Court Opinion

ID: 9736907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:09:33.687839+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:55.266210
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE WELCH, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. Although I agree with the majority’s conclusion in footnote 1 that the defendant’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim fails, I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that the admission of other-crimes evidence in this case requires us to grant the defendant a new trial. Assuming, arguendo, that the admission of the other-crimes evidence was error, I do not believe that any prejudice that might have resulted to the defendant is sufficient to warrant a reversal and a new trial. Even when one casts aside the purportedly tainted evidence, there is still overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s guilt on the charges of burglary and theft. As the majority itself points out, there was ample evidence properly before the jury that pertained to the burglary and theft for which the defendant stood trial. Don Fairfield, the owner of the pawnshop to which the defendant sold the tools he had stolen from Harry Foss, testified that the defendant drove up to the pawnshop with a pickup load of tools on November 16, 1999, that Fairfield inspected the load and purchased a jigsaw, another drill, and a host of other hand tools, and that a bill of sale for the tools was executed. Fairfield identified the November 16, 1999, document and testified that he had witnessed the defendant sign the document on that date. The bill of sale was introduced into evidence. Harry Foss testified that he lives in rural Metropolis and that on November 17, 1999, he reported to the Massac County sheriff that several drills, tools, and wrenches were missing from his barn. Foss also testified that he found one of the stolen items at Fairfield’s pawnshop. Foss identified as his a Craftsman drill that Fairfield identified as one of the tools he had purchased from the defendant. The evidence adduced from the testimony of Fairfield and Foss and directly related to the crimes with which the defendant was charged was without a doubt properly before the jury. Johnson County deputy sheriff Jeff Jordan testified that the defendant, who knew that he was returning to Illinois to face burglary and theft charges, speculated out loud that the charges “must be about the barn that [he] went into.” Although it is not clear from the remark itself which barn it was to which the defendant was referring, it could well have been Harry Foss’s barn, and thus Jordan’s testimony was properly before the jury as well. Accordingly, the jury had before it evidence that the jury could have found directly linked the defendant to the scene of the crime, as well as evidence directly impheating him in the sale of the goods stolen from that scene. In the past, we have held error to be harmless where the evidence supporting a defendant’s conviction is so overwhelming that the defendant would have been convicted even if the error was eliminated. See People v. Tucker, 317 Ill. App. 3d 233, 243 (2000). The majority claims the error in this case is not harmless because the majority believes the allegedly improper evidence led the jury to convict the defendant on the basis of the defendant’s “propensity for burglary and theft” rather than, presumably, the one burglary and theft the State easily would have proven even had the other-crimes evidence been excluded. I find this reasoning highly speculative and simply do not believe the outcome of this case would have been any different had the other-crimes evidence been excluded. Because I believe the evidence properly before the jury in this case is overwhelming, I would hold any error in the admission of other-crimes evidence harmless and would affirm the defendant’s conviction and sentence.