Court Opinion

ID: 9743887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:48:18.143416+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:44.799940
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE CRAVEN dissenting: Although I originally indicated agreement with the majority opinion 1 am now persuaded, upon consideration of the petition for rehearing, that the opinion is in error and the action of the trial court should be affirmed. The problem seems to be one of semantics. In Cause No. 892, the original complaint charged criminal trespass. Thereafter two additional counts were filed charging disorderly conduct and obstructing the performance of official duties by a police officer. The defendant filed a motion, characterized as a plea in abatement, in Cause No. 892, and many of the substantive allegations in that motion were admitted by the People. It was there alleged that the proliferation of charges were as a result of harassment and that such charges were motivated by demands and insistence for prosecution by the police department. The trial court dismissed the additional charges, concluding, presumably solely in response to the objections and the prosecutions answer to those objections, that Counts 2 and 3 could not properly be filed. The order is couched in language that leave to file Counts 2 and 3 is denied. In fact, those counts had previously been filed without leave of court. The prosecution, thus, in substantive effect, suffered an involuntary dismissal of Counts 2 and 3. Count 1 was voluntarily dismissed. Inasmuch as the substantive effect of the order in Cause No. 892 was to dismiss Counts 2 and 3, such was clearly appealable by the State. No appeal was taken. Thus, in this case, as in People v. Quintana (1967), 36 Ill.2d 369, 223 N.E.2d 161, and irrespective of the choice of phraseology, the substance and effect of the court’s order was dismissal. The dismissal was for the reasons urged in the objections and the answer. Furthermore, there seems to me to be merit in the contention that the majority opinion, in straining to reverse the trial court, has cast a burden upon the appellee to present a record upon which the action could be affirmed. I thought it was well-established that the burden was on the appellant to show grounds for reversal. That which was done in No. 892 was done over again between the same parties in the same court with reference to the same subject-matter, the only difference being that the State now appeals the dismissal of the proliferated charges. When we condone such multiplicity of proceedings under these circumstances, we offend against the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel. See this court’s opinion in People v. O’Neil (Gen. No. 11361), 132 Ill.App.2d 356, 271 N.E.2d 690 (4th Dist. 1971). In Ashe v. Swenson (1970), 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469, the United States Supreme Court clearly held collateral estoppel to be an essential ingredient of the double jeopardy cause, and that by reason of the decision in Benton v. Maryland (1969), 395 U.S. 784, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707, such is applicable to the States. Jeopardy, therefore, is more than a former conviction or an acquittal. As I view this record, the order appealed from is essentially the same as a prior order that became final for want of an appeal. The action of the trial court should be affirmed.