Court Opinion

ID: 9732027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:05:30.702896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:22.646891
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE APPLETON, specially concurring: I am in complete agreement with the disposition set forth in the majority opinion but write separately to address with greater specificity the issue raised by the erroneous instruction given by the trial court as to the requisite mental state which was compounded by the argument of the prosecutor. The jury here was instructed in part as follows: “A person commits the offense of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child when he knowingly or recklessly commits an act of sexual penetration when he is 17 years of age or older and the victim is under 13 years of age when the act is committed.” (Emphasis added.) See IPI Criminal 4th No. 11.103. The jury was further instructed with the following issues instruction: “To sustain the charge of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, the State must prove the following propositions: First Proposition: That the defendant knowingly or recklessly committed an act of sexual penetration with [A.L.]; and Second Proposition: That the defendant was 17 years of age or older when the act was committed; and Third Proposition: That [A.L.] was under 13 years of age when the act was committed.” (Emphasis added.) See IPI Criminal 4th No. 11.104. These instructions were also in error as a defendant charged with predatory criminal sexual assault of a child must be found to act knowingly or intentionally. Neither section 12 — 14.1(a)(1) of the Code, defining predatory criminal sexual assault, nor section 12 — 12 of the Code, defining sexual penetration, prescribes an applicable mental state. 720 ILCS 5/12 — 14.1(a)(1), 12 — 12 (West 1998). When a statute fails to prescribe an applicable mental state, a mental state of intent, knowledge, or recklessness is implied. People v. Terrell, 132 Ill. 2d 178, 210, 547 N.E.2d 145, 159 (1989). Although the definition of “sexual penetration” does not specify an applicable mental state, a mental state of either intent or knowledge is implicitly required for sexual penetration to occur. Terrell, 132 Ill. 2d at 209, 547 N.E.2d at 158. The committee note for IPI Criminal 4th No. 11.104 refers the user to the committee note for IPI Criminal 4th No. 11.103. IPI Criminal 4th No. 11.104, Committee Note, at 681. There, the committee note discussed Terrell and recommended the selection of only the optional bracketed mental states consistent with the charge. Recklessness, in short, is not an option for an instruction as to the mental state required for this offense and should not be used, despite its perhaps confusing appearance in IPI Criminal 4th No. 11.104. While jury instructions on a specific mental state are not required to be given for the offense of aggravated criminal sexual assault (720 ILCS 5/12 — 14 (West 1998)), which also requires sexual penetration (People v. Simms, 192 Ill. 2d 348, 376, 736 N.E.2d 1092, 1114 (2000)), if an instruction is given, it must accurately state the law. The instructions here did not do so. As the majority states, courts have often absolved a prosecutor’s misstatement of the law in closing argument because the jury was properly instructed by the court. People v. Lawler, 142 Ill. 2d 548, 565, 568 N.E.2d 895, 903 (1991). Here the prosecutor argued to the jurors recklessness was all that was required to be found by them: “That leaves you with one, the first proposition, ‘that the Defendant knowingly or recklessly committed an act of sexual penetration with [A.L.].’ Really, that’s two different parts there. One is, what is going on in his head? The other is, what he’s doing, physically? ‘That the defendant knowingly or recklessly’ is just telling you that I don’t have to prove that he planned it out. There’s none of this that’s premeditated. There’s no, he meant to do that. What they’re saying is, it’s enough that he knew what he was doing, when he did it. And it’s enough that even if all he did was do it recklessly, something unreasonably, accidentally, recklessly, that’s enough.” (Emphasis added.) In this argument, the prosecutor erroneously argued the mental state of recklessness and then went one step further and equated recklessness with accidental conduct. As legal concepts, “recklessness” and “accidentally” are not synonymous, and an argument calculated to show the equivalence of those two concepts has great potential for severe prejudice. People v. Gutirrez, 205 Ill. App. 3d 231, 264, 564 N.E.2d 850, 872 (1990). As this conviction is reversed and the defendant will presumably be retried, I believe it is important to give some direction to the prosecutor for his argument and drafting of instructions.