Court Opinion

ID: 9719100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:42:21.845442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:30.392790
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE STOUDER, dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the opinion of my colleagues. I believe defendant was placed twice in jeopardy and his conviction for burglary should be reversed. Before embarking on my reasons for disagreeing with the majority, it would be wise to examine some of the precepts of the doctrine of double jeopardy. The protection afforded by constitutional guarantees against double jeopardy are threefold. The guarantee prohibits a second prosecution after acquittal, a second prosecution after conviction and multiple punishments for the same offense. (North Carolina v. Pearce (1969), 395 U.S. 711, 23 L. Ed. 2d 656, 89 S. Ct. 2072.) The reasons for these protections are stressed in United States v. Wilson (1975), 420 U.S. 332, 343, 43 L. Ed. 2d 232, 241, 95 S. Ct. 1013, 1021: “The interests underlying these three protections are quite similar. When a defendant has been once convicted and punished for a particular crime, principles of fairness and finality require that he not be subjected to the possibility of further punishment by being again tried or sentenced for the same offense.” For double jeopardy to apply, it is unnecessary that a person be tried twice for the same action; so long as he has been put in jeopardy, the guarantee against subsequent jeopardy attaches. Gavieres v. United States (1911), 220 U.S. 338, 55 L. Ed. 489, 31 S. Ct. 421. Relying on People v. Warne (1976), 39 Ill. App. 3d 894, 350 N.E.2d 836, and People v. Morgan (1965), 55 Ill. App. 2d 157, 204 N.E.2d 314, the majority concludes that defendant has not been subjected to double jeopardy, but does so without considering the same evidence test. To determine whether or not two actions are prosecutions for the same offense, the test is: Would the same evidence sustain the proof of each offense? (People v. Gray (1977), 69 Ill. 2d 44, 370 N.E.2d 797.) If the same evidence would sustain proof of each offense, then prosecution of the second offense is barred by double jeopardy. When this test is applied to the facts in this case, the inescapable conclusion is that defendant has been tried twice and punished twice for the same offense. The same evidence test was recently considered by the Illinois Supreme Court in Gray, and it would be appropriate to review that opinion. In Gray, the defendant struck his wife with a gun and then shot her, which violated a protective order in a divorce proceeding enjoining defendant from striking or molesting his wife. The wife filed an emergency petition that Gray be held in contempt of court for assaulting and shooting her. Upon a finding of wilful contempt of court, Gray was sentenced to 6 months in Cook County jail. The State’s Attorney was neither aware of nor informed of the contempt proceedings. An indictment was then filed charging Gray with aggravated battery and attempt murder based on the same conduct. He was convicted of aggravated battery and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of from 1 to 3 years. Defendant appealed, claiming that he had been placed twice in jeopardy for the same offense. After discussing the principles and considerations embodied in double jeopardy, the court turned to the proper application of the same evidence test and found that “[ considerations of fairness and finality, the very foundation of the double jeopardy bar, require a nontechnical evaluation of the ‘same evidence’ test, and a focus upon the similarity of the elements involved in the two proceedings.” (69 Ill. 2d 44, 51, 370 N.E.2d 797, 800.) The court held that “[notwithstanding defendant’s conviction and punishment for criminal contempt, he was tried and convicted a second time for the same conduct, striking and shooting his wife, in a criminal proceeding. The finding of criminal contempt and the conviction of aggravated battery constituted double trial and double punishment for the same offense.” (69 Ill. 2d 44, 52, 370 N.E.2d 797, 800.) The court concluded by rejecting the State’s argument that double jeopardy did not exist because the divorce court had no jurisdiction to try felonies. Since the divorce and criminal courts are courts of the same sovereign and double jeopardy bars two courts within one sovereign from trying a person for the same offense, the guarantee against double jeopardy had been violated. This court in People v. Holmes (1977), 54 Ill. App. 3d 843, 368 N.E.2d 1106, recently considered the Gray holding. The defendant in Holmes was enjoined in a divorce proceeding from “accosting or molesting” his wife. Thereafter defendant’s wife filed an emergency petition for a rule to show cause which alleged that defendant had violated the injunction by firing a hand gun at plaintiff three or four times. A hearing on the petition was held and plaintiff was sworn and testified. The hearing was continued several times by agreement of the parties. After the decree of divorce was granted to the parties, the issue of the violation of the injunction was never brought up again by either party and no order was ever entered regarding the alleged contempt. The State’s Attorney of Will County was not a party to the contempt hearing, and was not given notice of the filing of the petition or of the fact that a hearing was being held. After testimony was heard on the petition, the defendant was also arrested and charged by criminal complaint with armed violence. Prior to trial, defendant’s motion to dismiss based on claims of double jeopardy was granted and the State appealed. The issue decided by the appellate court was whether double jeopardy prohibited defendant’s criminal prosecution for armed violence based upon the same acts which were previously the subject of a contempt hearing in a divorce action. Following the Gray case, the court held that when the contempt proceeding was instituted and some evidence in support of the petition was heard, jeopardy attached and criminal prosecution could not thereafter be instituted for the conduct which formed the basis of the petition. The lack of a final determination on the contempt petition was not sufficient to preclude the existence of double jeopardy. I believe a nontechnical application of the same evidence test establishes the defendant was prosecuted and punished twice for the same offense, the burglary of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. The three police officers who found defendant at the scene gave the same testimony in each proceeding. The witnesses in each proceeding, with the exception of the representative for the owners of the burgled property, were the same. While the representative for the owner or owners of the burgled premises was different in each proceeding, the substance and content of witnesses’ testimony was the same in each proceeding. In both proceedings the evidence tended to establish defendant’s participation in the burglary of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on November 25, 1975. Since the same evidence formed the basis of two prosecutions and two punishments, defendant was tried twice for the same offense in violation of the double jeopardy clause, and his conviction for burglary should be reversed. I cannot agree with my colleagues that the opinion in People v. Warne (1976) , 39 Ill. App. 3d 894, 350 N.E.2d 836, correctly applies the concepts of double jeopardy. That decision was rendered prior to the recent Illinois Supreme Court decision in Gray. Furthermore, Warne suffers from the same deficiency as the majority opinion, the failure to consider the same evidence test that is essential in deciding claims of double jeopardy. The same evidence test was applicable when Warne was decided (see Blockburger v. United States (1932), 284 U.S. 299, 76 L. Ed. 306, 52 S. Ct. 180) and has been recently reaffirmed. (See Brown v. Ohio (1977) , 432 U.S. 161, 53 L. Ed. 2d 187, 97 S. Ct. 222.) By failing to consider the same evidence test, the court in Warne reached an erroneous conclusion, as does the majority here. The primary thrust of Warne was directed at issues of collateral estoppel. The opinion summarily treats the broader concept of double jeopardy without considering the same evidence test. My colleagues cite People v. Morgan (1965), 55 Ill. App. 2d 157, 204 N.E.2d 314, for support of the proposition that revocation of probation is delayed sentencing for the criminal act of which defendant was originally convicted. The court in Morgan believed their conclusion that the defendant was not subjected to double jeopardy was justified in part because of the different standards of proof involved in probation revocation proceedings and in criminal trials, citing People v. Kuduk (1943), 320 Ill. App. 610, 51 N.E.2d 997. This latter principle was rejected in People v. Grayson (1974), 58 Ill. 2d 260, 319 N.E.2d 43, and the former principle of delayed sentencing was not even discussed. If the theory of delayed sentencing had been relevant in Grayson, then the result in Grayson should or could have been different. Grayson effectively overruled the Kuduk case, the principal case relied upon in Morgan, and consequently reliance on Morgan by the court in Warne or my colleagues is misplaced. My colleagues have suggested that the theory of the defendant should be addressed to the legislature. What they fail to recognize is that principles of double jeopardy are of constitutional dimensions and, consequently, are within the ambit of judicial consideration. That the questions raised by the defendant are properly the subject of judicial determination is supported by the opinions of our supreme court in Gray and Grayson, both of which represent departures from traditional rules. One of the protections offered by the bar against double jeopardy is that defendant is not forced to go through two complete adversary proceedings for the same offense. In a probation revocation, once the State has established a prima facie case, the defendant must put on evidence or his probation will be revoked. Because of this rule, the State can proceed with a revocation proceeding first and thereby pressure the defendant into revealing whatever evidence he would introduce at a criminal trial. The knowledge thereby gained can then be used by the State to refine its case for the criminal trial. Yet, this type of procedure was condemned in Ashe v. Swenson (1970), 397 U.S. 436, 437, 25 L. Ed. 2d 469, 477, 90 S. Ct. 1189: “In this case the State in its brief has frankly conceded that following the petitioner’s acquittal, it treated the first trial as no more than a dry run for the second prosecution: ‘No doubt the prosecutor felt the state had a provable case on the first charge and, when he lost, he did what every good attorney would do — he refined his presentation in light of the turn of events at the first trial.’ But this is precisely what the constitutional guarantee [against double jeopardy] forbids.” Here, it is apparent that the State subjected the defendant to two adversary proceedings for the same offense and by so doing had the opportunity to gain valuable information which could be used in a subsequent criminal trial. We believe the procedure employed by the State is among those prohibited by the above-quoted passage. Once the State subjected the defendant to an adversary proceeding, it could not thereafter relitigate in a second proceeding the issues that were presented in the first. In summary, proper application of the appropriate test establishes that defendant’s guarantees against being placed twice in jeopardy for the same offense have been violated. Defendant’s conviction should be reversed.