Court Opinion

ID: 9861990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:56:47.120177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:53.428786
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, specially concurring: I agree with the majority that the court below properly awarded the defendant a new trial, relief the defendant sought in a petition under section 2 — 1401 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2 — 1401 (West 1992)). At the hearing on the petition, prosecution witness Gayle Potter recanted her trial testimony, which implicated the defendant in the murder involved here, and testified that she alone committed the offense. A remedy under section 2 — 1401 is available in these circumstances. As this court explained in People v. Brown, 169 Ill. 2d 94, 107-08 (1995), unlike the Post-Conviction Hearing Act (725 ILCS 5/122 — 1 through 122 — 8 (West 1992)), section 2 — 1401 does not require a constitutional violation as a predicate for relief,,and therefore a defendant may prevail on a section 2 — 1401 petition even when the prosecution was not aware of the witness’ perjury. The defendant’s post-conviction petition raises different questions, however, and the majority’s discussion does not clearly distinguish between the two proceedings. As Brown noted, the Post-Conviction Hearing Act and section 2 — 1401 of the Code of Civil Procedure impose distinct prerequisites for relief; nowhere does the majority explain how its treatment of the defendant’s post-conviction petition, and its allegations of newly discovered evidence, can be reconciled with our decision in Brown, which denied post-conviction relief to a defendant alleging perjury at his trial. For the reasons set forth in my dissent in People v. Washington, 171 Ill. 2d 475 (1996), I do not believe that a free-standing claim of newly discovered evidence of innocence presents a constitutional claim that may form the basis for post-conviction relief in a noncapital case. In any event, having determined that the defendant is entitled to a new trial on the strength of the evidence presented at the hearing on his section 2 — 1401 petition, we have no cause here to address the separate question whether relief may also be obtained in this capital case under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act. I do not join that portion of the majority opinion. CHIEF JUSTICE BILANDIC joins in this special concurrence.