Court Opinion

ID: 9529495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:51:22.234002+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:49.300657
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE BILANDIC, also concurring in part and dissenting in part: I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the State may not, on remand, present the victim impact testimony of Alvin Thompson and Vernita Wyckliffe. For the reasons expressed by my colleague, Justice Miller, I believe that the State should not be precluded from ever introducing victim impact evidence which relates to a crime other than the one for which the defendant is being sentenced. I do not believe, however, that all victim impact evidence relating to other crimes should automatically be admissible. Rather, given the nature of this type of evidence, the trial court should exercise its discretion to allow this type of evidence sparingly, making sure that the evidence is not too attenuated to be relevant to the sentencing decision in the instant case. See People v. Hope, 168 Ill. 2d 1, 41 (1995) (evaluation of relevance and reliability is left to the sound discretion of the trial judge). In this case, the challenged victim impact evidence related to a murder and an attempted murder committed by defendant less than one month prior to his commission of murder and attempted murder in this case. Under these circumstances, I would hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the introduction of victim impact evidence relating to these crimes.