Court Opinion

ID: 9534275
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:38:14.717074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:30:08.932782
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HALL, specially concurring: I disagree with the majority’s decision that instructing the jury with No. 3.06 — 3.07 without the bracketed phrase was not error. Our supreme court’s committee on jury instructions stated in its note on the instruction that “[t]he bracketed phrase *** should be deleted only when the defendant admits making all the material statements attributed to him.” IPI Criminal 4th No. 3.06 — 3.07, Committee Note, at 91. The word “admit” is defined as “[t]o acknowledge; confess: admit the truth ***; [t]o accept or allow as true or valid.” (Emphasis in original.) American Heritage Dictionary 80 (2d college ed. 1982). The defendant did not admit making the statement to Detective Foria. Instead, as did the courts in the cases cited by it, the majority relies on the fact that the defendant offered no evidence contradicting Detective Foria’s testimony that the defendant confessed. In Richmond, this court and Justice Hoffman in his specially concurring opinion agreed that prior case law did not require the defendant to give up his constitutional right to remain silent, i.e. not testify, in order to have the jury instructed with the bracketed phrase of the instruction. Richmond, 341 Ill. App. 3d at 52; see Richmond, 341 Ill. App. 3d at 55 (Hoffman, J., specially concurring). Nonetheless, Justice Hoffman rejected the view that inferences from cross-examination were sufficient to entitle the defendant to the bracketed phrase in the instruction. Richmond, 341 Ill. App. 3d at 55 (Hoffman, J, specially concurring). In this case there were no other witnesses to the defendant’s statement. Without giving up his right not to testify, the defendant’s only recourse was to challenge the detective’s testimony by cross-examination. The detective’s testimony was evidence from which inferences could properly be drawn to support the giving of the bracketed phrase. See People v. Buck, 361 Ill. App. 3d 923 (2005) (the failure of the police to videotape the defendant’s statement gave rise to the inference that the statement was not made at all). In Lange v. Freund, 367 Ill. App. 3d 641 (2006), the court addressed the extent to which recommendations and comments of the supreme court’s committee on instructions controlled the giving of jury instructions. Noting that there had been no blanket prohibition of the instruction given in the case or a judicial analysis of the committee’s recommendation, the court recognized that “the propriety of the trial court’s instruction[s] herein is not conclusively determined by the recommendation[s] and comments of the supreme court’s jury instruction committee.” Lange, 367 Ill. App. 3d at 645. Still, Lange does not require that the committee’s recommendations and comments be ignored, and, unlike Lange, the committee’s note to No. 3.06 — 3.07 regarding the bracketed phrase was not in the nature of a recommendation but in the nature of a requirement. In my view, prior case law, as well as the majority here, pays too little heed to the requirement that the defendant admit the statement in order for the instruction to be given without the bracketed phrase. In the present case, equating the defendant’s failure to put forth evidence, which here could only consist of his own testimony, to an admission that he made the statement clearly violates the defendant’s right not to testify. Protecting that right required that the bracketed phrase be given to the jury in this case. In any event, based on Richmond, the defendant was also entitled to the bracketed phrase based on the inferences from the cross-examination of Detective Foria. Richmond, 341 Ill. App. 3d at 52. While the failure to give the bracketed portion of the instruction was error, I am also convinced that had the jury been given the proper instruction, the result of the trial would not have been different. Therefore the error was harmless, and the defendant’s conviction should be affirmed. See Richmond, 341 Ill. App. 3d at 53.