Court Opinion

ID: 9708907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:35:11.523872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:44.538800
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, specially concurring: The majority finds that identity of name is circumstantial evidence of identity of person, sufficient alone on the question of identification to sustain the defendant’s conviction. I agree with the result reached by the majority, but for a different reason. Questions of identity, presumptions, and inferences have presented problems for the courts for some time, most notably in sentencing when proof of an earlier conviction is used to enhance the penalty for an offense and in the application of presumptions and inferences to prove an element of an offense. In People v. Housby (1981), 84 Ill. 2d 415, 420 N.E.2d 151, our supreme court, reexamining its earlier decisions on presumptions and inferences in criminal cases in light of decisions by the United States Supreme Court, held that due process requirements are satisfied when (1) the facts proved and the fact presumed are rationally connected, (2) the presumed fact is more likely than not to flow from the proved fact, and (3) the inference is supported by corroborating evidence of guilt. The court further held, however, that when the permissive inference is unsupported by corroborating evidence, the leap from the proved fact to the presumed element must satisfy the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, for there is nothing else on which to rest the fact finder’s verdict of guilt. 84 Ill. 2d 415, 421, 420 N.E.2d 151, 154; see also People v. Johnson (1981), 96 Ill. App. 3d 1123, 422 N.E.2d 19 (discussing Housby). Although Housby and Johnson dealt specifically with inferences used to prove an element of the offense of burglary, I see no reason not to apply the same principles to an inference that tends to prove the identity, and therefore the guilt, of the offender. Because circumstantial evidence permits a fact tending to prove guilt or innocence to be inferred from facts in evidence, the majority holds in effect that identity of person, and therefore the defendant’s guilt, may be inferred from identity of name without corroborating evidence. Because under Housby an element inferred from a fact without corroborating evidence must follow beyond a reasonable doubt, I cannot subscribe to the position advanced by the majority. In my opinion, in proving the guilt of a defendant, identity of person cannot be inferred beyond a reasonable doubt from mere identity of name; corroborating evidence is required. Instead, I believe that under the circumstances here identity of name creates an inference of identity of person that, taken with the defendant’s failure to appear at trial, permitted the jury to conclude the identification, and therefore the guilt, of the defendant. Flight from the scene of a crime may constitute evidence of consciousness of guilt and therefore an inculpatory admission by a defendant. I believe that a defendant’s failure to appear at his own trial may be construed similarly; that admission, when coupled with the inference of identity of person from identity of name, supports the jury’s finding of guilt here. I am mindful that the supreme court in People v. Davis (1983), 95 Ill. 2d 1, 447 N.E.2d 353, adopted the general rule that identity of name gives rise to a rebuttable presumption of identity of person. That rule has been applied in the current case in affirming the sentence imposed on the defendant, and I would not disturb that decision. But because of the due process problems expressed by our supreme court in Housby and by the United States Supreme Court in County Court v. Allen (1979), 442 U.S. 140, 60 L. Ed. 2d 777, 99 S. Ct. 2213, I would confine the rule to sentencing proceedings, even though it was necessary to prove the prior murder convictions in Davis beyond a reasonable doubt and not, as the majority implies, by the preponderance of the evidence. Because the defendant was tried in absentia, the problem presented in this case is unique. I mention, however, that the problem could have been avoided had the prosecutor simply asked the officer whether the Gerald Stanley that was identified from the photograph as having confessed to him was the same Gerald Stanley that was arrested and charged. I would affirm the conviction and sentence, but for the reasons I. have indicated.