Court Opinion

ID: 9706756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:51:00.707029+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:24.779247
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE RYAN, dissenting: I must dissent since I believe that the majority opinion overrules a principle of law which has been established and followed in prior decisions of this court. In People v. Keegan, 52 Ill.2d 147, People v. Parks, 48 Ill.2d 232, and People v. Rhodes, 38 Ill.2d 389, this court held that when a defendant’s conduct violates more than one criminal statute, and the statutes contain different elements, the defendant is not denied equal protection of the laws if he is prosecuted under the more severe of the statutes. Those cases do not, as the majority believes, stand for the proposition that where exactly the same act is punishable under two different statutes the prosecutor may constitutionally elect to prosecute for one rather than the other. It is clear that in these prior cases the statutes involved contained different elements, a fact which the majority overlooks and a fact not present in this case. In People v. Keegan, 52 Ill.2d 147, the defendant, who was convicted of the offense of indecent liberties with a child (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1967, ch. 38, par. 11—4) argued that since precisely the same conduct was punishable as the misdemeanor offense of contributing to the sexual delinquency of a child (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1967, ch. 38, par. 11—5) he was denied equal protection of the law because other persons committing the same conduct might be prosecuted under the more lenient statute. We rejected that argument, noting that the offense of indecent liberties provided affirmative defenses not available to one charged with the less serious offense of contributing to the sexual delinquency of a child. People v. Parks, 48 Ill.2d 232, involved two sections of the Uniform Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1965, ch. 111½, pars. 445.1 and 445). We noted that although the two sections might overlap in certain instances, they proscribed different types of conduct and required proof of different elements. Similarly in People v. Rhodes, 38 Ill.2d 389, where the defendant contended that he should have been prosecuted for intimidation (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1965, ch. 38, par. 12—6), rather than attempted theft (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1965, ch. 38, par. 8—4), we observed that the statutes contained different elements. Thus in Keegan, Parks, and Rhodes, although the defendant’s conduct violated more than one statute, the statutes themselves involved either different elements or defenses. The State in such a situation must evaluate the evidence and determine for which offense a conviction is most likely. There are strategic reasons for charging one offense rather than the other. It is precisely this type of determination which the State’s Attorney is expected to make, and we quite properly refused to infringe on that discretion. Moreover, the Supreme Court of the United States has indicated that a defendant suffers no deprivation of constitutional rights merely because his conduct violates two separate statutes. In Rosenberg v. United States, 346 U.S. 273, 294, 97 L. Ed. 1607, 1619, 73 S. Ct. 1152, 1163, the court stated: “Where Congress by more than one statute proscribes a private course of conduct, the Government may choose to involve either applicable law: ‘At least where different proof is required for each offense, a single act or transaction may violate more than one criminal statute.’ [Citations.] ” (Emphasis added.) In the case before us, however, the statutes proscribe exactly the same conduct. Exactly the same evidence which is necessary to prove reckless homicide is also sufficient to convict of involuntary manslaughter. In this setting, the decision to prosecute for one offense rather than the other is in no way dictated by the available evidence or the elements of the crime. I believe that this type of scheme, which allows such a great disparity in the punishment of precisely the same conduct according to the caprice of the prosecutor or grand jury violates the equal protection of the laws. Nor do I agree with the majority that People v. Garman, 411 Ill. 279, is dispositive of this issue. While it is true that Garman involved a similar attack upon the then existing Reckless Homicide Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1951, ch. 38, par. 364a), in upholding the Act the court noted that involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide “involve some different elements in their required allegations.” (411 Ill. at 285.) This certainly cannot be said of the statutes in their present form. The majority opinion is contrary to decisions of other jurisdictions which have considered this question. In Olsen v. Delmore (1956), 48 Wash. 2d 545, 295 P.2d 324, the Washington Supreme Court held that provisions of the Uniform Firearms Act which gave the prosecutor discretion to charge either a gross misdemeanor or a felony for the same conduct violated the equal protection clauses of the State and Federal constitutions. Similarly, in State v. Pirkey (1955), 203 Ore. 697, 281 P.2d 698, a statute which gave a grand jury or magistrate the discretion to choose whether defendant would be charged with a felony or misdemeanor was held by the Supreme Court of Oregon to violate the equal protection clause. The court stated: “The statute in question here defines and prohibits a specific act and provides punishment therefor, but there is no semblance of a classification which would enable one to ascertain under what circumstances he may be guilty of a felonious crime, or under what circumstances he may be guilty only of a misdemeanor. So far as the statute is concerned, the same identical act, under the same circumstances, may constitute a felonious crime when commited by one person, and a misdemeanor when committed by another. It might be said that this statute classifies punishments, but does not classify the circumstances to which the diverse punishments are to be applied. This is not legal classification. It is legal chaos.” 203 Ore. 697, 704-705, 281 P.2d 698, 702. The case most similar to this one is State v. Twitchell (1959), 8 Utah 2d 314, 333 P.2d 1075. The defendant in that case was convicted of automobile homicide, an offense involving driving while intoxicated and killing another person. There also existed an involuntary manslaughter statute similar to our own. The defendant claimed on appeal that the prosecutor had a choice of prosecuting the same conduct as a felony or a misdemeanor and that this choice violated his right to equal protection of the law. The court noted that such a choice would offend equal protection principles. It held however that since the offense of automobile homicide was created subsequent to the offense of involuntary manslaughter, the legislature intended to exclude it from the offense of involuntary manslaughter. We, of course, cannot interpret section 9—3(b) in a similar fashion because section 9—3 contained both 9—3(a) and 9—3(b) when incorporated into the Criminal Code. In Palmore v. United States (1971), 290 A.2d 573, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals noted that a defendant would be denied equal protection if the identical conduct was punishable by two statutes, one a misdemeanor and one a felony, and if violation of the misdemeanor statute invariably constituted a violation of the felony statute. The court concluded, however, that the statutes did not cover the identical conduct. In this case, of course, commission of reckless homicide invariably involves all the elements of involuntary manslaughter. I find the reasoning of these cases persuasive and would apply it here to find section 9—3(b) unconstitutional. (See also Berra v. United States, 351 U.S. 131, 138-140, 100 L. Ed. 1013, 1020-21, 76 S. Ct. 685 (Black, J., dissenting); United States v. Beacon Brass Co., 344 U.S. 43, 97 L. Ed. 61, 73 S. Ct. 77; United States v. Coppola (2d Cir. 1969), 425 F.2d 660.) While I would agree that the General Assembly may constitutionally differentiate between involuntary manslaughter committed with an automobile and other forms of involuntary manslaughter and might further classify different types of conduct involving a motor vehicle, the flaw in the present scheme as I see it is that no such distinctions have been drawn by the General Assembly. Instead it is left to the prosecutor or grand jury to decide which statute is to be applied in each situation. As a result of the absence of statutory classifications of conduct, persons committing precisely the same acts may face different legal consequences, a result which I find repugnant to the principle of equal treatment under the law. I also disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the jury’s verdict of guilty on the reckless homicide count is not inconsistent with the not guilty verdict on the involuntary manslaughter count. The law does not require logical consistency between verdicts. (People v. Hairston, 46 Ill.2d 348.) It does, however, demand legal consistency. Prior cases finding contemporaneous verdicts of guilty and not guilty not to be inconsistent involved crimes containing different elements or crimes against different persons. (People v. Joyner, 50 Ill.2d 302; People v. Epping, 17 Ill.2d 557; People v. Raddatz, 403 Ill. 48; People v. Krazik, 397 Ill. 202.) Those decisions are not controlling in situations such as the present one where both crimes involve the identical elements. In this case I believe that the acquittal for involuntary manslaughter necessarily involves the finding that the defendant is not guilty of the conduct which must be found present if he is to be convicted of reckless homicide. Consequently, I believe the verdicts are legally inconsistent, and would affirm the appellate court for this reason also. WARD and GOLDENHERSH, JJ., join in this dissent.