Court Opinion

ID: 9860658
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:28:45.635485+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:18.193221
License: Public Domain

CHIEF JUSTICE HARRISON, dissenting: Six mental health professionals testified at Haynes’ fitness hearing. Psychiatrists Drs. Rafael Carreira and Usha Kartan both diagnosed Haynes with a delusional disorder. Dr. Satinder Brar, a clinical psychologist and coordinator of the residential treatment unit of Cook County jail likewise testified that Haynes suffered from a delusional disorder. Although Dr. Kartan felt unqualified to offer an opinion as to Haynes’ ability to cooperate with defense counsel, Dr. Brar testified that Haynes’ condition prevented him from cooperating in his defense. Dr. Paul Fauteck, a forensic psychologist at the Psychiatric Institute, examined Haynes four times during a six-month period. He opined that Haynes was schizophrenic, paranoid type. Dr. Fauteck agreed that Haynes’ mental illness rendered him incapable of assisting in his defense and stated that Haynes was not fit to stand trial. Dr. Michael Rabin, another forensic psychologist at the Psychiatric Institute, shared Dr. Fauteck’s assessment. He stated that Haynes was paranoid schizophrenic, that he was unable to cooperate with counsel due to his delusional beliefs and that he was unfit for trial. People v. Haynes, 174 Ill. 2d 204, 228-31 (1996). Of all the mental health professionals who testified at trial, the only one to take a contrary view was the State’s expert, Dr. Markos. Dr. Markos dismissed Haynes’ ideas about “fake Aryan beauty” as being nothing more than “a highly personalized idiosyncratic belief.” In Markos’ view, Haynes was not schizophrenic and did not suffer from a true psychiatric delusion. The basis for Markos’ conclusion was that Haynes’ beliefs did not change even after he had been given various antipsychotic drugs. According to Markos, “these medications did little at all to change any of his beliefs and that was significant to me because had it been a true delusional process, had it been a true schizophrenic process, then from the clinical standpoint I would have expected *** or seen some remissions with respect to the intensity of his belief or his belief would have disappeared because a true delusion would be amenable to treatment ***.” In declaring Haynes to be fit to stand trial, the circuit court accepted Markos’ assessment and rejected that of all of the other experts whose testimony it considered. We deferred to the circuit court’s judgment when the matter was presented to us on direct review. What we did not know then, what the trial court did not know when it accepted Markos’ opinion, and what Markos himself did not realize when he testified at the fitness hearing is that the basis for his opinion was incorrect. Haynes’ condition was, in fact, highly amenable to treatment through medication. The problem was simply that the jailhouse doctors had not given him the proper medication in the proper dosage. After Haynes was sentenced to death and remanded to the custody of the Department of Corrections, a staff doctor there altered his medication with dramatic results. The doctor changed Haynes’ medication on September 24, 1994, and by November 19, 1994, Haynes’ was observed to be “free of delusional behavior.” The notions of Aryan supremacy that had led him to kill and then to forgo legal representation at trial had vanished. Had Markos realized that Haynes would respond so remarkably to a change in medication, his assessment of Haynes condition would unquestionably have been different. Faced with the results obtained by the Department of Corrections medical staff, Markos could not have denied what was so obvious to everyone else. Haynes was not just “idiosyncratic.” He was mentally ill. No claim can be made that Haynes’ schizophrenia was somehow fabricated for purposes of his criminal defense. Documentary evidence submitted in support of Haynes’ pleadings in this case show that his family has a history of mental illness spanning generations. His great-great grandmother was involuntarily committed in 1894 suffering from “confused” and “irrational” ideas and “delusions of persecution.” His great aunt was diagnosed with “dementia praecox, paranoid” in 1939 after she murdered her two young daughters. In 1991, his first cousin, Stacia Bulgar, was diagnosed as “probably paranoid schizophrenic.” Haynes, himself, exhibited pronounced aberrant behavior long before he started killing people in his bizarre effort to eradicate the nation’s supposed non-Aryan ugliness. That behavior was noted by family members, associates, employers and even his one-time landlord, who was a psychiatrist associated with the military. Unknown to Dr. Markos at the time of trial, Haynes was actually diagnosed as schizophrenic for the first time in the early 1980s after engaging in aberrant behavior that led to his arrest by authorities in California. Mental health professionals who have had the benefit of reviewing Haynes’ complete history, including his early medical records and his treatment following his conviction, have confirmed what the doctors knew in 1980: Haynes is a paranoid schizophrenic. Moreover, according to George Woods, M.D., a board-certified psychiatrist whose affidavit was submitted in support of Haynes’ petition in the circuit court, Haynes’ “severe psychotic disorder rendered him paranoid, cognitively unable to prioritize, sequence appropriately, and rationally assist his attorneys in the preparation of his own defense, thereby making him, in my opinion, unfit to stand trial.” Although Haynes’ amenability to treatment and the corresponding confirmation of his true condition were not discovered until after trial, those matters bore directly on his status at the time he was tried, convicted and sentenced. They showed that the circuit court’s fitness determination was based on a medical error. As noted earlier, there is no question that this error, if discovered earlier, would have altered the outcome of the fitness hearing. Had Markos known of Haynes’ complete history and seen the effects that proper medication could have when properly administered, the basis for the doctor’s opinion would have been eliminated. He would have had no possible grounds for contradicting all of the other expert testimony and medical evidence, and the circuit court would have had no basis for declaring Haynes fit. The purpose of a petition under section 2 — 1401 is to bring before the court matters of fact which were unknown at the time the judgment was entered, and if known, would have affected or altered the judgment that was entered. See In re Marriage of Hoppe, 220 Ill. App. 3d 271, 282 (1991). In my view, this case presents precisely the sort of situation section 2 — 1401 was intended to address. Haynes’ petition has provided the court with an opportunity to correct an obvious and fundamental error. We should welcome that opportunity. At a time when the fairness and reliability of our death penalty law has come under intense scrutiny, this court should redouble its efforts to ensure that capital proceedings Eire as error free as possible. Regardless-of whether one shares my view that the present death penalty law is unconstitutional in all its applications (People v. Bull, 185 Ill. 2d 179, 225 (1998) (Harrison, J., concurring in pEirt and dissenting in part)), allowing a death sentence to stand based on a mistake of the magnitude present in this case is intolerable. If my colleagues are serious about rehabilitating the system, this is where they should begin. Now is not the time for a limited construction of the law. Technical objections have no place. A section 2 — 1401 petition invokes the equitable powers of the court as justice and fairness require and should be considered in light of equitable principles. Whether a section 2 — 1401 petition should be granted depends upon the facts and equities presented. Relief is granted under this statute in order to achieve justice, and a liberal construction is used to achieve that end. See In re Marriage of Hoppe, 220 Ill. App. 3d at 282-83. In considering a section 2 — 1401 petition, the court accepts as true all uncontradicted facts in the petition and supporting affidavits. See O’Malley v. Powell, 202 Ill. App. 3d 529, 533 (1990). Where the facts are challenged by the opposing party, a full and fair evidentiary hearing must be held. See In re Marriage of Breyley, 247 Ill. App. 3d 486, 492 (1993). Under these standards, the circuit court should not have dismissed Haynes’ section 2 — 1401 petition on the pleadings. The circuit court’s judgment should therefore be reversed, and the cause should be remanded for further proceedings.