Court Opinion

ID: 9742931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:22:50.79338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:37.920203
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE STOUDER, specially concurring: I am entirely in accord with the result reached by the majority and join with my colleagues in holding a new trial is required on accoimt of the instructional errors. I am also in accord with the majority on the other issues discussed in the opinion with the exception of the holding that the evidence of other beatings by prior husbands was inadmissible. In my opinion the evidence of other beatings by prior husbands should have been admitted. People v. Williams, 45 Ill. App. 3d 338, 359 N.E.2d 736, and Davids v. People, 192 Ill. 176, 61 N.E. 537, cited by the majority, are persuasive authority for the admission of such evidence and I see no significant distinctions between the facts in those cases and the facts in the instant case. Where, as in this case, one of the issues is the reasonableness of the defendant’s apprehension of death or serious bodily harm, the issue depends not only on the conduct of the victim but how such conduct is perceived by the defendant. Such perception is related to prior experience and although we may not always learn from our prior mistakes they do condition our behavior and affect our reactions. The evidence of other beatings was not remote in any time context and the majority has not concluded that such evidence did not or could not have affected the defendant’s state of mind governing her reaction to the victim’s conduct. I believe the evidence was both relevant and improperly excluded. The victim was probably aware of what had happened to the defendant during her earlier marriages and might well have taken advantage of this knowledge in deciding upon his own course of conduct. I would note that because of the result and the reasons therefor which we have reached in this opinion, our decision on the admissibility of this evidence is dicta but proper in order to offer some guidance on a retrial.