Court Opinion

ID: 9745069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:32:14.143686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:55.381491
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE SIMON, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I concur in the disposition of the appeals in cause Nos. 53331 (Rhodes) and 53585 (P.W.). I disagree, however, with the reversal of the appellate court in cause No. 53560 (Van Zant). I respectfully dissent from the court’s disposition in that case because the State’s evidence against Van Zant did not prove enough. Aside from an inconclusive eyewitness identification from an 8-year-old, the only evidence against Van Zant was the presence of his fingerprint on a clock radio that had been taken from the victim’s bedroom to his kitchen at the time of the burglary. I agree, as the majority opinion states, that to sustain a conviction on such evidence, the defendant’s fingerprint must have been found under such circumstances as to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that it was impressed when the crime was committed. The evidence here does not satisfy that requirement. It certainly does not prove, as the majority says, that it “could only have been impressed at the time of the offense.” The State’s evidence did not establish when Van Zant touched the clock radio. It did not show how long the clock radio had been in the victim’s dwelling before the burglary or how the victim came into possession of it. The State did not show whether the clock radio was new or used when the victim got it, how long it had been since the clock radio was last outside the dwelling, or who might have touched it when removed from the dwelling. True, the victim stated that Van Zant was not allowed in his dwelling and so foreclosed the possibility that the fingerprint was put on the clock radio while it was in Graham’s dwelling. But unless the age of the fingerprint could be pinned down, the State should have gone into the history of the object on which the fingerprint was found to eliminate the possibility that it got there innocently. As the well-reasoned opinion of the appellate court suggested, the fingerprint might have been put on the clock radio when it was removed from the victim’s dwelling, for repairs or some other reason, or for that matter even before the present owner received the clock radio. Where circumstantial evidence is all the proof against a defendant, the State must exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence consistent with the facts. (People v. Lewellen (1969), 43 Ill. 2d 74, 78.) The State failed to prove the fingerprint got on the clock radio at the time of the burglary and not at some time before. I regard strict adherence to this requirement as especially important in the case of a fingerprint on an easily moved object like a clock radio. I believe the conviction of Van Zant should stand reversed.