Court Opinion

ID: 9737335
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:22:17.116699+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:58.167195
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, dissenting: I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that the victim’s testimony was sufficiently clear and convincing to sustain defendant’s conviction for aggravated criminal sexual assault. The record shows that although the victim was in fifth grade, she had been held back a year in school. At the hearing on her competency to testify, she was unable to say what street she lived on, she had difficulty identifying the country in which she resided and in spelling her middle name, and she gave incorrect answers when asked to state the year of her birth and to name the day of the week on which the hearing was being held. At trial, she again gave the wrong year of her birth, she could not tell the jury what the present date was, nor could she even say what month it was. Of course, the victim’s lack of orientation as to such matters does not necessarily mean that she could not appreciate what it meant to have her vagina penetrated by the finger of another. And, as the majority correctly points out, the issue of the victim’s credibility was for the jury to determine. Unlike the cases cited by the majority, however, this was not a situation where the victim’s testimony was either consistent or corroborated. (Cf. People v. Tannahill (1987), 152 Ill. App. 3d 882; People v. Allison (1983), 115 Ill. App. 3d 1038, 452 N.E.2d 148.) To the contrary, the victim’s initial statement on direct examination that defendant had put his finger inside her and her complaint to her mother that he “was sticking his finger in there” were sharply contradicted during the following colloquy which took place between her and defense counsel on cross-examination: “DEFENSE COUNSEL: Now, when you were telling us what you say happened that day, you — you aren’t really sure, are you, whether or not he [defendant] put his finger inside you? VICTIM: No. DEFENSE COUNSEL: He might have just rubbed it on the outside or put his finger on the outside? Is that right? VICTIM: Yes.” While the State’s Attorney attempted on redirect to get the victim to return to her original statement, i.e., that there had been penetration, this time she could say only that “[i]t feel [sic] like it,” and on recross, the victim repeated without equivocation that she was simply “not sure.” Even if the jury found the victim’s testimony to be credible, the question remains: which version of her story should be believed? In my view, the majority’s attempt to reconcile the victim’s various statements is completely unpersuasive. If there is anything clear and convincing in the victim’s testimony, it is that she really did not know whether or not penetration had been made. There being no other evidence tending to show penetration, I would reverse defendant’s conviction for aggravated criminal sexual assault.