Court Opinion

ID: 9744097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:53:23.753849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:46.713825
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I would affirm the defendant’s conviction. So far as the death sentence is concerned, it is quite clear that the trial judge believed that he was precluded from considering mercy in determining whether to impose the death penalty. Equally clear is that his decision would have been different had he considered mercy. He said: “If the choice were mine to make individually I would make a choice on the side of being merciful in sentencing this defendant to a term of life imprisonment.” The judge apparently regarded this choice as foreclosed, however, by his oath to administer the laws of the State. Under this view of the law, he found that “there has been a complete absence of mitigating factors” and so imposed the sentence of death. As the majority acknowledges, mercy is a relevant factor in mitigation at the death penalty hearing. (114 Ill. 2d at 416; People v. Holman (1984), 103 Ill. 2d 133, 170.) Had a jury deliberated on the sentence, the death penalty could not have been imposed if a single juror believed that mercy was appropriate in the circumstances. The circuit judge was therefore mistaken in thinking that mercy could not enter into his determination. The majority’s conclusion that the judge “properly considered all factors in mitigation and aggravation” (114 Ill. 2d at 416) cannot be squared with the judge’s own explanation of his decision. Since his finding that there were no factors whatever in mitigation was clearly founded upon an incorrect understanding of the law, the sentence should be vacated. An independent reason why this death sentence cannot stand is that the defendant was never admonished prior to waiving a jury for sentencing that such a jury would have to be unanimous in order to impose the death penalty. As I have stated before (People v. Buggs (1986), 112 Ill. 2d 284, 296 (Simon, J., specially concurring); see also People v. Morgan (1986), 112 Ill. 2d 111, 150 (Simon, J., dissenting)), fundamental fairness dictates that trial judges correctly admonish capital defendants as to the unanimity rule. In Buggs and Morgan the court rejected the contention that a proper admonition on unanimity was a prerequisite to a knowing and intelligent waiver of a sentencing jury, and relied on the fact that the defendants in those cases had conferred with counsel prior to tendering their waivers. (People v. Buggs (1986), 112 Ill. 2d 284, 293; People v. Morgan (1986), 112 Ill. 2d 111, 141.) Here, though, the defendant stated to the judge prior to the commencement of the sentencing hearing that counsel had not informed him of the unanimity requirement. The court’s disposition of this issue appears especially indefensible in this case because the defendant actually tried to retract his waiver prior to the sentencing hearing. It cannot therefore be said that he was waiting to see what sentence the judge would impose before challenging the voluntariness of his jury waiver. In support of its decision that the defendant’s waiver was knowing and intelligent, the majority finds it “reasonable to conclude that the defendant was familiar with the nature of decision by jury” because of his prior felony convictions (114 Ill. 2d at 413). But the “nature” of the decision by a capital sentencing jury differs from that of an ordinary trial jury, with which the defendant had some previous experience, on the very point at issue here: the consequence of a single juror dissenting. In a felony trial, if one juror votes not guilty, the defendant is not acquitted, but a mistrial is declared and the prosecution can start over with a new jury. A single capital sentencing juror voting against the death penalty results, however, in the defendant’s “acquittal” of the death sentence (see Poland v. Arizona (1986), 476 U.S. 147, 153, 90 L. Ed. 2d 123, 131, 106 S. Ct. 1749, 1754). Far from providing any meaningful basis for the decision whether to waive the jury for sentencing, the defendant’s prior experience with the jury system may actually have misled him on the consequences of a lack of unanimity. This case therefore bears no similarity to People v. Albanese (1984), 104 Ill. 2d 504, in which the defendant had previously been sentenced to death by a jury in a related case before tendering the sentencing jury waiver at issue there.