Court Opinion

ID: 9737382
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:23:36.660172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:58.515829
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MORAN, dissenting: Although I agree Avith the majority that the evidence was sufficient to prove defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, I cannot agree Avith the majority’s treatment of the severance issue. Therefore I respectfully dissent. In People v. Bean (1985), 109 Ill. 2d 80, this court held that it was error to deny a severance of Bean’s trial from that of Byron, the defendant herein. Based upon this error we reversed Bean’s conAdction and ordered a new trial. The reversal of Bean’s conviction, however, does not by itself require a new trial for Byron. The question before this court is not whether severance was required. The question, instead, is whether the erroneous failure to sever was sufficiently prejudicial to Byron to deprive him of a fair trial. Bean Ayas prejudiced by the failure to sever because Byron took the position that Bean was the murderer. Bean was thus required to defend himself against both the State and his codefendant. However, Byron’s motion for severance did not even allege that he expected Bean to point the finger at him, and at trial it was never Bean’s position that Byron was the murderer. Byron’s severance motion instead relied upon two grounds which have heretofore never been recognized by this court as sufficient for severance: (1) the difficulty in accusing Bean as the murderer when Bean is a codefendant, and (2) the disparity in the weight of evidence against Bean as opposed to defendant. As to the first ground above, defendant’s severance motion did not state any specific way in which he would be hampered in his attempts to attack Bean. “Mere apprehensions of prejudice” are not enough to require severance (People v. Lee (1981), 87 Ill. 2d 182, 186), and thus the failure to spell out the prejudice anticipated would normally be fatal to defendant’s motion. Moreover, given the fact that Bean was convicted of murder, it is hard to see how defendant can claim that he was prejudiced by an inability to convince the jury that Bean was the murderer. As to the second ground, this court has never before ruled that the failure to sever may deprive a defendant of a fair trial solely because the weight of the evidence was stronger against a codefendant. The evidence is never identical as to all codefendants, and absent some specific prejudice, the court should be unwilling to require severance merely because there is evidence against one defendant which does not bear on the guilt of the other. The case relied upon by the majority, United States v. Sampol (D.C. Cir. 1980), 636 F.2d 621, is factually very different from the case at bar. In Sampol two codefendants were charged with conspiracy and murder arising out of the car bombing of a former ambassador. A third defendant, Ignacio Nova, was charged only with making false statements to a grand jury and concealing the felony but was not charged with any culpability in the murder itself. The court held that Nova was prejudiced by a joint trial where the overwhelming bulk of the evidence bore no relevance to the relatively minor charges against Nova but instead related almost exclusively to the more serious charges against the other two defendants. In such an extreme situation where the trial of one defendant on serious charges may confuse the jury as to the minor charges against another defendant there may be some rationale for requiring severance. However, in the case at bar the defendants were both charged with the identical crime, and witnesses implicated each of them in the murder. Defendant was not deprived of a fair trial merely because, as the majority seems to think, the witnesses against Bean were more credible than the one key witness against defendant. I would therefore affirm defendant’s conviction.