Court Opinion

ID: 9540758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:19:38.032583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:16.861790
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE GREEN, specially concurring: I agree with the result reached by the majority. I cannot agree, however, that the power of the supreme court to enact a rule regulating the conduct of voir dire arises out of the provision of section 16 of article VI of the Constitution of 1970 which gives the supreme court “[g]eneral administrative and supervisory authority over all courts” to “be exercised by the Chief Justice in accordance with its rules.” Although Rule 234 has the admirable purpose of expediting trials and that in turn is an important goal of judicial administration, I consider the rule to be a rule of procedure rather than a rule for the administration or supervision of the court system. Express constitutional authority for the supreme court to exercise supervisory power over the court system appeared for the first time in the Constitution of 1970. The Judicial Amendment of 1962 provided the first express constitutional statement that it had administrative authority. The opinion in Brumfield recognizes that section 16 of article VI did not alter the relationship between the legislature and the supreme court as to the rule making power and that a portion of that power is vested in each of those branches of the government. In People ex rel. Stamos v. Jones (1968), 40 Ill. 2d 62, 237 N.E.2d 495, the supreme court stated that the judicial amendment of 1962 did not make a general revision of that court’s general rule making power but only spoke to certain specified aspects of it. Accordingly, I conclude that in the face of conflicting legislation, the validity of a procedural rule like Rule 234 has not been altered by the constitutional changes that have taken place since 1962. Had the drafters of documents by which the electorate voted to change the judicial article in 1962 and 1970 intended to change the power of the supreme court to provide by rule for such procedural matters as the method of selecting juries, they would have so stated directly rather than have chosen the devious route of including that power within the framework of the supreme court’s administrative and supervisory powers. In stating in section 16 that the court was to “provide by rule for inexpensive and expeditious appeals,” the language was explicit. If the supervisory and administrative power covered rules for voir dire, it would also logically encompass rules of “inexpensive and expeditious appeals.” I conclude that the drafters, unable to agree as to the desirable limits of the rule making power of the two bodies, deliberately refrained from speaking to that question and left that issue as it existed prior to 1962 with the refinements of the question to be decided on a case by case basis. This is such a case. That in the absence of contrary legislation, the supreme court had inherent power to make rules of procedure for the trial court had been decided before 1962 (People v. Callopy (1934), 358 Ill. 11, 192 N.E. 634). In People v. Lobb (1959), 17 Ill. 2d 287, 161 N.E.2d 325, the original voir dire rule permitting the court to originate the questioning had been upheld. In Agran v. Checker Taxi Co. (1952), 412 Ill. 145, 105 N.E.2d 713, the court held invalid a statutory provision which prohibited ex parte action to dismiss a case for want of prosecution until every attorney of record had been given 5 days notice. No contrary rule of court was involved, but the court considered the statute to be an infringement upon its inherent constitutional authority to decide cases. The court noted that the common law inherent powers of courts to adopt procedural rules had been eroded in this country but that the intervention by the legislature in this field was not without limitation. The court then stated, “The General Assembly has power to enact laws governing judicial practice only where they do not unduly infringe upon the inherent power of the judiciary.” 412 Ill. 145, 149, 105 N.E.2d 713, 715. Agran indicated a return of the pendulum toward the predominance of the court in areas of procedure. As the majority has stated, Rule 234 does not permit the trial judge to conduct the voir dire in an arbitrary manner. The issue of who should ask the questions of the prospective jurors involves an intricacy of procedure. For the legislature to countermand a supreme court rule on this subject does, in my opinion, “infringe upon the inherent power of the judiciary.” For this reason, I, too, would affirm.