Court Opinion

ID: 9480450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:48:15.535517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:41.760462
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc.
The Illinois Supreme Court’s description of the defendant’s burden of producing mitigating evidence, see People v. Bean, — Ill.2d —, -, No. 65062, slip op. at 51-52 (April 18, 1990), combined with the statutory mandate that the evidence in mitigation must be sufficient to “preclude” death, is quite different semantically and, perhaps in substance, from the approach approved by the Supreme Court in Blystone v. Pennsylvania, 495 U.S. —, 110 S.Ct. 1078, 108 L.Ed.2d 255 (1990).1 An Illinois jury certainly is not given the same degree of direction as a Pennsylvania jury. Unlike a Pennsylvania jury, an Illinois jury apparently is not told, at least directly, that the aggravating circumstances must outweigh any mitigating circumstances. Therefore, it appears that an Illinois jury, faced with a situation where the aggravating and mitigating evidence is close or in equipoise, does not have the same guidance as a Pennsylvania jury. Indeed, even when the evidence in mitigation arguably outweighs that in aggravation, there is a substantial question as to whether the word “preclude” is sufficiently definite to give the juror meaningful guidance in arriving at a constitutionally permissible decision. While Walton v. Arizona, — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 3047, 111 L.Ed.2d 511 (1990) addresses the allocation of proof issue, it does not address squarely the linkage between that allocation and the vagueness problem presented by the Illinois statute. Nor does it address those combined problems in the context of a jury determination. See generally Penny v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. —, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989).
This is not an easy area and plenary reflection by the entire court might resolve the matter in favor of the constitutionality of the statute. However, we ought to resolve all doubts now both for the sake of this defendant and for the over one hundred defendants already awaiting execution under this statute. Those cases inevitably will come to this court. We should hear the matter en banc.

. See also Boyde v. California, 495 U.S. —, 110 S.Ct. 1190, 108 L.Ed.2d 316 (1990).