Court Opinion

ID: 9726864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:11:00.212314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:31.605524
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE STOUDER, dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the result reached by my colleagues. I believe the circuit court erred when it admitted evidence of other crimes as his modus operandi to circumstantially establish the defendant’s identity. Today’s ruling shows that the exceptions to the rule have all but eliminated the rule itself. The criminal law strongly disfavors receiving proof of the accused’s bad character, including evidence of unrelated crimes, to demonstrate his guilt circumstantially by suggesting that he conformed to his established propensities. Other-crimes evidence is barred not because it is not factually relevant, but because it tends to over-persuade the jury to the obvious and substantial prejudice of the accused. (People v. Lindgren (1980), 79 Ill. 2d 129, 402 N.E.2d 238.) Our law “simply distrusts permitting the trier of fact to draw the inference that because a man has committed other crimes he is more likely to have committed the current crime.” (E. Cleary and M. Graham, Handbook of Illinois Evidence sec. 404.5, at 134 (3d ed. 1979).) Nevertheless, other-crimes evidence may be admitted where it is substantially relevant for some other purpose than to show a probability that the accused committed the crime charged because he has a criminal character. (People v. Lehman (1955), 5 Ill. 2d 337, 125 N.E.2d 506.) One such independent basis for admitting other-crimes evidence is to establish the accused’s modus operandi or common scheme. (People v. McDonald (1975), 62 Ill. 2d 448, 343 N.E.2d 489.) The justification for admitting this evidence is that, if the criminal conduct charged coincided with the accused’s established criminal tradecraft, then the accused is likely to have committed the current crime. To constitute admissible evidence of the defendant’s modus operandi, the other crimes must not only parallel the crime charged, but they also must carry some degree of uniqueness so as to separate or distinguish the accused from the general criminal population. This is done by showing that the crimes being compared exhibit the accused’s criminal trademark. The requirement of uniqueness is particularly crucial, for without it other-crimes evidence only demonstrates the defendant’s criminal propensities and bad character, and thus is not legally relevant. The question presented here is how unique must the evidence be before it becomes admissible as modus operandi. Our supreme court said in People v. Lehman (1955), 5 Ill. 2d 337, 343, 125 N.E.2d 506, 509, that evidence of modus operandi must have “peculiar and distinctive features” to be admissible. More recently, the court has said: “Although the similarities need not be unique only to the two offenses being compared, there must be present some distinctive features that are not common to most offenses of that type in order to demonstrate modus operandi.” (People v. Tate (1981), 87 Ill. 2d 134, 142-43, 429 N.E.2d 470, 475. See also McCormick, Evidence sec 190, at 449 (2d ed. 1972) (other-crimes evidence “must be so unusual and distinctive as to be like a signature”).) The majority, while at least acknowledging the need for uniqueness, requires none in finding that the evidence of the attacks on Harland and Holmquist was probative modus operandi evidence. The sum of the similarities among the three attacks was that a male, generally fitting the description of the defendant, attacked three white women, who were walking along different Rock Island sidewalks, during a six-week period. In each case the assailant attempted to initiate a conversation with the victim prior to striking. Not only are there no more similarities, but also the similarities that do exist are not themselves entirely consistent. For example in Fundell’s attack, the assailant approached on a bicycle, whereas the assailant who attacked Harland and Holmquist was on foot. Also, although the assailant preceded each attack with an attempt to strike up conversation with the victim, he used no unique or even similar approach. Finally, the nature of the attacks was not consistent throughout because, while the assailant clearly fondled Fundell, the record is not clear as to whether the assailant fondled Harland and clearly shows that Holmquist was not fondled by her assailant. These similarities are nothing more than standard criminal techniques, or generic similarities that are common to most, if not all, sexual assaults. Indeed the similarities that the majority finds so convincingly distinctive here are also found at least in part in another sexual attack case upon which they relied, People v. Sievers (1978), 56 Ill. App. 3d 880, 372 N.E.2d 705. Certainly the similarities here are no more distinctive than in People v. Tate (1981), 87 Ill. 2d 134, 429 N.E.2d 470. There the indicted crime and the compared crime were practically identical in every respect: in both a man slipped several packages of sausages under his coat and attempted to walk out of two Kankakee foodstores without being noticed. The supreme court - ruled that the evidence was inadmissible as modus operandi on the ground that it lacked sufficient uniqueness. The court termed the so-called modus operandi as standard criminal technique and said that while the distinctiveness need not be so conclusive so as to eliminate all other offenses of the same type, the evidence must establish the accused’s criminal trademark which will exclude most like offenses. Applying this standard to the case before us, I can discern no distinctiveness in the proffered other-crimes evidence which sets this defendant apart from others committing the same criminal conduct.