Court Opinion

ID: 9711845
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:40:25.730605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:07.896052
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE LEIGHTON, dissenting: My study of the record leads me to conclude that in this case the State has taken the accidental death of an unfortunate young woman and turned it into a prosecution for murder and involuntary manslaughter. In the trial court, it was the State’s theory that the defendant, Michael Parra, with his automobile, murdered Sharon Dobosz, his girlfriend, so he could collect the proceeds of insurance on her life. Twenty-one witnesses testified for the State in support of this theory. Much of their testimony was trivia concerning defendant’s personal life, but all aimed at suggesting to tire jury that he had a financial motive to commit the murder. The jury, however, did not accept the State’s murder theory; it reached what to my mind was a compromise and convicted defendant of reckless homicide. In this court, and for the first time in tire case, defendant is told that he did not kill Sharon Dobosz; he is told that in this court’s view he recklessly caused her body to be in the middle of a Chicago street where some other automobile was the intermediate cause of her death. I have carefully read tire majority opinion of Mr. Justice Hayes; and because I respect him, I cannot suppress a feeling of admiration for what he has written. I regret to say, however, that I find his construction of the simple facts of this case strained and hypertechnical. There is no evidence in this record which proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that defendant, in the operation of his automobile, recklessly caused Sharon Dobosz to be in the middle of the street where she was killed by someone else. It is well established that before a conviction for reckless homicide can be sustained, the proof must disclose beyond a reasonable doubt that in driving his automobile the defendant was guilty of wilful and wanton negligence. People v. Crego, 395 Ill. 451, 70 N.E.2d 578; People v. Johnson, 10 Ill.App.3d 778, 295 N.E.2d 291. The majority opinion, after some speculation as to what the jury could have done, concludes it could have found that defendant’s automobile did not kill Sharon Dobosz; but that he was, nonetheless, the cause of her death. To provide the legal basis for this conclusion, Justice Hayes’ opinion relies on a number of cases, all of them instances in which the accused inflicted an intentional injury that was found to be casually connected with a death that followed. But Justice Hayes says that no Illinois case can be found which had held as would the majority in this case. But a Georgia appellate decision, Wyrick v. State (1958), 96 Ga.App. 847, 102 S.E.2d 53, according to Justice Hayes, is persuasive. Wyrick, it turns out, is like the Illinois cases cited by Mr. Justice Hayes; it, too, was a case where an intentional injury was found to have indirectly produced the death for which the accused was held responsible. I do not believe it necessary to go to Georgia for authority to support the proposition that one who intentionally inflicts an injury is responsible for the natural and probable consequences of his act. There are many Illinois cases which explicitly or by implication support the doctrine applied in Wyrick. (See Belk v. People, 125 Ill. 584, 17 N.E. 744; People v. Smith, 56 Ill.2d 328, 307 N.E.2d 353; People v. Paulson, 80 Ill.App.2d 44, 225 N.E.2d 424.) The trouble I have with the case before us is not with the availability of authorities to support the law to be applied (see Perkins on Criminal Law 685-738 ( 2d ed. 1969)); my trouble is with the lack of evidence to prove that reckless homicide was committed by the defendant. Moreover, the majority opinion, after rejecting defendant’s contention concerning the evidence, reviews five issues he raises concerning procedural rulings which he contends were erroneous. Each issue involved a matter which, in my judgment, had the capacity to affect the result reached by the jury in this case. As to four of these issues, Justice Hayes agrees with defendant that error was committed by the trial court; but he concludes that all were harmless. I find it difficult to see how anyone can speculate about what the jury could have found from the evidence, guess at the State’s theory of prosecution, and then be able to conclude that four procedural errors were all harmless. In my view of this case, even if it could be said that individually the four errors were harmless, collectively they were prejudicial. This was a case in which the defendant testified, denied the charges against him, and produced a witness whose testimony placed the evidence in sharp conflict. In an instance like this, it is required that the record be free from prejudicial error to avoid reversal of the conviction. (People v. Jarvis, 306 Ill. 611, 138 N.E. 102; People v. Donaldson, 24 Ill.2d 315, 181 N.E.2d 131.) This record is not free of prejudicial error. For the reasons given, I would reverse defendant’s conviction without remand and terminate this prosecution. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.