Court Opinion

ID: 9727474
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:39:15.401561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:38.629798
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CHAPMAN, specially concurring: I concur with the result reached by the majority, but my concurrence is based on different reasoning. I see little reason for counsel on direct appeal not raising the trial court’s refusal to give the voluntary manslaughter instruction, and for the purposes of my analysis, I will assume that the failure constituted ineffective assistance and satisfied the first prong of Strickland. I will also assume, contrary to the majority, that this court would have followed Ahlberg and its progeny. If the majority is correct that this court would have rejected Ahlberg, then the majority is also correct that the defendant could not meet the second prong of Strickland at the appellate court level. If I assume that appellate counsel should have raised the issue and that this court would have resolved the issue in defendant’s favor, then I must also assume that the State would have filed a petition for leave to appeal from our decision. There is little doubt that the supreme court would have granted the petition, a statement which is supported by the fact that it granted the State’s petition in People v. Chevalier (1988), 167 Ill. App. 3d 790, 521 N.E.2d 1256, rev’d (1989), 131 Ill. 2d 66, 544 N.E.2d 942, which was decided less than four months before Hightower I. There is also little doubt of the result. The supreme court would have reversed our assumed ruling in defendant’s favor, which means that defendant is still unable to meet Strickland’s second requirement. Therefore, I concur with the result reached by the majority.