Court Opinion

ID: 9732316
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:15:14.200738+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:26.322982
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE REINHARD, dissenting: Because I conclude that the brief remarks of the trial judge could not be understood by the jury as directing it to return a verdict of guilty on the burglary charge, I respectfully dissent. The fundamental difference I have with the majority’s rationale and the cases relied on is the treatment of the issue in the context of an “apparently deadlocked jury.” The record reveals that the jury returned the verdicts in open court approximately two hours after submission of the case to it. While the note sent to the court and the returning of both the guilty verdict signed by 10 jurors and the not guilty verdict signed by two jurors on the charge of burglary obviously indicates the jury was split, there is no indication the situation was in fact a true deadlock. Thus, it is in this circumstance, upon the surprising discovery of the split verdict, that the trial judge stated to the jury that “as the instructions I have previously given you indicate, your verdict upon any charge must be unanimous. So, with that I’m going to return these forms, and ask you to continue your deliberations, and with that I’d ask you to retire again.” Within an hour of further deliberation, a unanimous verdict of guilty of burglary was returned. It is apparent from the record that the trial judge did not view the jury as deadlocked, nor is there such showing by any of the comments of the jurors. (Cf. People v. Buckner (1984), 121 Ill. App. 3d 391, 400, 459 N.E.2d 1102.) It is primarily the function of the trial judge to determine whether a jury is deadlocked and in what manner to proceed. (See People v. Cowan (1985), 105 Ill. 2d 324, 327-29, 473 N.E.2d 1307.) Thus, in informing the jurors that their verdict must be unanimous and directing them to continue their deliberations, the trial judge was not confronting a deadlocked jury situation, but was only addressing their split verdict revealed to him after only two hours of deliberations. In this light, he was not telling the jurors that they must return a verdict, but only that their verdict must be unanimous, as they had been previously instructed. Under these circumstances, his action and comments in returning the jury for further deliberation was the practical way to proceed and was not error. While I agree with the majority that new verdict forms should have been given to the jury, I disagree that this procedure, as the majority states, “conveyed to the jury the unmistakable impression he believed it [the jury] would be able to add ‘enough’ signatures to the guilty verdict form to make up for the deficit in what otherwise would have been the required ‘unanimous’ verdict.” (184 Ill. App. 3d at 684.) The jury did deliberate about another hour before returning the jury verdict, indicating the two jurors were not compelled in their verdict in direct response to the judge’s comments. A judge’s instruction to continue deliberations after an unsolicited disclosure of the split in the verdict does not imply approval, disapproval or anything else, nor does it suggest that minority jurors change their stance. (People v. Farella (1979), 79 Ill. App. 3d 440, 445-46, 398 N.E.2d 615.) Fairly considering this record, it cannot be concluded that the trial judge either intended or conveyed to the jurors an improper direction to return a guilty verdict. For these reasons I dissent and would affirm the judgment below.