Opinion ID: 2135771
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Habitual-Offender Sentencing

Text: The Habitual Criminal Act mandates the imposition of a natural life sentence on a defendant convicted of three Class X felonies within a 20-year period. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1987, ch. 38, par. 33B1.) Section 33B2 of the Act sets out the procedures that apply when the State seeks to have a court sentence a defendant as a habitual criminal. Section 33B2(a) provides, in pertinent part: After a plea or verdict or finding of guilty and before sentence is imposed, the prosecutor may file with the court a verified written statement signed by the State's Attorney concerning any former conviction of an offense set forth in Section 33B1 rendered against the defendant. The court shall then cause the defendant to be brought before it; shall inform him of the allegations of the statement so filed, and of his right to a hearing before the court on the issue of such former conviction and of his right to counsel at such hearing; and unless the defendant admits such conviction, the court shall hear and determine such issue, and shall make a written finding thereon. If a sentence has previously been imposed, the court may vacate such sentence and impose a new sentence in accordance with Section 33B1 of this Act. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1989, ch. 38, par. 33B2(a).) A defendant must be adjudged a Class X offender to be sentenced under the Habitual Criminal Act. See Ill.Rev.Stat.1987, ch. 38, par. 33B1(a). It is settled that habitual-offender legislation neither creates a separate offense nor directly involves the prior crimes. The prior-conviction evidence for purposes of sentencing enhancement is merely a matter of aggravation going solely to the punishment to be imposed; it is not an ingredient of the main offense charged. People v. Kirkrand (1947), 397 Ill. 588, 590, 74 N.E.2d 813; People v. Lawrence (1945), 390 Ill. 499, 505, 61 N.E.2d 361; People v. Atkinson (1941), 376 Ill. 623, 625, 35 N.E.2d 58; see also A. Campbell, Law of Sentencing § 7.5 (2d ed. 1991). Defendants assert that the procedure for determining a defendant's habitual criminal status parallels, in all important respects, the capital sentencing procedure considered in Bullington. Defendants specifically note the following similarities between our habitual-criminal sentencing procedure and the capital sentencing procedure in Bullington: (1) a separate hearing is held on the issue of defendant's habitual-criminal status; (2) the prosecutor must prove the habitual-criminal status beyond a reasonable doubt; and (3) the trial judge is not given unbounded discretion to select the defendant's punishment but must, instead, impose a sentence of natural life imprisonment. These factors, defendants contend, sufficiently mark the procedure with the hallmarks of the trial on guilt and innocence to trigger double jeopardy protections. We note at the outset that there is a split of authority in the Federal circuits on whether double jeopardy applies to similar habitual-offender sentencing procedures. Bohlen, 979 F.2d 109, Durosko, 882 F.2d 357, Nelson v. Lockhart (8th Cir. 1987), 828 F.2d 446, rev'd on other grounds (1988), 488 U.S. 33, 109 S.Ct. 285, 102 L.Ed.2d 265, and Bullard, 665 F.2d 1347, vac. on other grounds (1983), 459 U.S. 1139, 103 S.Ct. 776, 74 L.Ed.2d 987, each hold that double jeopardy applies. Denton v. Duckworth (7th Cir.1989), 873 F.2d 144, and Linam v. Griffin (10th Cir.1982), 685 F.2d 369, however, reach a contrary result. Incidentally, the court in Denton distinguished Indiana's habitual-offender statute from the Bullington sentencing proceeding on the basis that the Bullington proceeding involved consideration of particular facts underlying the substantive offense, while Indiana's habitual-offender statute did not. ( Denton, 873 F.2d at 147.) A similar rationale was offered by the court in Linam for its rejection of Bullington. Further, we note, as did the concurring Justice in Linam, that the focus in Bullington was merely whether the sentencing proceeding resembled trial on the issue of guilt (see Linam, 685 F.2d 369 (Anderson, J., concurring)); the Court made no mention of the uniqueness of the death sentence as a rationale for its holding. At first glance, our habitual-criminal sentencing procedure appears to share sufficient commonalities with the sentencing procedure in Bullington to warrant extension of the exception here. However, we must be careful to avoid diminishing the value of Bullington by engaging in merely mechanical application. The focus of our inquiry, as was the Court's in Bullington, is whether our proceeding resembles a defendant's trial on the issue of guilt. We first examine the separate hearing factor. Under our criminal code, a sentencing hearing is required after any determination of guilt. (See Ill.Rev.Stat.1991, ch. 38, par. 100541(a).) Thus, to conclude that the sentencing hearing is trial-like simply because it is held separately from the determination of guilt would potentially subject all sentencing proceedings in Illinois to the Bullington exception. Bullington does not compel such a result. We, therefore, must consider those unique aspects of the separate sentencing proceeding which, in Bullington, rendered that factor trial-like. Under the sentencing provision considered in Bullington, the jury hears evidence in extenuation, mitigation and aggravation of punishment, subject to the laws of evidence. Only such evidence in aggravation as the prosecution has made known to the defendant prior to his trial is admissible at the hearing. In addition, the jury hears argument concerning the punishment to be imposed. The Missouri statute also expressly provides for final arguments to the jury, directing that the prosecuting attorney shall open and that the defense counsel shall conclude the argument to the jury. Further, prior to the jury's deliberations, the judge gives appropriate instructions to guide the jury in its deliberations. ( Bullington, 451 U.S. at 433 n. 4, 101 S.Ct. at 1855 n. 4, 68 L.Ed.2d at 275 n. 4.) Additionally, a jury that imposes the death penalty must designate in writing the aggravating circumstance that it finds beyond a reasonable doubt. ( Bullington, 451 U.S. at 434, 101 S.Ct. at 1858-59, 68 L.Ed.2d at 276.) Finally, the Court in Bullington thought it not without some significance that the Missouri statute [spoke] specifically of the [capital sentencing] hearing in terms of a continuing `trial.' Bullington, 451 U.S. at 438 n. 10, 101 S.Ct. at 1858 n. 10, 68 L.Ed.2d at 279 n. 10. As is apparent, many of the due process protections afforded a defendant at trial on the issue of guilt are provided under Missouri's separate capital sentencing provision. These same evidentiary and procedural safeguards, however, are not present under Illinois' separate habitual-offender sentencing procedure. Except for the records certification requirement, noticeably absent is any mandate that the State comply with formalistic rules of evidence applicable at trial. Also, the State is not required, prior to trial, either to inform the defendant of its intent to seek an habitual-offender determination or to reveal what evidence it plans to present at sentencing. See People v. Tobias (1984), 125 Ill.App.3d 234, 242, 80 Ill.Dec. 496, 465 N.E.2d 608, (holding that a defendant need not be notified prior to the sentencing hearing itself; notice is sufficient if the petition is first read to the defendant at the hearing and he is allowed to reply to the recidivist charges before a sentence is imposed); see also Ill.Rev.Stat. 1989, ch. 38, par. 33B2(a) (Act expressly provides that prior conviction shall not be alleged in the indictment). Further, although presumably the order of proceeding at sentencing parallels the order at trial, our Act makes no express provision concerning the order of proof or argument. Additionally, a point deemed important by the Court in Bullington, the Act refers to the sentencing proceeding as a hearing, not as a trial. Even more significant, the defendant, unlike at trial, is not entitled to a jury to decide the issue of habitual-criminal status. In the context of a criminal trial the Constitution mandates a jury to prevent abuses of official power by insuring, where demanded, community participation in imposing serious deprivations of liberty and to provide a hedge against corrupt, biased, or political justice. ( McKeiver v. Pennsylvania (1971), 403 U.S. 528, 551, 91 S.Ct. 1976, 1989, 29 L.Ed.2d 647, 664 (White, J., concurring).) The absence of a jury requirement here evidences that any similar concern in habitual-criminal sentencing proceedings is not operative. We are aware that the court in Bohlen, 979 F.2d at 114 n. 6, noted that whether a persistent-offender determination is made by judge or jury does not affect a determination of whether Bullington applies in noncapital cases. The distinction we make here, however, is on the issue of entitlement to a jury. Finally, we deem it significant that the State's burden of proof for purposes of habitual-criminal sentencing may be satisfied by the presentation of certified records of the defendant's prior convictions. (See People v. Davis (1983), 95 Ill.2d 1, 31, 69 Ill.Dec. 136, 447 N.E.2d 353.) Notably, such proof is developed outside of the courtroom. As a result, the proceeding does not involve the same degree of adversarial testing characteristic of the evidentiary phase of trial. In contrast, the statute examined in Bullington requires the State to develop the evidence that proves an aggravating factor during the course of the proceeding, as in a trial. Under our Act, a defendant is not afforded the full panoply of due process rights which are necessarily afforded a criminal defendant at the evidentiary phase of trial. Those standards which, at trial, govern the admissibility of evidence and precisely define the manner in which the court and parties are to proceed are absent. The legislature has fashioned the habitual-criminal sentencing proceeding to be less formalized than a trial. Indeed, the paucity of due process protections at sentencing supports the conclusion that the legislature has deemed the defendant's interests at this stage of the proceeding to warrant fewer of those protections than at trial. We conclude that the separate hearing procedure under our Act bears insufficient formalities of a trial to render that factor analogous to the separate hearing procedure in Bullington and to this defendant's trial on the issue of guilt. We recognize that the Act provides certain evidentiary and procedural safeguards, such as the requirement that the records of the defendant's prior convictions be certified, that the defendant be informed of the allegations of the prior convictions, and that the court make written findings on the issue of the defendant's habitual criminality. In this regard, the habitual-criminal sentencing proceeding is, at least, more formalistic than sentencing under our general sentencing provision. ( Cf. Ill.Rev.Stat. 1991, ch. 38, par. 100541(a); see also People v. Williams (1992), 149 Ill.2d 467, 174 Ill.Dec. 829, 599 N.E.2d 913.) However, these limited procedural and evidentiary safeguards do not sufficiently color the separate sentencing proceeding with the shades of trial such that the two proceedings appear analogous. Defendants, proceeding on the premise that the degree of proof required in a habitual-criminal proceeding is beyond a reasonable doubt, assert this and the lack of sentencing discretion as additional commonalities with the procedure examined in Bullington and with a trial. Our finding that the separate sentencing factor lacks the formality of a trial defeats the analogy of the habitual sentencing procedure to a trial on the issue of guilt. Thus, even accepting the presence of the other two trial-like factors, we hold that the habitual-criminal sentencing proceeding does not so approximate the ordeal of trial to bring the proceeding within the exception of Bullington.