Court Opinion

ID: 9860392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:20:27.97936+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:21:49.762337
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE O’MALLEY, specially concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree that a new trial is necessary because the issues instruction did not apprise the jury of the State’s burden -to disprove the defendant’s affirmative defense that .he reasonably believed T.K., was 17 years old or older. However, upon further reflection prompted by the petition for rehearing, I must dissent from the anticipatory discussion of the admissibility of T.K.’s contradictory statements to emergency room personnel regarding whether she had sexual intercourse with anyone other than defendant within 72 hours of submitting to a rape kit. Citing Grano as its sole authority, the majority accepts the defendant’s argument that these statements are admissible “under the constitutional exception to the rape shield statute” to “impugn the credibility of T.K’s testimony that *** she was 16 years old.” 333 Ill. App. 3d at 9. My first dispute is with the majority’s interpretation of Grano. The majority states that Grano “held that the trial court improperly excluded evidence proffered by the defendant that the victim of an alleged sexual assault made prior inconsistent statements concerning sexual relations with adult men other than the defendant.” 333 Ill. App. 3d at 9. This is not correct. The defense in Grano did not seek to introduce any “prior inconsistent statements” by the victim. A statement by a witness is admissible as a prior inconsistent statement only if it has the tendency to contradict the witness’s trial testimony. People v. Zurita, 295 Ill. App. 3d 1072, 1077 (1998). The defense in Grano sought to introduce testimony from other witnesses that the victim “made prior allegations of sexual activity with other men and that such activity never occurred.” Grano, 286 Ill. App. 3d at 287. The defense proposed to do this through “three witnesses who would testify that the victim told them that she had sex with three other adult men, and three witnesses (the other adult men) who would testify that they never had sex with the victim.” Grano, 286 Ill. App. 3d at 287-88. There was no indication in Grano that the testimony offered by the defense had the tendency to contradict the victim’s trial testimony. The court did not analyze the testimony as a prior inconsistent statement but as a prior false allegation of sexual activity. See Grano, 286 Ill. App. 3d at 288-89. My second point is that if the majority, in citing Grano, presupposes that the contradictory statements of the victim offered by the defense in this case will be admissible on remand as “prior inconsistent statements” simply because the contradiction in the statements might undermine T.K.’s credibility, the majority is mistaken. T.K. made two out-of-court statements that contradicted each other, but, as far as the record shows, neither statement had the tendency to contradict her trial testimony. Neither statement will be admissible on remand as a prior inconsistent statement unless it has the tendency to contradict TJEL’s trial testimony. Last, I see no means available for using either of T.K.’s statements to attack her credibility other than as a prior inconsistent statement (provided, of course, that the statement would have a tendency to contradict her trial testimony). The fact that T.K. made contradictory statements outside court is by itself no basis for a general assault on her credibility. “In Illinois, it is well settled that the proper procedure for impeaching a witness’ reputation for truthfulness is through the use of reputation evidence.” People v. West, 158 Ill. 2d 155, 162 (1994). In the wake of West, the appellate court has held that specific instances of untruthfulness are not admissible to attack a witness’s believabilify See People v. Morrow, 303 Ill. App. 3d 671, 680 (1999); People v. McGee, 286 Ill. App. 3d 786, 796 (1997). If the record on remand does not provide a basis for the admission of either statement as a prior inconsistent statement, the contradiction in the statements will remain a specific out-of-court instance of untruthfulness and, accordingly, inadmissible.