Court Opinion

ID: 9739402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:14:25.893408+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:56.764484
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE STEIGMANN, specially concurring: Although I agree with the result reached by the majority opinion, I write separately (1) to point out my disagreement with the majority opinion’s discussion of Bruton, and (2) to comment on the trial court’s selection of instructions and verdict forms. I On appeal, defendant argues that admitting into evidence certain hearsay statements made by the nontestifying codefendant, William Friday, violated his constitutional right to cross-examine witnesses, as guaranteed by the sixth and fourteenth amendments. He cites Bruton in support of this argument, and this court addresses defendant’s Bruton argument on the merits before rejecting it. In my judgment, this court should not do so. In their treatise on criminal procedure, Professors Wayne R. La-Fave and Jerold H. Israel wrote the following: “In Bruton, the Court emphasized that it was dealing with a case in which ‘the hearsay statement inculpating petitioner was clearly inadmissible against him under traditional rules of evidence.’ Lower courts have thus concluded that Bruton has no application when a statement by defendant’s partner in crime is received under some exception to the hearsay rule. Illustrative are cases where the evidence was admissible because the statement was made by a co-conspirator during the course of and in furtherance of the conspiracy ***. These decisions seem correct in light of Dutton v. Evans [(1970), 400 U.S. 74, 27 L. Ed. 2d 213, 91 S. Ct. 210], where the Supreme Court upheld the use of hearsay evidence in the form of a statement by a co-conspirator not on trial made during the concealment phase of the conspiracy. Distinguishing Bruton because the instant case did not involve evidence which was ‘devastating’ or ‘a confession made in the coercive atmosphere of official interrogation,’ the Court in Dutton held the admitted statement was ‘sufficiently clothed with “indicia” of reliability’ that it was properly ‘placed before the jury though there is no confrontation with the declarant.’ In short, the ‘right of confrontation *** is not absolute.’ ” (Emphasis added.) 2 W. LaFave & J. Israel, Criminal Procedure §17.2, at 364 (1984). For the reasons stated above, Bruton does not apply to the present case because codefendant Friday’s statements were fully admissible under the coconspirator exception to the hearsay rule. (See People v. Sanchez (1989), 189 Ill. App. 3d 1011, 1017, 546 N.E.2d 268, 272.) Accordingly, this court should decline to discuss Bruton at all. I fear that the majority opinion’s discussion of Bruton in a context in which that case does not apply might cause confusion among the bench and bar. II The record shows that the trial court instructed the jury on first degree murder by giving the jury four separate sets of definitional and issues instructions, tracking thereby the four counts charging the defendant with first degree murder under sections 9 — l(aXl), (a)(2), and (aX3), respectively, of the Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1989, ch. 38, pars. 9 — l(aXl), (aX2), (aX3)). Count I charged first degree murder based on “intent to kill” (section 9 — l(aXl) of the Code); count II charged first degree murder based on “intent to do great bodily harm” (section 9— l(aXl) of the Code); count III charged first degree murder based on knowledge “such acts create[d] a strong probability of death or great bodily harm” (section 9 — l(aX2) of the Code); and count IV charged first degree murder based on “felony murder” (section 9 — l(aX3) of the Code). The jury returned guilty verdicts of first degree murder as charged in counts I, II, and III. The trial court vacated convictions on the verdicts based upon counts II and III and ordered these vacated convictions held “in abeyance” pending appeal. The procedure employed by the trial court to instruct the jury was error. Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Criminal, Nos. 7.01A and 7.02A (2d ed. Supp. 1989) (hereinafter IPI Criminal 2d) make clear that the jury should be instructed with only one definitional instruction and one issues instruction regarding that offense no matter how many counts of murder may be charged against a defendant. Two recent decisions of the Illinois Supreme Court support the instructional scheme presently used in the IPI Criminal instructions regarding first degree murder. Those cases, People v. Johnson (1992), 149 Ill. 2d 118, 156-57, People v. Scott (1992), 148 Ill. 2d 479, 554-55, reemphasize that under Illinois law, there is only one offense of first degree murder, no matter how many different ways the State may choose to charge a defendant with that offense under section 9 — 1(a) of the Code. IPI Criminal 2d Nos. 7.01A and 7.02A (Supp. 1989) provide for different language by which first degree murder may be charged, so there is no need for a trial court to provide separate definitional and issues instructions, as the court did in the present case. By doing so, the trial court unnecessarily risked confusing the jury and violated the mandate of Supreme Court Rule 451(a) (134 Ill. 2d R. 451(a)) that “the IPI Criminal instruction shall be used” unless the court determines that it does not accurately state the law. (Emphasis added.) No such determination of inaccuracy was made by the trial court in the present case, nor could such a determination be made; clearly IPI Criminal 2d Nos. 7.01A and 7.02A (Supp. 1989) accurately state the law. In the present case, the trial court deviated from the language of the IPI Criminal instructions apparently as a mere matter of preference. Doing so violates the mandate of Rule 451(a), and trial courts should refrain from such deviations in the future.