Court Opinion

ID: 9517399
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:15:55.327939+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:44:02.731648
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE CLARK, specially concurring: I concur in the opinion of the court insofar as it holds that the record does not demonstrate a bona fide doubt of defendant’s fitness to stand trial, that the circuit court therefore was not required sua sponte to order a hearing on that question (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch, 38, par. 1005 — 2—1), and that defendant’s sentence was not excessive. However, on the question of whether defendant received the effective assistance of his retained counsel, the court holds alternatively (1) “the court will not reverse a conviction because of the incompetency of [retained] counsel unless the representation is of such alow caliber as to amount to no representation at all or reduces the court proceedings to a farce or a sham” (72 Ill. 2d at 436, quoting People v. Torres (1973), 54 Ill. 2d 384, 391) and (2) even if the quality of counsel’s representation were judged by the stricter standard of United States ex rel. Williams v. Twomey (7th Cir. 1975), 510 F.2d 634, 641 (“the Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant legal assistance which meets a minimum standard of professional representation”), it was not ineffective. In my opinion, the time has come to abandon the “farce or sham” and “no representation at all” tests in favor of a test requiring assistance meeting minimum standards of professional representation, but I agree with the majority that the record does not demonstrate that counsel’s performance in this case failed to satisfy the latter standard. Therefore, I concur only in the judgment of the court on this question. The right of a defendant in a criminal case to have the assistance of counsel in his defense is guaranteed by the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution (U.S. Const., amends. VI, XIV (see Gideon v. Wainright (1963), 372 U.S. 335, 9 L. Ed. 2d 799, 83 S. Ct. 792; Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972), 407 U.S. 25, 32 L. Ed. 2d 530, 92 S. Ct. 2006)) and by section 8 of article I of our constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, sec. 8). (See, e.g., People v. Hoffman (1942), 379 Ill. 318, 320-22, construing article II, section 9, of the Illinois Constitution of 1870.) The reasons which underlie this fundamental constitutional guarantee have been stated so eloquently by others before us that we need only repeat their words here: “Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence. If that be true of men of intelligence, how much more true is it of the ignorant and illiterate, or those of feeble intellect. If in any case, civil or criminal, a state or federal court were arbitrarily to refuse to hear a party by counsel, employed by and appearing for him, it reasonably may not be doubted that such a refusal would be a denial of a hearing, and, therefore, of due process in the constitutional sense.” (Powell v. Alabama (1932), 287 U.S. 45, 69, 77 L. Ed. 158, 170-71, 53 S. Ct. 55, 64.) The late Mr. Justice Dooley of this court, himself a formidable advocate, further elaborated on the role of diligent and skillful advocacy in determining the outcome of a criminal trial: “The fearless and courageous advocate is as important to the administration of justice as an independent judiciary. Without him all rights are mere abstractions. The outcome of the trial of Socrates, Joan of Arc, and Mary Oueen of Scots could possibly have been different had a strong and fearless advocate appeared in their defense.” In re Madsen (1977), 68 Ill. 2d 472, 494 (Dooley & Clark, JJ., dissenting). A defendant whose counsel has failed to adequately research the law and investigate the facts prior to trial (see United States v. DeCoster (D.C. Cir. 1973), 487 F.2d 1197, 1202-04; accord, ABA Standards, The Defense Function secs. 4.1,5.1(a) (1971); Bazelon, The Realities of Gideon and Argersinger, 64 Geo. L.J. 811, 823-24 (1976)) is in little better position than “the ■ intelligent and educated layman” whose plight is so well described in Powell v. Alabama. However, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and the defendant is likely to be lulled into a false sense of security by the advice of his attorney, however uninformed. That the defendant undertook to retain counsel rather than seek the appointment of counsel is only marginally relevant to the determination of the standard by which counsel’s performance must be evaluated, because persons not trained in the law cannot, as a general rule, fairly be presumed to have been able to critically evaluate the skill and diligence of the attorneys they retain. (But cf. Glosser v. United States (1942), 315 U.S. 60, 70, 86 L. Ed. 680, 699, 62 S. Ct. 457, 465 (defendant’s status as an attorney not dispositive of whether he waived right to counsel who is free of conflict of interest).) By licensing attorneys (see generally Supreme Court Rules 701-705, 707-708 (58 Ill. 2d Rules 701-705, 707-708)), this court has, to some degree, placed its imprimatur upon their competence., and is estopped from asserting caveat emptor as to their incompetence. Thus, I cannot concur in the application of a less stringent standard in reviewing the performance of retained counsel than that applicable to the performance of appointed counsel. Regardless of whether counsel was appointed or retained, the “farce or sham” and “no representation at all” tests do not adequately confront the question of whether counsel diligently and competently performed those tasks for which counsel is necessary. Rather, under these tests, there is a natural tendency to point to mistakes which counsel did not make, as proof of his effectiveness, and to presume that those mistakes which counsel did make were the result of informed tactical decisions, even though they may in fact have been due to inadequate preparation. E.g., People v. Witherspoon (1973), 55 Ill. 2d 18, 21-22; People v. Steel (1972), 52 Ill. 2d 442, 451-53; People v. Washington (1968), 41 Ill. 2d 16, 20-22. See also Finer, Ineffective Assistance of Counsel, 58 Cornell L. Rev. 1077, 1078 (1973); cf Note, Inadequate Assistance of Criminal Trial Counsel: The Standards for Illinois, 47 Chi-Kent L. Rev. 218, 225 (1970). In this case, I am persuaded that whatever standard is applied, counsel’s inquiry into the legal principles and factual circumstances relevant to the three decisions now challenged by defendant was adequate to enable her to reach informed conclusions, and that the conclusions she reached were reasonable ones. First, as to the failure to request a competency hearing, counsel reasonably could have believed, as I do, that given the psychiatrists’ reports, defendant was not likely to have been found incompetent to stand trial, and that the highlighting of that psychiatric testimony carried with it the risk that a greater sentence might be imposed upon the defendant, if convicted, out of a desire to separate him from society. Second, as to the failure to introduce psychiatric testimony at the suppression hearing, similar considerations militated against the use of such testimony here too.«Third, as to counsel’s failure to object to the testimony of the victim’s mother regarding statements allegedly made by the victim, these statements were admissible under the spontaneous declaration exception to the hearsay rule, because the immediate effects of the alleged physical trauma still were extant at the time of the alleged declaration and the victim probably had not had time to fabricate her story. (See People v. Damen (1963), 28 Ill. 2d 464, 471-72.) Accordingly, I concur in the judgment of the court insofar as it holds that counsel was not ineffective, but not in its test of counsel’s effectiveness.