Court Opinion

ID: 9709206
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:42:47.788439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:47.042811
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE MURRAY and JUSTICE COCCIA, specially concurring: We agree with the majority that this cause must be reversed and remanded, but we would limit the reason to the improper use in closing argument of otherwise admissible evidence. The testimony of police officers concerning their investigatory techniques is properly admitted into evidence despite its hearsay nature and despite the fact that a jury may gather an erroneous inference from such evidence. (People v. Hunter (1984), 124 Ill. App. 3d 516, 464 N.E.2d 659.) This court has recently noted that prosecutors have begun to take advantage of the admissibility of such evidence by ostensibly offering it for its limited purpose and, once admitted, making an impermissible use of it in closing argument. (People v. Hunter (1984), 124 Ill. App. 3d 516, 464 N.E.2d 659.) As the majority opinion aptly points out, in this case the evidence was used not for its legitimate purpose of showing investigative technique, but to infer guilt. We are of the opinion that this is the type of flagrant use of such evidence which this court warned could lead to reversal in People v. Hunter (1984), 124 Ill. App. 3d 516, 464 N.E.2d 659, and other cases. The war on drugs may not be successful by following the Marquis of Queensberry Rules. Yet individual cases may be reversed and remanded for the failure to follow well-established rules of evidence.