Court Opinion

ID: 9715971
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:21:46.976376+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:40.276419
License: Public Domain

CHIEF JUSTICE MILLER, dissenting in part: I do not agree with the court’s conclusion that the defendant was denied a fair trial by the admission into evidence of testimony relating the contents of the victim’s telephone call to her father. In my view, the telephone conversation was a prior consistent statement and, under the circumstances shown here, was properly introduced by the State to counter the defendant’s charge that the victim’s trial testimony was fabricated. Accordingly, I dissent. As the majority opinion states, the victim placed the telephone call shortly after the defendant took control of her vehicle at gunpoint. In the course of the telephone conversation, the victim managed to alert her father that she was in trouble. Through a series of questions, the victim’s father was able to ascertain that his daughter was being held by an armed “weirdo” and that she was then located somewhere between Mt. Vernon and Centralia. After the call was made, the defendant drove the victim to a secluded area, where he raped her. The defendant later returned with the victim, in the victim’s car, to the parking lot in which he had left his own vehicle. The defendant was followed into the lot by an automobile being driven by the victim’s father, who, accompanied by the victim’s mother and husband, had begun looking for his daughter immediately after receiving her telephone call. Upon arriving at the lot, the victim jumped but of the car and the defendant drove off. The victim, who was crying and hysterical, was taken to a hospital for treatment. The defendant asserted, both at the time of his arrest and later at trial, that he and the victim had engaged in consensual sexual relations. Evidence of a prior statement by a witness that is consistent with the witness’ testimony at trial may be introduced to show that the person related the same account of events on an earlier occasion, before the time of an alleged fabrication or the existence of an alleged motive to testify falsely. See People v. Shum (1987), 117 Ill. 2d 317, 340-41; People v. Titone (1986), 115 Ill. 2d 413, 422-23; People v. Emerson (1983), 97 Ill. 2d 487, 499-501; People v. Clark (1972), 52 Ill. 2d 374, 389-90. See also M. Graham, Cleary & Graham’s Handbook of Illinois Evidence §611.14 (5th ed. 1990). Properly analyzed, the evidence of the victim’s telephone conversation with her father was admissible as a prior consistent statement. Throughout the present proceedings, the defendant has challenged the veracity of the victim’s trial testimony and has attempted to portray the victim as a willing sexual partner. The contents of the victim’s telephone call could therefore be introduced into evidence to counter the defense, theory. The call was made prior to the time of the alleged fabrication. In the telephone conversation, the victim was able to communicate to her father that she was in danger and that she was being held against her will. This evidence corroborated the victim’s trial testimony and contradicted the defendant’s claim of consent. In the present case, the challenged evidence is particularly reliable because the telephone conversation was contemporaneous with the facts it related. Under these circumstances, I would conclude that the testimony detailing the victim’s telephone call to her father was properly admitted into evidence. The defendant raises one additional allegation of error, which concerns the prosecutor’s argument to the jury on the import of the defendant’s prior convictions. I agree with the majority that the prosecutor overstated the impeaching effect of the convictions but that the prosecutor’s brief comment did not deny the defendant a fair trial. The jury was properly instructed on the significance of the impeaching evidence, as well as on the purpose of closing argument, and the prosecutor’s remark was not unduly prejudicial. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the circuit court. JUSTICE HEIPLE joins in this dissent.