Court Opinion

ID: 9713235
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:11:31.676387+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:16.187778
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE STEIGMANN, specially concurring: While I fully agree with the disposition of this case, I write separately to state my views that the standard of review utilized by the court is antiquated, inconsistent with the current thinking of our supreme court, and should be abandoned. A. REQUIREMENT THAT TESTIMONY OF VICTIM OF SEX OFFENSE BE EITHER SUBSTANTIALLY CORROBORATED OR CLEAR AND CONVINCING SHOULD BE REPUDIATED In arguing that the evidence was not sufficient to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, defendant argues that the the complaining witness’ testimony in a sex offense case must be either substantially corroborated or clear and convincing and that S.L.M.’s testimony was neither. In support of this argument, defendant cites numerous cases, the primary ones being People v. Secret (1978), 72 Ill. 2d 371, 381 N.E.2d 285, and People v. Server (1986), 148 Ill. App. 3d 888, 499 N.E.2d 1019, cert. denied (1987), 484 U.S. 842, 98 L. Ed. 2d 88, 108 S. Ct. 131. The authority defendant cites is accurate, but I believe it to be no longer valid. In People v. Bryant (1986), 113 Ill. 2d 497, 512, 499 N.E.2d 413, 419, and more recently in People v. Eyler (1989), 133 Ill. 2d 173, the Illinois Supreme Court had occasion to consider arguments that “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” was not sufficiently descriptive of the State’s burden of proof. In Bryant, the supreme court held that the second paragraph of Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Criminal, No. 3.02 (2d ed. 1981) should no longer be used. That paragraph-stating that the evidence in an entirely circumstantial evidence case must be sufficient to “exclude every reasonable theory of innocence” — was deemed by the court to be both “obscure and misleading.” Bryant, 113 Ill. 2d at 512, 499 N.E.2d at 420. In Eyler, defendant contended that the State’s evidence, being entirely circumstantial, was insufficient on appeal to sustain his convictions because it did not exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. The supreme court rejected this argument and held implicitly that henceforth there is to be but one standard of review regarding the sufficiency of the State’s evidence: “The principles governing our review of defendant’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence are well established and were recently set forth in People v. Phillips (1989), 127 Ill. 2d 499, 509-10. It is, of course, the jury’s function to determine the accused’s guilt or innocence and this court will not reverse a conviction unless the evidence is so improbable as to justify a reasonable doubt of defendant’s guilt. It is not this court’s function to retry the defendant. The United States Supreme Court has stated that ‘the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’ (Emphasis in original.) (Jackson v. Virginia (1979), 443 U.S. 307, 319, 61 L. Ed. 2d 560, 573, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 2789; see also People v. Collins (1985), 106 Ill. 2d 237, 261.) Moreover, it is for the jury to weigh the credibility of witnesses and to resolve conflicts or inconsistencies in their testimony. (Phillips, 127 Ill. 2d at 514.) Applying these principles to the case at bar, we readily conclude that defendant’s convictions are not subject to reversal.” Eyler, 133 Ill. 2d at 191-92. These decisions are fully applicable to the issue before this court, which may be summarized as follows: in a case in which a sex offense is charged, is there some requirement imposed upon the State, in addition to proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, to demonstrate either that the evidence is substantially corroborated or that the victim’s testimony is clear and convincing? Based upon Bryant and Eyler, I believe there is not. Before concluding that the above standards are no longer valid, I carefully considered their origins. I found that exercise to be somewhat akin to turning over a rock and looking underneath. Lord Hale is apparently the earliest source of the aphorism that rape “is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, tho ever so innocent.” (I M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown 635 (1778).) This eighteenth-century insight was adopted by an early treatise on evidence (3 S. Greenleaf, Evidence §212 (4th ed. 1857)) and by two decisions of the Illinois Supreme Court, Shirwin v. People (1873), 69 Ill. 55, 58-59, and People v. Freeman (1910), 244 Ill. 590, 594, 91 N.E. 708, 709. The rule that ultimately evolved from these decisions — that the evidence in a sex offense case must be substantially corroborated or the testimony of the victim must be clear and convincing — is entirely arbitrary and a reflection of the archaic and sexist views held by nineteenth-century legal practitioners. The attitudes of two State supreme courts in the mid- to late-1800's toward women (who, especially in those times, were almost exclusively the victims of sex offenses) are illustrated by the following decisions. In 1862, the Supreme Court of North Carolina heard an appeal from a complaint for a divorce brought by a woman who claimed her husband had horse-whipped her. (Joyner v. Joyner (1862), 59 N.C. 322.) In reversing the trial court’s granting of her request for a divorce, the supreme court stated the following: “The wife must be subject to the husband. Every man must govern his household, and if by reason of an unruly temper, or an unbridled tongue, the wife persistently treats her husband with disrespect, and he submits to it, he not only loses all sense of self-respect, but loses the respect of the other members of his family ***. Such have been the incidents of the marriage relation from the beginning of the human race. Unto the woman it is said, ‘Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee,’ Genesis, chap. 3, v. 16. It follows that the law gives the husband power to use such a degree of force as is necessary to make the wife behave herself and know her place.” Joyner, 59 N.C. at 325. In 1875, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied the petition of the first woman who sought to be admitted to the bar of that court. (In re Motion of Goodell (1875), 39 Wisc. 232.) In its ruling, the court offered the following nineteenth-century insights: “This is the first application for admission of a female to the bar of this court. And it is just matter for congratulation that it is made in favor of a lady whose character raises no personal objection: something perhaps not always to be looked for in women who forsake the ways of their sex for the ways of ours. * * * *** The law of nature destines and qualifies the female sex for the bearing and nurture of the children of our race and for the custody of the homes of the world and their maintenance in love and honor. And all life-long callings of women, inconsistent with these radical and sacred duties of their sex, as is the profession of the law, are departures from the order of nature; and when voluntary, treason against it. *** There are many employments in life not unfit for female character. The profession of the law is surely not one of these. The peculiar qualities of womanhood, its gentle graces, its quick sensibility, its tender susceptibility, its purity, its delicacy, its emotional impulses, its subordination of hard reason to sympathetic feeling, are surely not qualifications for forensic strife.” Goodell, 39 Wisc, at 240-45. The rule that I would have this court reject is, in its own way, as insulting to women as are the above quotations. Women still constitute the overwhelming majority of victims of sex offenses, and the testimony of no other category of crime victim is held automatically suspect, requiring “substantial corroboration” or that it be “clear and convincing” in order to sustain a conviction. The time has come to rid the law of this anachronism. Not even the testimony of accomplices has been scrutinized in this fashion. In People v. Pace (1987), 163 Ill. App. 3d 1012, 1014-15, 517 N.E.2d 299, 301-02, this court stated the following: “The testimony of an accomplice, either corroborated or uncorroborated, can be sufficient to sustain a conviction if the jury is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. [Citations.] Whether such testimony forms a sufficient basis for conviction goes to the weight of the evidence. As such, it is properly a function within the province of the jury. [Citations.] Although accomplice testimony is competent, it is often fraught with serious problems. The accomplice may have been promised leniency or harbor ill will towards the accused. Consequently, it only should be accepted with the utmost caution and subjected to the highest scrutiny. [Citations.] Defendants insist that where an accomplice’s testimony is uncorroborated, it must carry an ‘absolute conviction of truth.’ [Citation.] Although the ‘absolute conviction of truth’ language has been used in assessing accomplice testimony, the prevailing test is whether the uncorroborated accomplice testimony establishes the guilt of defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. [Citation.] The credibility and weight afforded such testimony is an issue for the jury.” I am are aware that juries receive a special instruction regarding accomplice testimony. (See Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Criminal, No. 3.17 (2d ed. 1981).) My point is that once a jury has chosen (as it may) to return a guilty verdict based upon the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice, this court is under no special obligation to determine whether the State’s evidence was “substantially corroborated” or whether the accomplice’s testimony was “clear and convincing.” Those standards of review are applicable only with regard to any woman who happens to be a rape victim, not to some dope dealer who “flips” to turn State’s evidence against his fellow dope dealer. I note parenthetically that an additional problem with the requirement that the testimony of the victim of a sex offense be “clear and convincing” is that the phrase “clear and convincing” is itself a statement of the burden of proof the State must meet in order to prevail in certain types of cases, such as the termination of parental rights in cases involving child abuse or neglect. (See Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 37, par. 802 — 29.) Consideration by a court of review of whether the victim’s testimony is “clear and convincing” when the State already has the burden of proving the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is likely to add only confusion to the appellate process.