Court Opinion

ID: 9521732
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:10:50.384359+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:50:31.751534
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, specially concurring: I concur in the majority’s decision to reverse the defendant’s convictions and remand the cause for a new trial. But I do not join part B of the opinion, which purports to find a basis in State law for the decision in this case. The majority’s efforts to establish an adequate and independent State ground for the decision in this case are unnecessary, and for that reason I write separately. I agree with the majority that the introduction of the nontestifying codefendant’s statements into evidence at the joint trial had the effect of violating the Federal confrontation right of the defendant, William Duncan. As part A of the majority opinion demonstrates, that result is consistent with the Federal law developed by the Supreme Court in the line of cases beginning with Bruton v. United States (1968), 391 U.S. 123, 20 L. Ed. 2d 476, 88 S. Ct. 1620, and culminating in its recent decision in Richardson v. Marsh (1987), 481 U.S. 200, 95 L. Ed. 2d 176, 107 S. Ct. 1702. Because Federal law provides a sufficient answer to the defendant’s claims and the controversy may be disposed of on that ground alone, it is not necessary in this case to determine whether State law provides greater protection. State law could not compel a different result in this case, and therefore we need not consider here the defendant’s alternative argument that a new trial is necessary as a matter of State law alone. The majority is certainly correct in finding in the decisions of this court an early precursor of the principle that was recognized in Bruton. Indeed, the Bruton court included an Illinois decision, People v. Barbaro (1946), 395 Ill. 264, among the group of State court cases that had considered the efficacy of jury instructions in eliminating the prejudice to a defendant that arises from the use at a joint trial of a nontestifying codefendant’s inculpatory statements. (Bruton, 391 U.S. at 129 n.4, 20 L. Ed. 2d at 481 n.4, 88 S. Ct. at 1624 n.4.) But in our earlier opinion in this case, we made no pretense of basing our decision on State law. In its eagerness to establish a State-law genealogy for the decision here, the majority overlooks the clear statements in our earlier opinion, in which we said, “We must consider whether the challenged statements sufficiently implicate the defendant in the crimes to warrant examination under Bruton.” (People v. Duncan (1987), 115 Ill. 2d 429, 443.) We then discussed Stalder’s testimony regarding codefendant Olinger’s interest in obtaining control over the illicit drug trade in the locality. Citing only Bruton, we held, “The fact that Olinger did not testify deprived the defendant of his constitutional right to confrontation, and we conclude that fundamental fairness requires that the defendant be given a new trial.” Duncan, 115 Ill. 2d at 444. Clearly, then, our earlier decision in this case relied on Federal rather than State constitutional law, and that was also the understanding of the Supreme Court, which remanded the case to us for reconsideration in light of its intervening decision in Richardson, a decision under Federal constitutional law. Having in our original opinion and now determined that a new trial is mandated under Federal law, we have no occasion to consider the separate question whether the same result is required independently by State law. I would limit our disposition in this case accordingly. MORAN, C.J., joins in this special concurrence.