Court Opinion

ID: 9715807
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:15:00.115787+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:38.352165
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HOFFMAN, specially concurring: I concur in the result reached by the majority in this case. I write separately to articulate my reasons for so concurring. The majority takes the position that we are not called upon to decide whether the defendant’s failure to testify waives review of a trial court’s decision to allow use of the defendant’s prior convictions to attack his believability. Strictly speaking the majority is correct. The trial court never ruled on the defendant’s motion to bar the State’s use of his prior convictions for impeachment purposes. To my mind, however, “[t]he effect of the court’s action was the same as if the court had in fact denied the motion without prejudice to renewing it after [the] defendant testified.” People v. Rose, 75 Ill. App. 3d 45, 52, 393 N.E.2d 698 (1979). The Supreme Court has taken the position that a trial court’s denial of a defendant’s motion in limine seeking to bar the use of prior convictions for impeachment purposes is not preserved for review unless the defendant testifies. Luce v. United States, 469 U.S. 38, 41-43, 83 L. Ed. 2d 443, 447-48, 105 S. Ct. 460, 463-64 (1984). I am at a loss to understand why the result should be any different when a trial court declines to rule on such a motion and the defendant elects not to testify. The Luce Court held that any possible harm flowing from a trial court’s denial of a motion in limine to bar impeachment by a prior conviction is wholly speculative absent the defendant having testified and the prosecution having been allowed to use the defendant’s prior convictions to impeach him. As the Court noted, the trial judge might, in the exercise of discretion, alter the previous ruling and bar the use of the defendant’s prior convictions for impeachment purposes, or the prosecution might elect not to use an arguably inadmissible prior conviction. Luce, 469 U.S. at 41-42, 83 L. Ed. 2d at 447-48, 105 S. Ct. at 463-64. The circumstance is no different when a trial court declines to rule on such a motion and the defendant does not testify. Whether the State would have attempted to use an inadmissible prior conviction to impeach the defendant or whether the trial court would have allowed impeachment by prior conviction is a matter of pure speculation. The majority correctly holds that a defendant has a constitutional right to testify, but comes short of declaring that the trial court denied him that right in this case. Instead, the majority concludes that “[t]he defendant was deprived of the information he needed to make an informed and intelligent decision about whether to testify.” 371 Ill. App. 3d at 952. I disagree. The defendant was certainly aware of his prior convictions and of the risk that the State might seek to impeach his testimony by introducing evidence of one or more of those convictions. The decision of whether to testify under those circumstances was that of the defendant, not the court. Even if the defense strategy was greatly influenced by the risk that the defendant would be impeached with his prior convictions, “the court was not required to remove that risk in advance.” People v. Mims, 204 Ill. App. 3d 87, 96, 561 N.E.2d 1101 (1990). In this case, the question of whether the defendant’s prior convictions would be admissible for purposes of impeachment never became an issue which the trial court was obligated to resolve because the defendant never testified and the State never attempted to introduce the convictions. People v. Ballard, 346 Ill. App. 3d 532, 543, 805 N.E.2d 656 (2004); People v. Owen, 299 Ill. App. 3d 818, 824-25, 701 N.E.2d 1174 (1998); see also Rose, 75 Ill. App. 3d at 52-53. Further, the assumption that the trial court’s refusal to rule on the defendant’s motion in limine motivated his decision not to testify is unsupported speculation. See Luce, 469 U.S. at 42, 83 L. Ed. 2d at 448, 105 S. Ct. at 463. Unlike the majority, I do not feel “encumbered” by precedent in this area; rather, I completely agree with the earlier decisions of this court holding that a trial court’s refusal to rule on a motion in limine to bar impeachment by evidence of a prior conviction is not reviewable. It is only when the defendant testifies and the State introduces evidence of a prior conviction for purposes of impeachment that a claim of error in admitting such evidence can be presented to a reviewing court in a concrete factual context. See Luce, 469 U.S. at 43-44, 83 L. Ed. 2d at 448-49, 105 S. Ct. at 464. If this court were to review a trial court’s refusal to rule on such a motion in limine in cases where the defendant elects not to testify, we would necessarily be required to engage in pure speculation as to the reasons why the defendant did not testify. For these reasons, I concur in the affirmance of the defendant’s conviction. Additionally, for the reasons stated by the majority, I concur in the vacation of the defendant’s sentence and remand of this case to the circuit court for a new sentencing hearing.