Court Opinion

ID: 9517339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:13:41.434786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:52:53.930774
License: Public Domain

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE GREEN, dissenting: I dissent. The principal issue in this case is whether the trial court erred in using the word “design” in Illinois Pattern Instruction, Criminal, No. 3.14, to describe the limited purpose for which the evidence of the defendant’s alleged prior sexual offenses with the victim might be considered. That word has been given the following definition when applied to evidence: “Purpose or intention, combined with plan, or implying a plan in the mind. Burrill, Circ. Ev. 331; State v. Grant, 86 Iowa 216, 53 N.W. 120.” Black’s Law Dictionary 533 (rev. 4th ed. 1968.) Webster’s New World Dictionary (2d college ed.) gives as a secondary definition of the word “design” when used as a noun: “purpose; intention; aim.” Generally when a defendant is charged with a sexual offense, his prior sexual offenses committed against the same victim are admissible for the limited purposes of showing not only the familiarity and relationship between the parties (Wendt) but also the defendant’s intent and guilty knowledge. (People v. Kerney (1952), 413 Ill. 404, 108 N.E.2d 779.) Here, the question of whether the defendant committed the conduct charged with the requisite intent or guilty knowledge was inherently an issue in the case. Both in legal definition and in common parlance the word “design” is sufficiently synonymous with the words “intent” or “intention” that it is unlikely that the jury was confused. Only a general objection was made to the instruction. Had the use of the word “design” been specifically objected to, the court should have substituted the word “intent” or “knowledge.” In the absence of such an objection, the use of the word was not error. The majority also finds error in the use of the word “crimes” in Illinois Pattern Instruction, Criminal, No. 3.14, when evidence is introduced of crimes for which the defendant has not been convicted. Illinois Pattern Instructions Committee cites cases in support of the instruction in which evidence of crimes for which the defendant had not been convicted was presented (see IPI Criminal No. 3.14, Committee Note). The most frequendy quoted modern text on evidence speaks of evidence of other crimes by the accused being admissible for limited purposes without reference to a requirement that a conviction must have been obtained except when the evidence is used for impeachment. (McCormick, Evidence §190, at 447 et seq. (2d ed. 1972).) For the instruction to refer to evidence that the defendant has been involved in crimes does not infer that he has been convicted of those crimes. I see no error in that portion of the instruction. Although the evidence was confused and conflicting, I would affirm.