Court Opinion

ID: 9745106
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:35:31.864686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:56.189822
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CLARK, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I concur in the majority’s decision to uphold the defendant’s convictions. However, I believe that the prosecutor’s injection of racial issues into the second stage of the sentencing hearing deprived the defendant of a fair sentencing hearing. The unfairness of the sentencing hearing was further exacerbated by the prosecutor’s improper references to the victim’s family, and by the prosecutor’s misstatements of law. I therefore would vacate the death sentence and remand to the trial court for a new sentencing hearing. The prosecutor told the jury during his opening argument at the second phase of the sentencing hearing: “And Detective Langston, one of the things that he will tell you, he questioned Walter Thomas as regarding the prior sexual offenses and he told Walter Thomas, one or both of these cases with young women, [sic] just like Nancy Tarnowski and both of those cases young white women [sic] and both of those cases involved knives.” The statement apparently refers to the defendant’s alleged attack on Nancy Tarnowski and the defendant’s convictions for rape and attempted rape, and suggests that the defendant had a history of attacking white women prior to the murder of the white woman in this case. The United States Supreme Court has recognized that “ ‘[i]t remains an unfortunate fact in our society that violent crimes perpetrated against members of other racial or ethnic groups often raise [a reasonable possibility that racial prejudice would influence the jury].’ ” (Turner v. Murray (1986), 476 U.S. 28, 35 n.7, 90 L. Ed. 2d 27, 36 n.7, 106 S. Ct. 1683, 1688 n.7, quoting Rosales-Lopez v. United States (1981), 451 U.S. 182, 192, 68 L. Ed. 2d 22, 31, 101 S. Ct. 1629, 1636.) The possibility that racial prejudice will infect jury deliberations is especially great in the context of capital sentencing proceedings because a jury at such proceedings must “make a ‘highly subjective, unique, individualized judgment regarding the punishment that a particular person deserves.’ ” (Turner, 476 U.S. at 34-35, 90 L. Ed. 2d at 35, 106 S. Ct. at 1687, quoting Caldwell v. Mississippi (1985), 472 U.S. 320, 340 n.7, 86 L. Ed. 2d 231, 246 n.7, 105 S. Ct. 2633, 2645 n.7.) In a case where racial issues may be involved, a juror possessing overt racist attitudes may place special emphasis on potential aggravating factors, or may give little credence to mitigating factors, due to his racist beliefs. (Turner, 476 U.S. at 35, 90 L. Ed. 2d at 35, 106 S. Ct. at 1687.) Even where jurors are not overtly racist, “[m]ore subtle, less consciously held racial attitudes could also influence a juror’s decision ***. Fear of blacks, which could easily be stirred up by [violent interracial crimes], might incline a juror to favor the death penalty.” (Turner, 476 U.S. at 35, 90 L. Ed. 2d at 35-36, 106 S. Ct. at 1688; see also McFarland v. Smith (1979), 611 F.2d 414, 417 (“To raise the issue of race is to draw the jury’s attention to a characteristic that the Constitution generally commands us to ignore. Even a reference that is not derogatory may carry impermissible connotations, or may trigger prejudiced responses in the listeners that the speaker might neither have predicted nor intended”).) The risk that sentencing may have been based upon racial considerations is “especially serious [in capital sentencing proceedings] in light of the complete finality of the death sentence.” Turner, 476 U.S. at 35, 90 L. Ed. 2d at 35, 106 S. Ct. at 1688. In recognition of the dangers that can arise when racism is injected into criminal trials, a number of courts have held that prosecutorial references to race during trial constitute reversible error. (See, e.g., McFarland, 611 F.2d at 419-20; Weddington v. State (Del. 1988), 545 A.2d 607, 614-15.) Courts have similarly held that where such racial references are made during a sentencing hearing, the sentence must be vacated. See, e.g., Dawson v. State (Nev. 1987), 734 P.2d 221, 223-24; Robinson v. State (Fla. 1988), 520 So. 2d 1, 8. The majority concedes that the prosecutor’s remark was “improper.” (137 Ill. 2d at 543.) However, the majority does not vacate defendant’s death sentence because the majority, with remarkable clairvoyance, finds “this remark to have had no effect on the jury’s determination.” (137 Ill. 2d at 543.) The majority gives three reasons for this finding: (1) the statement was “isolated”; (2) “the jury could plainly see that one of the victims that the prosecutor referred to is white because she testified”; and (3) “the jury was instructed to consider only the evidence, not the attorneys’ remarks. It was also instructed that it could not be influenced by race.” (137 Ill. 2d at 543.) I am not persuaded by the majority’s rationale. As the United States Supreme Court and other courts have recognized, the role played by racism in criminal trials is particularly pernicious because racism frequently operates in a subtle manner and on a subconscious level. (See Turner, 476 U.S. at 35, 90 L. Ed. 2d at 35-36, 106 S. Ct. at 1688; McFarland, 611 F.2d at 417.) Thus, once racial issues are raised, even in an isolated manner, it may be impossible for a juror to set aside his subconscious racial attitudes in making a determination, even if the juror is instructed that he must do so. Furthermore, it is irrelevant that “the jury could plainly see that one of the victims that the prosecutor referred to is white.” The jurors could not tell (and I note that nothing in the record on appeal indicates) whether the other two victims mentioned by the prosecutor were white, because they did not testify. Instead, the prosecutor used certified copies of defendant’s prior convictions to establish that the defendant had committed crimes against those victims. More important, however, is that even if those victims had testified (and it turned out that they were in fact white), the possibility that racism would have entered into the jury’s deliberations would have been greatly minimized had the prosecutor not explicitly informed the jury that the defendant had a history of attacking “young white women.” The majority also cites People v. Johnson (1986), 114 Ill. 2d 170, in support of its conclusion that the prosecutor’s reference to race did not prejudice the defendant. Johnson is distinguishable from the instant case in two respects. The first distinction is that, unlike this case, the defendant in Johnson did- “not contend that the remark was intended to incite racial prejudice among the all-white jury or that it had that effect.” (Johnson, 114 Ill. 2d at 199.) Because this issue was never raised, this court did not consider whether the defendant in Johnson was prejudiced by the prosecutor’s reference to race. (Johnson, 114 Ill. 2d at 199.) Thus, contrary to the majority’s assertion, this court did not find that the comment in Johnson “was not ‘intended to incite racial prejudice.’ ” 137 Ill. 2d at 543. The second distinction between this case and Johnson is that Johnson involved a racial comment which was made during the guilt phase of the trial, not during the sentencing hearing. (Johnson, 114 Ill. 2d at 198-99.) As such, the possibility that racism affected the jury’s verdict in Johnson was far less than the possibility that racism affected the jury’s decision to impose the death sentence in the instant case. See Turner, 476 U.S. at 38 n.12, 90 L. Ed. 2d at 37 n.12, 106 S. Ct. at 1689 n.12 (“the risk of racial bias at sentencing hearings is of an entirely different order [than at the guilt phase of the trial], because the decisions that sentencing jurors must make involve far more subjective judgments than when they are deciding guilt or innocence”); Dawson, 734 P.2d at 224 (“Because of the delicate task which the trier of fact has in weighing the mitigating circumstances against the aggravating circumstances, the kind and level of prejudice which might not require reversal of a conviction may be sufficient to require reversal of a death penalty”). I note that, although there was no record made in the trial court as to the races of the jurors, it appears that at least 8 of the 12 jurors were not black. Prior to trial, defense counsel had expressed fear that the fact that the defendant is black and the victim was white would influence the jury. Defense counsel was therefore allowed to question the venirepersons about their racial attitudes. Accordingly, defense counsel asked many of the venirepersons if they had ever had “any bad experiences with blacks in the past.” Of the 12 people selected for the jury, 8 were asked about their experiences with blacks, while 4 were not. It is logical to assume that the reason defense counsel did not question certain venirepersons about their experiences with blacks is that those venirepersons were black. Conversely, defense counsel probably only asked nonblacks about their experiences with blacks. Because the defendant’s life hinged upon the subjective judgments of these jurors, I would hold that the prosecutor’s explicit suggestion that the defendant had a history of attacking “young white women,” a history which culminated in the killing in this case, was error of such magnitude that the defendant was denied a fair sentencing hearing. Accordingly, I would hold that the prosecutor’s statement constituted plain error (see People v. Carlson (1980), 79 Ill. 2d 564, 576-77), and I would vacate the defendant’s death sentence. Even if the prosecutor’s injection of inflammatory racial issues into the sentencing hearing did not, in itself, constitute reversible error, I would still hold that the cumulative effect of that and other prosecutorial errors deprived the defendant of a fair sentencing hearing. As the majority readily concedes, the prosecutor twice misstated the law regarding the jury’s duty to weigh mitigating factors. (See 137 Ill. 2d at 544-45.) While I agree that, unlike the injection of irrelevant racial issues into the sentencing hearing, the misstatements of law did not in and of themselves constitute reversible error, I believe that they did contribute to depriving the defendant of a fair sentencing hearing. In addition to the misstatements of law, the defendant was also unfairly prejudiced by the prosecutor’s repeated references to the families of the victims of the crimes at issue during the sentencing hearing. It is well established that prosecutorial references to a victim’s family are improper during both the guilt stage of a trial and the sentencing hearing. (See People v. Hope (1986), 116 Ill. 2d 265, 275 (and cases cited therein).) The sole exception to this rule is that such references are admissible if relevant to the circumstances of the crime. See People v. Simms (1988), 121 Ill. 2d 259, 268. The prosecutor in this case repeatedly violated this rule in his closing and rebuttal arguments at the second stage of the sentencing hearing. During his closing argument, the prosecutor explained that the murder occurred on the night before Thanksgiving and that the victim was planning on going “home to spend the holidays with her loved ones.” In response to the mitigating evidence introduced by the defendant through testimony from his family members, the prosecutor argued that “Darlene Dudek, ladies and gentlemen, had a family too.” The prosecutor also stated that the only time the defendant cried in this case was when he “found out that he wouldn’t be home for Christmas, and that’s it. *** Well, Darlene Dudek will never be home for Christmas again, and a lot of people’s Christmases have been ruined because of this guy.” Finally, the prosecutor, referring to the decedent in this case and the victims of the other crimes which were introduced as aggravating factors during the second phase of the sentencing hearing, stated: “The victims in this case are real people. All six of them. They are real people with feelings, with lives, with families, with people who care about them.” The majority does not conclude (and the State does not argue) that the prosecutor’s comments were relevant to the circumstances of the crime, or were not improper. Instead, the majority concludes that, unlike cases in which references to victims’ families were held to constitute reversible error, the comments here “were isolated and inconspicuous.” (137 Ill. 2d at 546.) While I agree that the repeated references to victims’ families in this case were not as extensive or prejudicial as the references in cases such as People v. Harris (1989), 132 Ill. 2d 366, 395-98, and People v. Simms (1988), 121 Ill. 2d 259, 271, and do not rise to the level of reversible error, I do not agree that the references were “isolated and inconspicuous.” This court has frequently reversed convictions and sentences where there were numerous errors which cumulatively, but not individually, served to deprive the defendant of due process. (See, e.g., People v. Walker (1982), 91 Ill. 2d 502, 516-17; People v. Whitlow (1982), 89 Ill. 2d 322, 341-42; People v. Romero (1967), 36 Ill. 2d 315, 319-20; People v. Tilley (1950), 406 Ill. 398, 414.) In some of those cases, many of the errors complained of were not objected to at trial. (See Whitlow, 89 Ill. 2d at 341-42; Romero, 36 Ill. 2d at 320.) Consideration of the cumulative effect of repeated prosecutorial error is particularly appropriate in reviewing capital sentencing proceedings because the determinations made in such proceedings are based to such a large extent upon subjective considerations. Because I believe that the defendant was deprived of a fair sentencing hearing, I would vacate defendant’s death sentence and remand to the trial court for re-sentencing.