Court Opinion

ID: 9711977
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:43:33.037626+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:08.907873
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, dissenting: I dissent because People v. Smith (1967), 37 Ill. 2d 622, and People v. Terry (1970), 46 Ill. 2d 75, were correctly decided and should not be overruled. Unlike the majority’s opinion, those decisions reinforced the Illinois courts’ long adhered-to mandate that “[t]he right to the effective assistance of counsel is a fundamental right and entitles the person represented to the undivided loyalty of counsel.” People v. Stoval (1968), 40 Ill. 2d 109, 111. In People v. Smith (1967), 37 Ill. 2d 622, the defendant filed a pro se petition for a hearing under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1981, ch. 38, par. 122 — 1 et seq.) alleging that he was represented by incompetent counsel from the public defender’s office, and the trial court then appointed the public defender’s office to represent the defendant upon his petition. Smith held that counsel other than the public defender should have been appointed; its reasoning remains persuasive: “This circumstance clearly confronts the public defender’s office with a conflict of interest since, on one hand, its natural inclination would be to protect its reputation by defending against the charges of incompetency while, on the other hand, its duty as an advocate is to aid petitioner in establishing the veracity of these charges.” (37 Ill. 2d at 624.) The majority concedes that Terry reaffirmed Smith (121 Ill. 2d at 40), yet fails to explain why it is no longer true that “circumstances such as these create a conflict of interest” (People v. Terry (1970), 46 Ill. 2d 75, 78). Instead, the majority strains to find a conflict between the court’s decisions in People v. Robinson (1979), 79 Ill. 2d 147, and Smith and Terry. But Robinson neither conflicts with Smith nor provides a reliable guideline for the cases now before us, for it involved a different kind of conflict. The distinction between conflicts that are attributed to attorneys because of the conflicts of fellow public defenders and what are referred to here as actual conflicts, those which directly affect individual attorneys, is crucial and must be drawn. The concern in Robinson was over imputed conflicts, not the actual conflicts which existed in Smith and Terry. More specifically, Robinson dealt with the question whether the principle now set forth in Supreme Court Rule 5 — 105(d) (107 Ill. 2d R. 5— 105(d)) applied to public defender’s offices. (People v. Robinson (1979), 79 Ill. 2d 147, 154.) The Robinson court simply decided that the principles motivating imputed disqualification rules did not require per se disqualification of attorneys in a public defender’s office. Due to the special nature of public defender’s offices, Robinson held that per se conflicts would not prevent assistant public defenders in the same office from representing clients with antagonistic interests. People v. Miller (1980), 79 Ill. 2d 454, 461 (“disqualification of one assistant public defender due to a conflict of interest will not necessarily disqualify all members of the public defender’s office”). The majority acknowledges the narrow holdings of Robinson and Smith in these words: “Robinson only decided that where an assistant public defender faces a conflict of interest, the conflict will not per se disqualify other members of the office, whereas Smith decided that a per se conflict exists where an assistant asserts the ineompetency of another member of the office since he must confront competing loyalties towards his client and towards his office.” (121 Ill. 2d at 42.) Notwithstanding its recognition that Robinson and Smith are not inconsistent, the majority, without citation, simply sweeps away Smith with the assertion that “Robinson rejected the essential premise in Smith that an assistant public defender feels a strong loyalty to protect the reputation of his office.” (121 Ill. 2d at 42.) In fact, Robinson upheld the essential premise of Smith: “The People’s conclusion that attorneys in the public defender’s office have no allegiance to their office has been implicitly rejected in People v. Smith (1967), 37 Ill. 2d 622. In Smith the defendant had been represented at trial by an attorney from the public defender’s office. After his conviction, the defendant filed a pro se petition alleging that his trial counsel was incompetent; another attorney from the same office was appointed to represent defendant in the post-conviction proceedings. Although the court restricted its holding to the circumstances present in that case, in finding a conflict of interest it was nonetheless acknowledged that an attorney from the public defender’s office might feel some loyalty to the office since the attorney’s ‘natural inclination would be to protect its reputation by defending against the charges of incompetency ***.’ 37 Ill. 2d 622, 624.” (People v. Robinson (1979), 79 Ill. 2d 147, 158.) Ignoring the true holding of Robinson, the majority proceeds to overrule Smith and Terry by rewriting Robinson, rather than by demonstrating why stare decisis and the reasoning of Smith do not control these cases. Attempting to justify its new rule, the majority speculates that “a positive image is fostered where an office aggressively pursues allegations made against some of its members.” (121 Ill. 2d at 43.) Whether or not this argument has any basis in fact, it is a speculation about a lawyer’s motivation that relates only to conflicting loyalties to one’s client and to the reputation of the public defender’s office as a whole. Conspicuously absent is any discussion of the more powerful individual loyalties to one’s colleagues; challenging the competence of one’s office mate is hardly an easy assignment. Nor does the majority address the bureaucratic consequences that a public defender may fear if he zealously argues that another public defender — possibly his superior — is incompetent. The opinion also points out that affirming the per se rule “would require us to presume that public defenders would allow any office allegiances to interfere with their foremost obligation to their clients.” (121 Ill. 2d at 43.) Curiously, the majority does not appear to realize that this criticism pertains to all conflict of interest decisions. Conflict of interest rules require presumptions that certain situations inherently entail conflicting loyalties that interfere (or appear to interfere) with an attorney’s client obligations. One advantage of a per se rule is that it eliminates the need to make case-by-case assessments of conflicting loyalties that may well be extremely subtle or subconscious. Previously, this court has noted that it is extremely difficult to measure such “subtle influences” and the “subliminal reluctance to attack pleadings *** by the prosecution which [an attorney] may have been personally involved with.” (People v. Kester (1977), 66 Ill. 2d 162, 167-68.) Here, however, the majority ignores the difficulties of gauging the effects of subtle or subliminal pressures that arise from friendship or loyalty to a lawyer’s colleagues and conflict with his duty to his client. Compounding the problems this decision will create for the lower courts, the majority fails to provide any guidance when it applies its rule that “a case-by-case inquiry should be conducted to determine whether any circumstances peculiar to the case indicate the presence of an actual conflict of interest.” (121 Ill. 2d at 44.) Whether or not one labels them per se, the conflicts present in these cases are very real. (See People v. Walton (1979), 78 Ill. 2d 197, 200-01 (recognizing distinction between actual and per se conflicts of interest).) Nevertheless, the court’s “case-by-case inquiry” here is satisfied in only one sentence: “Here, defendants have not indicated, and our examination of the record does not reveal, circumstances which suggest that actual conflicts of interest were present.” (121 Ill. 2d at 44.) The court’s “case-by-case inquiry,” it appears, is but window dressing for a new per se rule that loyalty to the public defender’s office or a lawyer’s associates in it cannot form the basis of a conflict of interest. In my view, if the majority genuinely intended to conduct any case-by-case analysis, it should have addressed the actual conflicts that the court recognized in Smith and Terry. The attorneys in each of the cases now before us faced very significant conflicts — their loyalty to their clients requiring them to impugn the competency of their own offices and, indirectly, themselves. By suggesting that other assistant public defenders were incompetent, the assistants in each of these cases might have faced hostility from their peers and supervisors, and by denigrating the abilities of assistant public defenders, they prejudiced their own prospects for employment after leaving the public defender’s office. With so many clashing loyalties, the actual conflicts in these cases are too real and powerful to be ignored. Faced with similar situations, courts in other jurisdictions have found that the conflicts require disqualification of fellow public defenders. See Hill v. State (1978), 263 Ark. 478, 480, 566 S.W.2d 127, 127 (where one assistant public defender represents indigent alleging ineffective assistance by another assistant public defender, “a conflict of interest would inevitably arise”); Adams v. State (Fla. 1980), 380 So. 2d 421, 422 (the later public defender “has a hopeless conflict of interest”). Accord Angarano v. United States (D.C. 1974), 329 A.2d 453, 457; Commonwealth v. Willis (1981), 492 Pa. 310, 312, 424 A.2d 876, 877. The conflicts present in these consolidated cases are not attenuated by the unique characteristics of either the Cook or Peoria County public defender’s office. Though there are hundreds of assistants in the Cook County office, the sheer number does nothing to attenuate the actual conflict since Banks and DuQuaine were still asking their attorneys at the post-conviction proceedings to argue that their peers, and ultimately their supervisors and themselves, were second-rate lawyers in a second-rate office. The appellate court in Blakes’ case found significance in the structure of the Peoria County office. There, the public defender contracts with private attorneys to act as his assistants and handle the public defender’s assignments part-time. Questioning the competence of another assistant public defender in those circumstances would not only tarnish the abilities of all assistant public defenders working part-time in that county (including the assistant making the assertion), but might antagonize the public defender, who employs the private attorneys, and adversely affect the assignment of future work to Blakes’ attorney. Thus, the conflict facing the attorney in Blakes’ case is no less real merely because the Peoria County public defender’s office is decentralized and is staffed by practicing attorneys. This dissent does not question the integrity and dedication of this State’s public defenders. To the contrary, this dissent is based in large part on my desire to uphold the good reputation of public defenders by precluding even the appearance of conflicting loyalties. I remind my colleagues that appellate public defenders from several different offices in this State vigorously asserted in this court that the appellate court was wrong in Nos. 62815 and 63179, and right in No. 63352. Their strong arguments against the reasoning on which the disposition of this case is based lead me to observe that the public defenders in this State are acutely aware of the difficult position in which that disposition leaves them. Because I believe that the conflicts in these cases are just as real today as those this court recognized in Smith two decades ago, I see no reason to discard that precedent. I would reverse and remand both No. 62815 and No. 63179, and I would affirm the judgment of the appellate court in No. 63352.