Court Opinion

ID: 9520156
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:32:17.580143+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:45:37.508736
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE CLARK, dissenting: As I see it, the central issue in this case is whether the circuit court may dismiss an indictment obtained through the suppression of substantial evidence tending to negate the existence of an essential element of the offense charged. The majority’s answer apparently is that the circuit court may not dismiss such an indictment, because prohibition of such prosecutorial tactics would unduly burden the administration of justice. I disagree. If the grand jury is to have any hope of fulfilling its “historic function” of protecting “citizens against unfounded criminal prosecutions” (United States v. Calandra (1974), 414 U.S. 338, 343, 38 L. Ed. 2d 561, 568, 94 S. Ct. 613, 617) courts ought not permit prosecutors to manipulate grand jurors through suppression of substantial exculpatory evidence. The key to understanding the significance of the evidence suppressed in this case is that the indictment at issue here charged the defendant with the offense of attempted murder (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 38, pars. 8 — 4 (attempt), 9 — 1(a) (murder)), of which the intent to kill is an essential element. (See People v. Harris (1978), 72 Ill. 2d 16, 27.) The evidence suppressed might well have led the grand jurors to conclude, as had Judge Pompey, that there was not probable cause to believe that the defendant had intended to kill his wife. It was not necessary to tell the grand jury that Judge Pompey had decided that there was not probable cause to believe that defendant had intended to kill his wife. Indeed, telling the grand jury what a judge thought about the evidence presented to them would have been improper and prejudicial, because it would have intruded upon the right of the grand jury independently to evaluate that evidence. However, the prosecutor’s suppression of that part of the evidence which had led Judge Pompey to conclude that the intent to kill was lacking even more seriously intruded upon the independence of the grand jury. Suppression of that evidence was the functional equivalent of telling the grand jury that such evidence did not exist and that even though they were getting their facts “secondhand,” they were getting all of the material facts then available. Less than the whole truth, however, is not the truth and no amount of philosophizing about the need for efficiency and speed in the administration of criminal justice can change an indictment based on half the truth into one based upon the whole truth. Acquittal is poor compensation for months of anxious uncertainty, for massive, and perhaps crushing legal expenses, for the loss of one’s good name, and for the public humiliation of one’s family. (See People v. Sears (1971), 49 Ill. 2d 14, 36.) The power to indict therefore is tantamount to the power to destroy, if its exercise is not tempered by a basic sense of justice and fair play. This court has not, before now, given the prosecutor carte blanche with the grand jury. As recently as last year, in Hughes v. Kiley (1977), 67 Ill. 2d 261, 267, this court implicitly reaffirmed its commitment to providing a “pretrial examination of potential prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury.” The court indicated by way of dicta (which at least the author intended be followed) that where a defendant clearly alleges a legal and factual basis for dismissal of an indictment so obtained, “[t] he court hearing the motion, having found such clear allegations to be present, may examine the record to determine whether the indictment should be dismissed.” (67 Ill. 2d 261, 267.) The above-quoted statement was not a hypothetical application of some obscure new theory, but rather, was based upon substantial authority from this and other courts’ decisions. (See People v. Sears (1971), 49 Ill. 2d 14, 34-36.) Both courts and the profession have recognized the wrongfulness of the prosecutorial conduct at issue here: “The prosecutor should disclose to the grand jury any evidence which he knows will tend to negate guilt.” (ABA Standards, The Prosecution Function sec. 3.6(b) (1971).) In United States v. Estepa (2d Cir. 1972), 471 F.2d 1132, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit-recognized this problem in a similar context. See also United States v. Marchand (2d Cir. 1977), 564 F.2d 983, 1001 n.29, cert denied (1978), 434 U.S. 1015, 54 L. Ed. 2d 760, 98 S. Ct. 732. It is easy to reverse the dismissal of an indictment of a man accused of attempting to beat and stab his wife to death. (See, for example, the court’s discussion of the “viciousness of the attack” as it bears upon the absence of prejudice in this case (72 Ill. 2d at 527).) But the relaxed attitude which the court displays toward prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury may eventually permit the practices at issue here to permeate the administration of justice, further eroding an important protection against those few prosecutors who, from time to time, lose sight of the higher ideals they have sworn to uphold. I therefore respectfully dissent.