Court Opinion

ID: 9521026
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:55:17.480865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:32.133518
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, dissenting: The majority opinion affirms the appellate court’s acknowledgment that theft is not a lesser included offense of residential burglary with intent to commit theft. This is consistent with the definition of a “lesser included offense” set out in People v. Cramer (1981), 85 Ill. 2d 92, 99-100, which would exclude an instruction for theft in the present circumstances because the greater offense, residential burglary with intent to commit theft, does not require proof of theft, but only of the specific intent to commit theft. At the same time, however, the majority opinion declines to adopt the “inherent relationship” test to justify an instruction requested by the defendant covering theft. The majority opinion rejects reliance on this test on the ground that it would lead to ad hoe decisions. The flaw in the opinion is that it then does precisely what it warns against by offering no governing principle for its conclusion that when residential burglary with intent to commit theft is charged and the evidence would support a conviction for theft, the defendant’s request for an instruction on theft must be granted. This court has never seen fit to apply the “inherent relationship” test. (See People v. Mays (1982), 91 Ill. 2d 251.) In this case, the majority states that if the “inherent relationship” test were applied in the manner urged by the defendant, the result “would be counterproductive.” (104 Ill. 2d at 102.) Until we forthrightly adopt and apply the “inherent relationship” test in the way it has been applied in the Federal cases and in the California and Colorado cases cited in the majority opinion, it seems to me that the tendered instruction on theft was properly refused, and I can find no error in what the trial judge did.