Court Opinion

ID: 9707815
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:21:52.547219+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:38.225138
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, concurring in part and dissenting in part: My colleagues turn aside defendant’s constitutional challenge with the observation that the American criminal justice system is one of the best in the world. The sentiment has a pleasant and reassuring tone, but it overlooks an important fact. The supposedly “inferior” justice systems of other nations are abandoning capital punishment at an unprecedented rate. Hood, The Death Penalty: The USA in World Perspective, 6 J. Transnat’l L. & Pol’y 517, 519 (1997). With the exception of Japan, the United States is now the only well-established democracy that has not abolished the death penalty expressly or in practice. Wyman, Vengeance is Whose?: The Death Penalty and Cultural Relativism in International Law, 6 J. Transnat’l L. & Pol’y 543, 544 (1997). Western Europe is free of capital punishment (6 J. Transnat’l L. & Pol’y at 525), as are most countries in our hemisphere (6 J. Transnat’l L. & Pol’y at 570). Even in the United States, 12 states and the District of Columbia presently have no death penalty for any offense, no matter how severe. A. Phillips, Thou Shalt Not Kill Any Nice People: The Problem of Victim Impact Statements in Capital Sentencing, 35 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 93, 99 n.54 (1997). I do not know enough about international law to judge whether the nations who have abolished capital punishment are, in fact, less protective of individual human rights than the courts in the United States. I do know, however, that the abolitionist nations have at least insured that no one will pay the ultimate price for their fallibility. That is decidedly not the case in those United States jurisdictions retaining the death penalty, including Illinois. Despite the courts’ efforts to fashion a death penalty scheme that is just, fair, and reliable, the system is not working. Innocent people are being sentenced to death. Examples of innocent people who were arrested, tried and convicted of capital offenses are numerous and well documented. See Staff of House Subcomm. on Civil & Constitutional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, 103d Cong., 2d Sess., Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing the Danger of Mistaken Executions (1994); H. Bedau & M. Radelet, Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases, 40 Stan. L. Rev. 21 (1987). In Illinois, the best-known case of an individual wrongfully convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death is that of Rolando Cruz, who was actually convicted and given the death sentence twice before being found innocent in 1995. Cruz’s codefendant, Alejandro Hernandez, had the charges against him dropped after being convicted of capital murder twice and having the death sentence imposed once. In 1996, Verneal Jimerson and Dennis Williams were exonerated after being convicted and sentenced to death for the 1978 murders of Larry Lionberg and Carol Schmal. The same year, Gary Gauger, who had been placed on Death Row for the murder of his parents, was set free after his conviction was reversed based on, inter alia, insufficient evidence. Also in 1996, Carl Lawson was acquitted on his second retrial after having been sentenced to death for the murder of an eight-year-old child. In 1994, Joseph Burrows was released after spending five years on Death Row for the murder of William Dulin, a crime he did not commit. Finally, in 1987, Perry Cobb and Darby Williams (Tillis) were eventually acquitted after having previously been convicted and sentenced to death for the 1977 double murder of Melvin Kanter and Charles Guccion. Some would suggest that the freedom now enjoyed by these nine men demonstrates that our criminal justice system is working effectively with adequate safeguards. If there had been only one or two wrongful death penalty cases, I might be persuaded to accept that view. When there have been so many mistakes in such a short span of time, however, the only conclusion I can draw is that the system does not work as the Constitution requires it to. If these men dodged the executioner, it was only because of luck and the dedication of the attorneys, reporters, family members and volunteers who labored to win their release. They survived despite the criminal justice system, not because of it. The truth is that left to the devices of the court system, they would probably have all ended up dead at the hands of the state for crimes they did not commit. One must wonder how many others have not been so fortunate. The prognosis for wrongly accused defendants facing capital charges is not improving. To the contrary, legislatures and the courts appear to have abandoned any genuine concern with insuring the fairness and reliability of the system. Achieving “finality” in death cases, and doing so as expeditiously as possible, have become the dominant goals in death penalty jurisprudence. Not so long ago, the federal courts provided meaningful oversight to the way in which state courts exercised their authority to put people to death. That oversight has all but disappeared. Callins v. Collins, 510 U.S. 1141, 1158-59, 127 L. Ed. 2d 435, 448-49, 114 S. Ct. 1127, 1138 (1994) (Blackmun, J., dissenting). For all practical purposes, the states have been left to their own devices. Based on recent experience in Illinois, the consequences are apt to be grave. The General Assembly has drastically shortened the period in which post-conviction relief can be sought, thereby reducing the time in which exonerating evidence may be discovered. See 725 ILCS 5/122 — 1 (West 1996). The number of death cases is rising, the pace of executions is quickening, and our court, which is responsible for reviewing all cases in which the death penalty is imposed, has demonstrated an unfortunate willingness to disregard the law in order to affirm a sentence of death. See People v. Kidd, 175 Ill. 2d 1, 59-60 (1996) (Harrison, J., dissenting). I note, moreover, that it apparently no longer feels constrained to follow its own rules of court, even when they are jurisdictional and mandatory (see In re Marriage of Skahan, 178 Ill. 2d 577 (1998) (Harrison, J., dissenting)). The result, inevitably, will be that innocent persons are going to be sentenced to death and be executed in Illinois. A sentencing scheme which permits such horrific and irrevocable results cannot meet the requirements of the eighth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution (U.S. Const., amends. VIII, XTV) or article I, section 2, of the Illinois Constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 2). It is no answer to say that we are doing the best we can. If this is the best our state can do, we have no business sending people to their deaths. As outraged as we may feel personally over the terrible acts committed by the defendant in this case, that is no justification for perpetuating a system that violates our most basic constitutional principles. Before any of us gets too righteous about what a despicable character defendant is, we should also stop for a moment and reflect on how easy it was to condemn an individual such as Rolando Cruz, who was ultimately determined to be innocent. This is not to suggest that the defendant in this case was not actually guilty either. My point is simply that when a system is as prone to error as ours is, we should not be making irrevocable decisions about any human life. My colleagues are decent and good people. Just as the execution of an innocent person is inevitable, it is inevitable that one day the majority will no longer be able to deny that the Illinois death penalty scheme, as presently administered, is profoundly unjust. When that day comes, as it must, my colleagues will see what they have allowed to happen, and they will feel ashamed. Donald Bull’s conviction should be affirmed, but his sentence of death should be vacated, and the cause should be remanded to the circuit court for imposition of a sentence other than death.