Court Opinion

ID: 9707907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:24:25.962924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:39.188954
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE GREEN, specially concurring: I concur in the determination to grant the defendant a new trial. For the reasons stated, I agree that reversible error resulted from the refusal to instruct on the issue of voluntary manslaughter as defined in section 9 — 2(a) of the Criminal Code of 1961 (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 38, par. 9 — 2(a)). I interpret Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia (1980),-U.S. _, 65 Ill. Ed. 2d 973, 100 S. Ct. 2814, as speaking only to the first amendment right of persons to attend trials and not to an accused’s right to an open trial. However, on retrial, the rule established there would prevent the court from entering an order similar to the instant one conditioning the presence at trial of a media representative upon an agreement to withhold publication of material likely to prejudice the accused. As the issue is thus most unlikely to recur upon retrial, we need not decide whether the restriction upon the attendance of the media representative violated this defendant’s right to an open trial. As the question of the proper issues instruction as to the offense of murder will likely arise at retrial, we must speak to that question. Although I consider the issues instruction on murder tendered by defendant requiring the State to negate the special elements of voluntary manslaughter to be logical, I do not deem its use to be supported by precedent or constitutionally required. I agree with the analysis of Mr. Justice Trapp that the combined effect of Mullaney v. Wilbur (1975), 421 U.S. 684, 44 L. Ed. 2d 508, 95 S. Ct. 1881, and Patterson v. New York (1977), 432 U.S. 197, 53 L. Ed. 2d 281, 97 S. Ct. 2319, refutes any constitutional requirement for the instruction. The format of IPI Criminal is devoid of any requirement that the State negate the elements of provocation or an unreasonable belief by the defendant that his conduct was necessary to protect himself. No case applying the Criminal Code of 1961 has so required. Accordingly, we cannot say that the trial court erred in refusing the instruction here and cannot require that it be given on retrial. The dispute concerning the murder issue instruction arises because, although a lesser and, perhaps, an included offense of murder, voluntary manslaughter includes all of the elements of murder and in addition the elements of provocation or unreasonable belief of the necessity to act in self-defense. Accordingly, although an accused may have been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of voluntary manslaughter, the State has thereby literally met all of the requirements of IPI Criminal No. 7.02 to sustain a charge of murder. Presumably, the jury would nevertheless conclude that IPI Criminal Nos. 7.04 or 7.06 controlled and required a guilty verdict only as to voluntary manslaughter. Suppose, however, the jury here had concluded that all the elements of murder had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt but also concluded that the additional elements of one type of voluntary manslaughter had been proved by a preponderance of the evidence. Under the instruction given, the jury would be required to find the defendant guilty of murder. I do not deem such a result to be sensible, but, apparently, it is the rule that has existed since the adoption of the Criminal Code of 1961. The problem described above would be avoided by defendant’s theory that to obtain a murder conviction the State should have the burden of negating beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of the factors reducing a murder charge to voluntary manslaughter when evidence of those factors is presented. Concomitant with such a rule would be one that proof of the elements of murder would always support a voluntary manslaughter conviction when some evidence of that type of voluntary manslaughter was presented. Voluntary manslaughter would then truly be an included offense of murder.