would act given a particular aggravating factor, i.e. , the [other] murder conviction, is clearly not required by Morgan . To the contrary, Morgan specifically directed its holding toward the end of discovering jurors for whom `the presence or absence of either aggravating or mitigating circumstances is entirely irrelevant.' [Citation.] Conducting inquiry into whether a potential juror would vote to impose the death penalty, given a particular set of circumstances , is thus not required by Morgan .” (Emphasis in original.) Hope , 168 Ill. 2d at 29-30, quoting Morgan , 504 U.S. at 729, 119 L. Ed. 2d at 502-03, 112 S. Ct. at 2229. In People v. Brown , 172 Ill. 2d 1 (1996), the defendant was convicted of three counts of murder. The victims were a mother and her two children, ages two and three. The defendant was found eligible for the death sentence because he had been found guilty of murder of a victim under 12 years of age and “the death resulted from exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior indicative of wanton cruelty.” 720 ILCS 5/9–1(b)(7) (West 1994). The jury sentenced him to death. He challenged his conviction and sentence on a number of grounds, including the judge's voir dire questions. The trial court had refused a question submitted by the defendant: “If you sign a guilty verdict convicting Anton Brown of first degree murder of a two-year-old child, a three-year-old child and their mother, would you be able to consider reasons not to impose the death penalty, or would you automatically impose the death penalty?” Instead, the judge merely asked whether any of the jurors “ `would automatically impose the death penalty,' ” and, later, whether any of the jurors “ `would always vote for the death penalty.' ” Brown , 172 Ill. 2d at 30. This court upheld the trial court's refusal to ask the question proffered by the defendant. Citing the decision in Hope , the court found that Morgan entitles a defendant only to have prospective jurors “questioned as to whether they would automatically vote to impose the death penalty upon a finding of guilt, without regard to the aggravating or mitigating circumstances present in the case.” Brown , 172 Ill. 2d at 30. The court held that the question submitted by the defendant, which asked whether a juror would automatically impose the death penalty given the aggravating circumstances present in the case, was clearly not required by Morgan . Brown , 172 Ill. 2d at 31. Rather, it held, Morgan requires that courts attempt to expose jurors who will vote to impose the death penalty without regard to the aggravating or mitigating circumstances of an individual case. Brown , 172 Ill. 2d at 31. In the present case, the trial court asked all of the prospective jurors: “Is there any one of you among the jurors who would return a verdict directing the court to impose the death penalty in every case where there is a finding of guilty of the offense of murder regardless of what the facts were that you heard?” The court refused to ask two questions requested by defendant. These questions, both relating to the statutory factors on the basis of which defendant was found eligible, were: “Would you impose the death penalty in all murder cases where more than one person was killed?” and “Would you impose the death penalty in all murder cases where a child is killed?” It is the decision of the trial court to refuse those questions that gives rise to the defendant's first argument. Under this court's decisions in Brown and Hope , the trial court's questions were sufficient to vindicate defendant's right under Morgan to “life qualify” the jury. In each of those two cases, we held that the defendant is entitled only to have the prospective jurors questioned as to whether they would automatically vote to impose the death penalty for a defendant convicted of murder. In Brown , the court held that the defendant does not have a right to have the jurors questioned with respect to whether they would automatically vote for the death penalty in a case which included certain specific aggravating factors. Rather, it held that the jurors need only be asked whether they would automatically vote for the death penalty “upon a finding of guilt.” Brown , 172 Ill. 2d at 30. The trial court in the case at bar did ask each of the potential jurors this question. Therefore, under our prior holdings, the court's voir dire questions did not violate the defendant's rights under Morgan .