Court Opinion

ID: 9530744
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:03:08.567115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:14.011535
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE TRAPP, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I concur in the conclusion that the trial court erred in excluding the expert testimony explaining the battered wife syndrome, but dissent from the opinion insofar as it approves or accepts defendant’s argument that such testimony is admissible to rebut the inference of guilt arising from the dismemberment of the body, and to rehabilitate defendant’s credibility upon her testimony that she killed Minnis in self-defense or by misadventure during a physical struggle. Defendant’s brief takes the position that upon all of the evidence dismemberment was not the cause which occurred separately and subsequently to death and that the prosecution’s theory was that strangulation was the cause of death. The full thrust of defendant’s argument upon the exclusion of this testimony is stated in the language of the brief: “Having relied upon a defense of self-defense, the trial court’s ruling was prejudicial because the credibility of the defendant’s version of the events surrounding her husband’s death depended upon her ability to explain why she disposed of his body as she did.” In People v. White (1980), 90 Ill. App. 3d 1067, 414 N.E.2d 196, defendant testified to shooting in self-defense as her live-in man was beating her. The trial court excluded defendant’s testimony concerning the syndrome over defendant’s argument that the testimony “*** had a direct bearing on the credibility of the defendant as regards her claim of self-defense.” (90 Ill. App. 3d 1067, 1072, 414 N.E.2d 196, 200.) The evidence was held to be irrelevant and immaterial for the reason that self-defense is determined by the trier of fact upon what transpired at the “particular instant” that death was caused. See also State v. Thomas (1981), 66 Ohio St. 2d 518, 423 N.E.2d 137. Defendant’s motion in limine prior to trial recognized this rationale by her contention that dismemberment was irrelevant and immaterial because it was subsequent to the death. It is argued that the trial court would have admitted the testimony if the only evidence was that decedent Minnis was killed while asleep. Upon the event, defendant elected to testify that she killed by misadventure or in self-defense in the belief of imminent danger during a physical struggle and, in effect, abandoned the rationale of the battered wife syndrome. As in White, I do not agree that she can use the opinion evidence of the battered wife syndrome to support her credibility as to the testimony concerning a desperate struggle. I agree that the testimony was admissible upon the sum of the reasons that the prosecution charged murder by strangulation or other unknown means, that some evidence of strangulation was introduced by the prosecution through a purported admission by defendant, and that the State strenuously argued that defendant was guilty of murder in a context which would require the jury to completely reject defendant’s testimony of a struggle which resulted in the death of the husband. I agree that the evidence of the battered wife syndrome would be admissible if the jury accepted the theory of the prosecution that death was caused by strangulation or other unknown means while the victim was asleep and that since the jury was required to choose between the theory of the prosecution as to the cause of death and the defendant’s theory of the cause of death, the evidence concerning the syndrome would be relevant if the jury was persuaded that the victim died by strangulation or other unknown means.