Court Opinion

ID: 9526632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:21:28.435433+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:53.118154
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE UNDERWOOD, dissenting: I cannot agree with the majority for several reasons. First, its opinion is predicated upon the assumption that defendant was not aware that Holt was the informer. To me, the clear import of the record before us is to the contrary and that the defendant knew before trial that Charles Holt had been cooperating with the police and was the informant. That conclusion seems to me inescapable from the opening statement of defense counsel, which is in part: “We expect the evidence to show that the police believe that Enich Chaney committed that crime, that he was the trigger man in a murder case. We expect the evidence to show further that the police officers, having no evidence with respect to this murder case, elected thereafter to frame Mr. Chaney, to ‘set him up.’ We expect the evidence to show that on the date of this alleged offense, January 4, 1971, that Enich Chaney was lured to a building in the City of Chicago located at 1300 North Lake Shore Drive by a person he knows by the name of Charles Holt. We expect the evidence to show that Charles Holt and Enich Chaney, together with one Frank Trabeau, went to this building at 1300 North Lake Shore Drive, where Charles Holt worked as a car-hop picking up cars and bringing them back to the tenants. We expect the evidence to show that Charles Holt told Enich Chaney, T know some nice girls up on 34, and I will take you up there. They want a party.’ I expect the evidence to show that Enich Chaney did indeed fall for the lure, did indeed go to 1300 North Lake Shore Drive, and that when the elevator stopped at 28, not at 34, as he had been led to believe, the doors opened and Chaney was greeted at that point by the police; that the police officers had indeed staked out the 28th floor of 1300 North Lake Shore Drive, but that the police officers had told Charles Holt to bring Enich Chaney to these premises ***.” If, as I believe, the defense was aware before trial of Holt’s status, it is scarcely realistic to believe that any real prejudice to defendant resulted from the State’s refusal to verify that fact. Secondly, the value of informants to law enforcement officers and the importance of not revealing their identity except under compelling circumstances has been repeatedly emphasized by this court. (See 58 Ill.2d R. 412(j)(ii), Committee Comments; People v. McCray (1965), 33 Ill.2d 66, aff’d, McCray v. Illinois (1967), 386 U.S. 300, 18 L. Ed. 2d 62, 87 S. Ct. 1056; People v. Durr (1963), 28 Ill.2d 308.) In the circumstances here, where the strong probability, if not virtual certainty, is that defendant already knew the informant’s identity, and where it is not entirely clear that the informer was even at the scene of the crime, the argument for disclosure of his identity in my opinion is not at all persuasive. Thirdly, the majority conclusion that not only is disclosure of identity required but that the informer’s statement to the police should also have been furnished defendant is, as I view it, simply not supportable. That statement was decidedly unfavorable to defendant, and nothing in Brady v. Maryland (1963), 373 U.S. 83, 10 L. Ed. 2d 215, 83 S. Ct. 1194, requires that it be given defendant. Our criminal discovery rules require only that the State deliver requested statements of witnesses whom it intends to call (58 Ill.2d R. 412(a)(1)), and the State had no intention of calling Holt as its witness. Thus, in my judgment, even were disclosure of Holt’s identity to be required, disclosure of his statement was not. I would reverse the appellate court and affirm the conviction. WARD, C.J., and RYAN, J., join in this dissent.