Court Opinion

ID: 9712935
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:03:26.080832+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:15.314897
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE GREEN, specially concurring: I concur in the decision to affirm and agree the circuit court ruled properly in admitting the hearsay statements pursuant to section 115 — 10 of the Code. I disagree with the decision of the majority to pass upon the propriety of the appellate decision in Zwart because that case is now before the Illinois Supreme Court. The decision of the latter court will be definitive. However, an affirmance in Zwart would not necessarily require reversal here. As the majority has concisely shown, evidence was introduced there that (1) one of the children denied to a therapist that she had been molested and failed to mention the molestation to a treating physician, and (2) the allegations were made after a quarrel between the children’s mother and her lover, the defendant. The evidence of reliability here is substantially stronger. We need not pass upon the propriety of Zwart to affirm. I agree with the majority in regard to the standard of review of factual determinations by the trial court in rulings upon section 115—10 hearings to determine admissibility. We must also remember that questions of law are also involved in that decision. Here, as would usually be the case at a section 115—10 hearing, the court did not hear the declarant children. Only in determining the existence of the underlying circumstances is the court making a purely factual determination. After viewing underlying facts most favorably to the circuit court’s determination, a reviewing court should give somewhat less deference to the decision as to whether those circumstances “provide sufficient safeguards of reliability.” Here, the circuit court made a clear explanation of its decision which was fully supported by the evidence and the law. I agree that the evidence of defendant becoming sexually aroused when viewing the victim naked was admissible to show intent or motive. The evidence is analogous to evidence of prior acts of sexual assault or abuse by the accused against the same victim. (People v. Whitham (1950), 406 Ill. 593, 94 N.E.2d 506.) To the extent the majority opinion implies that evidence would be admissible if it shows arousal of a man accused of a similar offense while viewing naked young girls other than the victim, I do not join in the opinion. Many problems are invoked with such a rule. The issue has not been briefed and we should not create dictum in regard to it.