Court Opinion

ID: 9535595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:51:06.936223+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:17.160663
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE JIGANTI, dissenting: There is some question in Illinois as to the appropriate standard to be applied when assessing the adequacy of appointed counsel. Recently in People v. Talley (1981), 97 Ill. App. 3d 439, 422 N.E.2d 1084, this court adopted a standard higher than that which had been previously used. The Talley court said that a defendant’s representation is not constitutionally deficient unless counsel was actually incompetent, the incompetence produced substantial prejudice to the defendant, and the result would probably have been different absent the incompetence. In finding that the representation of the defendants in this case was incompetent the court engages in a great deal of speculation. It says that there is no indication in the record that the State’s witnesses were interviewed or that discovery was taken on behalf of the defendants. Further, the court states that the complainant’s neighbor was not interviewed and that counsel could not have examined the court file adequately because the arrest records were not subpoenaed. These charges of trial counsel’s incompetence arose by way of the defendants’ post-trial motion. The motion was not supported by affidavits and there was no request by counsel to present witnesses. The motion does not suggest how interviewing the State’s witnesses, if they would have consented to an interview, would have changed the result. Those witnesses were not interviewed in the interim between the trial and the post-trial motion. Counsel effectively examined the witnesses during the course of the trial. There is no showing of what discovery the defendants would have engaged in. The defendants were charged with an offense for which they could not have been sent to the penitentiary. Supreme Court Rule 411 (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 110A, par. 411) provides that the discovery rules apply only in those cases where the accused is charged with an offense for which, upon conviction, he might be imprisoned in the penitentiary. Discovery would be quite limited. (See People v. Williams (1981), 87 Ill. 2d 161,429 N.E.2d 487.) In the interim between the trial and the post-trial motion the complainant’s neighbor surely could have been interviewed to determine what if anything he would have said that would have been favorable to the defendant. In the interim counsel could have produced police arrest records and examined the file and demonstrated how, if these things had been done, the result would have been different. To state now that these matters might have affected the result is insufficient in my estimation to prove that counsel was inadequate and that but for this inadequacy the result probably would have been different. The majority opinion states that the right to counsel is an empty one unless an attorney has a reasonable opportunity to prepare for trial and that without this opportunity he has been deprived of effective assistance of counsel. The court did not deny the defendants a reasonable opportunity to prepare for trial. The defendants retained counsel and he appeared and answered ready for trial. The court did not force the defendants to trial. The majority opinion says that it must necessarily conclude that the representation was so ineffective that it could have well changed the outcome. In my view the representation was in fact quite competent. The defendants particularly have not shown that but for these items the result would probably have been different.