Court Opinion

ID: 9743476
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:34:17.967669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:41.536767
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE STOUDER, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree with my colleagues in that portion of the opinion relating to the conviction of the defendant for the possession of marijuana, and I join with them in affirming such conviction. However, I believe the trial court erred in giving the instruction objected to by the defendant which ruling is approved by the majority, and consequently I believe the defendant is entitled to a new trial on the battery charges, and consistent with such remandment I would vacate all sentences and remand for further consideration depending on the outcome of the new trial. For my purposes the facts are adequately stated in the majority opinion. The gist of the charges was the defendant committed batteries on peace officers knowing them to be peace officers in the execution of their duties. His defense in substance was that of self-defense, the use of force in opposing the unreasonable use of force by peace officers. The testimony of the peace officers and that of the defendant were in substantial agreement on many aspects of the occurrence and in substantial disagreement on others. It was this dispute which the jury was required to resolve, and if the jury was properly instructed, the parties tend to agree either guilt or acquittal would be proper verdicts depending on how the jury resolved the controverted issues of fact. The instruction in dispute, IPI Criminal No. 24.20 (included in the 1981 revision without significant change), provides: “A person is not authorized to use force to resist an arrest which he knows is being made by a peace officer, even if he believes that the arrest is unlawful and the arrest in fact is unlawful.” This instruction is substantially a restatement of section 7 — 7(a) of the Criminal Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 38, par. 7 — 7(a)). This subsection is one of numerous subsections under the general title of the article “Justifiable Use of Force; Exoneration.” The right of a peace officer to use reasonable force in the arrest of an offender or the prevention of his escape is described in section 7 — 5(a) and (b) of the Criminal Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 38, par. 7 — 5(a), (b)). Section 7 — 7(a), the section of the statute which as I have suggested earlier is the basis of the instruction in question, is described in the Committee Comments in Smith-Hurd Illinois Annotated Statutes as “* * * a corollary to the justification accorded to an officer or deputy in using force to make an arrest, even if the arrest, without his knowledge, is unlawful: the person arrested is not privileged to resist the arrest with force. This provision is a deterrent to the resort to force by such a person, upon his own conclusion that the arrest is unlawful, in preference to the use of the methods provided by law for obtaining his release and redress for the unlawful arrest. 0 6 *.” (Ill. Ann. Stat., ch. 38, par. 7 — 7(a), Committee Comments, at 422 (Smith-Hurd 1972).) This rule is of fairly recent origin. See, e.g., People v. Doody (1931), 343 Ill. 194, 175 N.E. 436, where the legality of the arrest is required to be shown in the case of a defendant charged with homicide of a peace officer attempting to arrest the defendant without a warrant. By describing section 7 — 7(a) as a corollary to section 7 — 5, an observation which is confirmed by the language of the two sections, the interdependence of the sections is demonstrated. Under some circumstances section 7 — 7(a) may be regarded as a general rule modified in some respects by the provisions of section 7 — 5. For example, the authorization to use reasonable force to effect an arrest included in 7 — 5(a) also requires in subsection (b) that the peace officer believe the arrest to be lawful. No such limitation appears in section 7 — 7(a), and if the literal language of 7 — 7(a) were applied the belief of the peace officer would be immaterial. (See People v. Young (1968), 100 Ill. App. 2d 20, 241 N.E.2d 587.) Both the parties and the majority of the court agree no issue concerning probable cause for making a lawful arrest was raised at trial. Yet, the instruction No. 24.20 is justified by the majority in large measure because it supports that part of the charge that defendant’s conduct was without legal justification. Since no issue concerning the lack of probable cause for making the arrest was raised and since the use of some force by the peace officers was admitted as a part of their testimony, section 7 — 7(a) and the instruction based thereon were inapplicable to the facts. An instruction based on section 7 — 5 covering the right of the peace officers to use reasonable force not only would have been applicable to the facts but would have avoided interjecting into the case two other irrelevant issues, namely, the defendant committed the offense of resisting arrest, an offense for which he was not charged, and the ambiguity surrounding the prohibition against opposing an unlawful arrest. As a term of art, an unlawful arrest may.refer to the absence of legal cause for making the arrest, but it may also include the method of executing the arrest. By making no exception to the unlawfulness which the offender is prohibited from opposing, this instruction justifies both unlawful cause as well as means. I am very well aware of the rule that says instructions should be considered as a whole, and this is the rule which the majority has relied on to avoid the adverse consequences of the instruction having been given. By relying on the rule there is at least an implicit recognition the instruction in question is inadequate or objectionable in some respect, but other instructions are deemed to have controlled or obviated the unfavorable effect. As applied to the instruction in question, I do not see how the other instructions can have the curative effect claimed. The instruction purports to prohibit a defendant from opposing any arrest even if the arrest be unlawful without in any way suggesting that an arrest may be executed by unlawful means such as the unreasonable use of force which the defendant is not prohibited from opposing. Even though the issues instructions were modified to ameliorate the effect somewhat, the fact remains that this instruction was contrary to the issues instructions and in effect left the jury free to select and choose which rule it thought it ought to apply. I believe the foregoing observations amply support the further comment by the drafters of the Criminal Code when, as a further comment to section 7 — 7(a) in Smith-Hurd Annotated Statutes, they observe that section 7 — 7(a) “* ° 0 does not apply to the situation in which the officer uses excessive force: whether the arrest is lawful or unlawful, the officer’s use of excessive force invokes the right of self-defense in Section 7 — 1.” Ill. Ann. Stat., ch. 38, par. 7 — 7(a), Committee Comments, at 422-23 (Smith-Hurd 1972). This brings me to a consideration of the two cases which have previously considered this instruction, People v. McCauley (1972), 2 Ill. App. 3d 734, 277 N.E.2d 541, holding the instruction erroneous, and People v. Paez (1977), 45 Ill. App. 3d 349, 351, 359 N.E.2d 1083, approving the instruction. In declining to follow the result in McCauley the court in Paez relied on differences in facts which it believes justifies a difference in result. Even in its own terms it is difficult to understand why a distinction should exist. In Paez the court observed, “It is, of course, error to interject irrelevant issues into jury deliberations and to instruct as to crimes not charged. (People v. McCauley, 2 Ill. App. 3d 734, 736 (1972).)” Notwithstanding this declaration, the court in Paez approved the instruction which it believed did refer to a crime not charged, and it did so without any special limitation on the principle which it initially announced and approved. What Paez does say is that perhaps there is a difference in whether the instruction should be given depending on the stage of the arrest, distinguishing between the stage of the arrest where the offender is being transported and where he is being initially apprehended. In terms of using force to oppose an arrest I see no difference. In terms of resisting an arrest as an offense no cases are cited which support the court’s distinctions. The two cases cited by the Paez case, People v. Gnatz (1972), 8 Ill. App. 3d 396, 290 N.E.2d 392, and People v. Brown (1974), 18 Ill. App. 3d 1049, 310 N.E.2d 498, are of little support for the result reached. Even though neither the Paez nor McCauley case address the essential problem created by this instruction as applied to the use of force to resist unreasonable force, I think the McCauley result is the more appropriate one, and I am not persuaded by Paez that a contrary result is warranted. In summary, I believe the instruction was improperly given because it was inapplicable to any theory supported by the facts and further that it prejudicially deprived defendant of a fair trial.