Court Opinion

ID: 9862157
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 01:02:42.111514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:30:29.698923
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, concurring: I agree with the result reached by the majority. I write separately because I disagree with its holding that ex parte contacts between a judge and the jury concerning instructions do not always mandate a new trial. For most of this State’s history, our court consistently recognized that "it is [reversible] error *** for a trial judge to hold any communication with the jury after their retirement to deliberate upon their verdict, except in open court.” (People v. Beck (1922), 305 Ill. 593, 596; see People v. McGrane (1929), 336 Ill. 404, 408-09.) This was so regardless of what was said or what effect the communication may have had on the jury’s deliberations. Crabtree v. Hagenbaugh (1860), 23 Ill. 289. To the extent that more recent cases have deviated from these principles, I would vote to overrule them. In a criminal case, all ex parte communications between the judge and jury regarding instructions should automatically result in a new trial, except when the defendant has waived his right to be present. To make the issue turn on considerations of prejudice, as the majority does here, sets an unreasonable standard. If the court is permitted to communicate with the jury in the defendant’s absence, the defendant will have no direct knowledge of what was said and done and will be at a disadvantage in proving that something improper took place. (People v. Tilley (1952), 411 Ill. 473, 486 (Bristow, J., dissenting).) How, after all, can we expect a defendont to make a full and informed assessment of the effect of events that he had no chance to witness? Whatever knowledge a defendant has of the improper communication will always be secondhand. In addition, it will normally come from the very party, i.e., the trial judge, who engaged in the offending conduct. As much as we may hope that the court will make a fair and complete disclosure, a criminal defendant should not be left in the position of having to take the judge’s word for what occurred. The prohibition against ex parte communications between the judge and jury on the question of instructions is an easy rule to apply. It has no gray areas, no room for interpretation. The logistics of it may put the court to some inconvenience, "but better so than permit a practice so liable to abuse and so much in conflict with the rights of parties litigant.” Chicago & Alton R.R. Co. v. Robbins (1895), 159 Ill. 598, 601. Over one hundred years ago, this court stated: "The policy of the law requires, that all the proceedings of the court should be open and notorious, and in the presence of the party, so that if he is not satisfied with it, he may take exceptions to it, in the mode pointed out by the law, and not be put to extraneous proof to show that an error has been committed in a secret proceeding, and, in fact, out of court.” Crabtree v. Hagenbaugh, 23 Ill. at 289-90. These principles are no less valid today than they were a century ago. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the appellate court on this basis alone.