Court Opinion

ID: 9742306
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:10:30.942113+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:30.816725
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, specially concurring: I concur in the court’s judgment but write separately to make clear the basis for my agreement. In People v. Bryant (1986), 113 Ill. 2d 497, we dispensed with the “reasonable theory of innocence” charge contained in the pattern jury instruction on circumstantial evidence. Intended for use in cases in which there was no direct evidence of the guilt of the accused, that portion of the instruction advised jurors, “You should not find the defendant guilty unless the facts or circumstances proved exclude every reasonable theory of innocence.” (Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Criminal, No. 3.02 (2d ed. 1981).) Bryant quoted the United States Supreme Court’s disapproval of such a jury instruction in Holland v. United States (1954), 348 U.S. 121, 139-40, 99 L. Ed. 150, 166-67, 75 S. Ct. 127, 137-38. Consistent with Holland, we noted in Bryant that a single standard of proof governs all cases, regardless of the type of evidence adduced, and we criticized the “reasonable theory of innocence” charge as an obscure and misleading attempt to define the single reasonable doubt standard. We concluded that the “reasonable theory of innocence” charge should no longer be used. Bryant, 113 Ill. 2d at 510-12. It should have been clear, following our decision in Bryant, that the “reasonable theory of innocence” formulation could not be used in the appellate process as either a definition of reasonable doubt or a separate standard of review. As Bryant indicated, there is no intrinsic difference among prosecutions based on circumstantial evidence, prosecutions based on direct evidence, and prosecutions based on a combination of the two. By the same token, all claims of evidentiary insufficiency on review should be decided under a single standard, whatever the nature of the evidence. Nothing can be gained on appeal by redefining the applicable standard in the obscure and misleading language we have rejected for jury use.