Court Opinion

ID: 9782743
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:10:16.603905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:09.881826
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CONNORS, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. In my opinion, the trial court’s questioning of Dr. Frumkin was not an abuse of discretion. As explained below, it is my opinion that, rather than prejudging the evidence before it was heard, the trial court in this case fully discharged its duties as finder of fact and thoroughly weighed all of the evidence presented by both sides before coming to a decision. The parties agree that this issue is forfeit and can only be reached under the plain error doctrine. See People v. Enoch, 122 Ill. 2d 176, 186 (1988). Further, I agree that this issue falls under the second prong of the plain error doctrine because it implicates the fundamental fairness of defendant’s trial. See Village of Kildeer v. Munyer, 384 Ill. App. 3d 251, 257 (2008). This means that the central plain error question in this case is whether the trial court erred, given that if we find that there was error then it is reversible error under the second prong without further analysis. Defendant has the burden of persuasion on the issue of error. See Enoch, 122 Ill. 2d at 186. The supreme court has stated that the “trial judge has the right to question witnesses in order to elicit the truth or to bring enlightenment on material issues which seem obscure,” and the extent and manner of such questioning is left to the discretion of the trial court, especially in the context of a bench trial. People v. Palmer, 27 Ill. 2d 311, 314-15 (1963). The trial court has significantly greater latitude to question witnesses on material issues during a bench trial because the danger of prejudice to the defendant is lessened. See id. However, such questioning must be fair and impartial. See People v. Nevitt, 135 Ill. 2d 423, 456 (1990). The propriety of specific questioning depends on the facts and circumstances of each case. See Palmer, 27 Ill. 2d at 315; accord Nevitt, 135 Ill. 2d at 456. A trial court abuses its discretion in questioning a witness when it “depart[s] from [its] proper function as [a] judge and assume[s] the role of an advocate.” People v. Green, 17 Ill. 2d 35, 40 (1959). Because improper questioning from a trial judge implicates the fairness of a defendant’s trial, the “relevant inquiry in a non-jury trial is whether the tenor of the court’s questioning indicates that the court has prejudged the verdict before hearing all of the evidence.” People v. Griffin, 194 Ill. App. 3d 286, 296 (1990) (citing United States v. Kidding, 560 F.2d 1303, 1314 (7th Cir. 1977), cert. denied sub nom. Brown v. United States, 434 U.S. 872 (1977)). The fact that defendant intentionally killed Pierre Champliss was undisputed at trial, and the sole issue in contention was defendant’s affirmative defense of insanity. To obtain an acquittal based on this defense, defendant has the burden of proving two elements by clear and convincing evidence: (1) that he suffered from a mental disease or defect at the time of the crime, and (2) that, as a result of that defect, he lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his actions. See 720 ILCS 5/6—2(a) (West 2006). When a defendant proves that he suffered from a mental disease or defect at the time of the crime but fails to prove that he lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his actions, he is not acquitted but instead may be found guilty but mentally ill. See 720 ILCS 5/6—2(c) (West 2006). In my opinion, there are three specific points that demonstrate that the trial judge’s questioning was appropriate and within his discretion in this case: (1) the fact that the witness questioned was an expert opining on a material issue; (2) the fact that the trial court stated on the record that it was not prejudging the expert’s opinion or the evidence; and (3) the fact that the trial court’s ultimate ruling necessarily accepted in part the defense’s position and rejected the State’s position. First, I have no doubt that the trial court had the right to question the defense expert in order to clarify the material issue of defendant’s mental health and ability to appreciate the criminality of his actions. Cf. Palmer, 27 Ill. 2d at 314-15. I am aware of no case, either in Illinois or nationally, in which the testimony of experts has been held to be subject to more or less questioning by the trial court than that of other witnesses, and this may well be an issue of first impression. It is my opinion that vigorous questioning by the trial court in the context of the key expert witness at a criminal bench trial falls squarely within the category of “bring[ing] enlightenment on material issues which seem obscure.” Palmer, 27 Ill. 2d at 314-15. The majority makes much of the fact the trial court interrupted Dr. Frumkin repeatedly and interjected its own questions, in many cases on direct examination and before the State had the opportunity to cross-examine him. Although this behavior is somewhat unusual, I cannot deem it to be an abuse of discretion. The supreme court’s cases on this subject do not limit the trial court’s questioning to any specific time during a witness’s testimony, and I am unaware of any authority that would limit the trial court’s discretion to only situations in which the parties have already completed their own examinations of the witness. Indeed, in People v. Williams, 173 Ill. 2d 48, 79-80 (1996), the supreme court found that a trial court did not abuse its discretion when it interrupted the direct examination of the defendant in order to clarify what appeared to be an inconsistency with an earlier portion of the defendant’s testimony. As the supreme court noted in that case, “[t]he judge’s questions *** did not indicate a bias, prejudice or hostility against defendant. Neither did the judge imply that he found defendant to be not credible. Rather, the judge merely sought to clarify defendant’s version of the incident. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion by questioning defendant ***.” Id. at 80. Like Williams, the trial court in this case sought only to clarify important points in Dr. Frumkin’s testimony that were unclear. As the finder of fact at a bench trial, the trial judge should be allowed considerable leeway to question expert witnesses, especially experts whose opinions bear on material issues and are based on obscure technical knowledge. Dr. Frumkin’s opinion bore directly on the dispositive issue in the trial and was based on a detailed understanding of mental health issues as applied to the facts of the case, and the trial court was therefore well within its rights to question Dr. Frumkin extensively regarding the basis of his opinion. Second, the trial court’s questions do not indicate that it had prejudged the evidence or rejected Dr. Frumkin’s opinion before hearing all of the evidence. Rather, the record demonstrates that the trial court engaged in an extensive dialogue with Dr. Frumkin in order to clarify the basis of his opinion and to determine what facts the expert considered to be important to his ultimate finding. In my view, the most important exchange is the trial court’s statement to the expert, “If I’m going to accept your opinion, whether or not I do, I don’t know yet, but if I’m going to accept your opinions I need to understand them fully.” (Emphasis added.) This statement indicates very clearly that, far from prejudging the outcome and rejecting the defense expert’s opinion out of hand, the trial court was actively engaged in weighing the evidence and had not decided anything before hearing all of the evidence. Additionally, the trial court questioned Dr. Frumkin by offering hypotheticals based on accepting or rejecting certain evidence. For example, the trial court and Dr. Frumkin had the following exchange: “THE COURT: Let’s say I accept the mental disease and defects. Let’s say I accept that. How with these set [sic] of circumstances, and his conduct, could I determine, according to the statute, that that [sic] mental disease or defect, that he lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct? THE WITNESS: Because he would not have had the resources to ever appreciate him doing other sorts of things to get out of that situation. Be it a rational— THE COURT: Well, that would almost apply to every person that ever killed anyone. THE WITNESS: Well, except— THE COURT: There is always the murder would occur in a circumstance under which other actions could have resulted in it occurring? THE WITNESS: I guess the difference in this case is here someone— THE COURT: You overlay the disease and the defect, is that what you are saying? THE WITNESS: Yes, yes.” In my opinion, exchanges like the one above strongly demonstrate that the trial court had not prejudged the evidence that the defense expert was offering, but was instead clarifying the expert’s opinion and testing the basis for it in order to determine whether the court, as the finder of fact, would ultimately accept it. Although defendant claims that the court’s questioning was “prosecutorial,” the record reveals the court’s questions to be vigorous yet neutral. The court certainly questioned Dr. Frumkin heavily and sharply, but given the importance of the expert’s opinion to the dispositive question in the case, I believe that the trial court was within its discretion to do so. Finally, I believe that the dispositive fact is that the trial court ultimately accepted the defense’s position in part, yet rejected the State’s position. The defense sought a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, while the State sought a verdict of guilty. Both State experts opined that defendant did not suffer from a mental disease or defect that would prevent him from appreciating the criminality of his actions. Had the trial court rejected the opinion of Dr. Frumkin completely, then the trial court would simply have found defendant guilty, in line with the State’s position. Yet it did not. The trial court found defendant guilty but mentally ill, which necessarily means that it accepted Dr. Frumkin’s opinion that defendant suffered from a mental illness at the time of the crime. The only part of Dr. Frumkin’s opinion that the trial court did not accept was that defendant was unable to appreciate the criminality of his actions at the time of the crime, which, as mentioned above, was the subject of considerable discussion between the trial court and the defense expert during the trial and can hardly be said to have been a predetermined outcome. In his brief and during oral argument, defendant made much of the fact that only Dr. Frumkin, the lone defense expert witness, was questioned by the trial court. The record reveals that the reason for this was that the State’s experts had already been either thoroughly cross-examined or had been discredited. In particular, the trial court rejected Dr. Nadkarni’s testimony and opinion due to effective cross-examination by defense counsel on the length of time it took Dr. Nad-karni to form his opinion. As the court observed during its ruling: “Dr. Nadkarni testified that it was his opinion that [defendant] was not manifesting disease or defects sufficient to make him unable to appreciate the criminality of his conduct. That’s my view of his testimony. He took two dates. And I think defense counsel did a a great job cross-examining him on that. He was unable to reach an opinion when he first began interacting with [defendant]. And none of us can deny that [defendant] went to the RTU right as soon as he got there. He began to take a series of medications as soon as he got to the jail. Dr. Nadkarni takes two dates to decide how he is going to approach the case. The first date he talks about needing additional information, and then we end in his final diagnosis, which talks about substance abuse.” Based on this statement in the record, the trial court felt that it did not need to inquire into the basis of Dr. Nadkarni’s opinion because defense counsel had already thoroughly discredited the basis of his opinion. The majority also finds that the trial court relied on matters outside of the record, giving three examples. Based on my reading of the record, I cannot agree. First, the majority points to the trial court’s statement that certain medications are “ ‘given proactively for people in incarcerated circumstances.’ ” 409 Ill. App. 3d at 637. Even assuming that there was no basis for this statement in the evidence, there is also no indication in the record that the trial court relied on this supposed fact in making its ruling. As the majority notes (see 409 Ill. App. 3d at 650) “[a] determination made by the trial judge based upon a private investigation by the court or based upon private knowledge of the court, untested by cross-examination, or any of the rules of evidence constitutes a denial of due process of law.” Wallenberg, 24 Ill. 2d at 354. The problem here is that there is nothing in the record to indicate that the trial court relied on this supposed fact in its ruling. Indeed, this situation is very different from that in Wallenberg, in which the trial judge, during pronouncement of the verdict, stated that he found the defendant’s testimony not credible because the trial judge knew that no gas stations existed on a certain stretch of road, contrary to the defendant’s testimony and without support for that contention in the record. See id. Unlike that case, the trial court here did not rely on supposed evidence of proactive administration of drugs when making its ruling, and there is nothing in the record that suggests otherwise. Second, the majority notes that, when Dr. Frumkin was asked to explain what the DSM IV is, the trial court stated, “ ‘I know what it is. Next question.’ ” 409 Ill. App. 3d at 639. However, the trial court may sua sponte take judicial notice of any fact that “is either (1) generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court or (2) capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.” Ill. R. Evid. 201 (eff. Jan. 1, 2011). The DSM IV is the abbreviation for the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which is published by the American Psychiatric Association. It cannot seriously be argued that the definition of the abbreviation DSM IV is not subject to judicial notice, and there is nothing improper about the trial court taking notice of this fact. Indeed, the supreme court has taken judicial notice of the DSM IV and its contents several times in its opinions, most recently in People v. Baez, 241 Ill. 2d 44, 81 n.4 (2011). Finally, the majority states that the trial court’s rejection of the IQ evidence had no basis in the evidence and was only based on the trial court’s personal feelings about such evidence. See 409 Ill. App. 3d at 649-50. Yet the trial court’s finding on this point is, in fact, based on evidence in the record. During its ruling, the trial court stated the following: “I want to take a moment and comment aside here, and say the IQ I considered to be a total canard. I don’t see the relevance of IQ in this case. Mental acuity is constantly misrepresented in the circumstances of the testimony that I hear from the witness stand in this building. Dr. Coleman did a good job pointing out the fact that a verbal score and the performance score are two separate and different things. And I think it’s really important to note that. *** Verbal acuity, I have heard it termed in other ways. Environmental capacity to overcome obstacles. These are all fancy ways of saying life experience, your ability to talk and interact with other people is the only thing that matters to me. And I have no basis to think that that wasn’t something [defendant] possessed. In fact, he was even laughing and joking with his siblings immediately prior to the incident, as Mr. Champliss invited his death on the front yard. But as I said, Dr. Coleman’s opinion was that there was paranoia here, and that that paranoia was not sufficient to cause him to not appreciate that his acts were criminal.” (Emphasis added.) When the trial court’s statement about IQ is read in context, it is apparent that the trial court’s finding was informed by the statements of Dr. Coleman, whose opinions and testimony were received into evidence. There is consequently no basis for the assertion that the trial court relied on its own private knowledge for the IQ finding. Based on the above facts, I cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion when it questioned the defense expert. The record demonstrates that at no point did the trial court prejudge the evidence in favor of the State. In fact, the trial court ultimately accepted the defense’s position in part and rejected the State’s position that defendant was guilty and not mentally ill. If anything, it was the State’s case that suffered as a result of the trial court’s questioning, not defendant’s case. Neither defendant nor the majority explain how this anomaly can be squared with their position that the trial court prejudged the evidence in the State’s favor. Because of these facts, I do not believe that defendant has carried his burden of demonstrating that the trial court erred. Contrary to the majority’s holding, the record demonstrates that the trial court’s ultimate finding of guilty but mentally ill was based on evidence gleaned from all of the witnesses at trial. The trial court did not prejudge the evidence, but instead thoroughly analyzed the central questions in the case, as demonstrated by its statements during its ruling: “There is a long long history of substance abuse here, and I am sure, and I think counsel’s correct in pointing out that that may have had an organic consequence. There is also the Axis Two diagnosis of paranoid personality pathology disorder. In my view, both those things are mental illnesses. But are they mental illnesses sufficient in this particular circumstance to obviate or to premise a situation where the defendant lacked the substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct? And I must find today they were not. Running from the scene of the crime, shooting someone that begged you to do it and threatened you immediately before you did it. Giving false names, asking for attorneys, these were acts not of a person who is delusional or lacks the appreciation, but of a person with mental acuity, an awareness of the wrongfulness of his behavior and generally speaking and [sic] understanding of what was going to happen to him had he remained on the scene. I mentioned earlier that if he had returned to the porch, we would have had a different case, because it’s true. The running is a big deal. The asking for an attorney is a big deal, not because he didn’t have right to [sic], but because he was aware he had a right to ***. It all flies in the face of what’s going on here. But I can’t help but know and appreciate that there is mental illness here. It’s my view that the defendant has an illness. That illness was not anywhere near sufficient to cause him not to understand that what he was doing was a crime, but it exists. It exists. It didn’t obviate his responsibility, but it exists in this case.” Rather than an abuse of discretion, in my opinion this case is an example of a trial court that did its utmost to provide defendant with a fair trial by ensuring that it had all of the information that it needed as the finder of fact to make a fair and equitable decision about a complex, material issue. The supreme court is clear that the trial court has the right to do so, and I do not believe that, based on these facts, defendant has demonstrated that the trial court’s questioning was partial and prejudicial. I would accordingly find no error, and without error there can be no plain error. Moreover, even if I were to find that the trial court had erred, I do not agree with the majority’s decision to order that the case be heard by a different judge on retrial. Having found that the trial court did not err in questioning the defense expert, I would reach defendant’s alternative contention that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to call as a witness the physician who treated defendant at Cermak Hospital when he was arrested. Defendant argues that this witness’s testimony would have provided support for the assertion that defendant was unable to appreciate the criminality of his actions at the time of the offense. Ineffective assistance of counsel claims are governed by the familiar test articulated in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694 (1984). See People v. Jocko, 239 Ill. 2d 87, 92-93 (2010). Under this two-part test, a defendant must show “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Jocko, 239 Ill. 2d at 92. However, the decision of whether to call a witness is a matter of trial strategy and will generally not support a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. See People v. Hobley, 159 Ill. 2d 272, 305 (1994); People v. Jones, 155 Ill. 2d 357, 369-70 (1993). I would find that defendant’s trial counsel was not ineffective. The testimony of the treating physician would have duplicated much of the testimony that was already in evidence, and it would have served little purpose. Indeed, defendant’s own argument is that the testimony would only lend support to his contention that he lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his actions. Because no new, material evidence would have been introduced by the testimony of the treating physician, there is no reason to believe that defense counsel was professionally deficient for declining to call the treating physician as a witness. I would therefore find that defendant’s right to the effective assistance of counsel was not violated. For the above reasons, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court, and I must therefore respectfully dissent.