Court Opinion

ID: 9862158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 01:02:42.11395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:30:29.699996
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, dissenting: During its deliberations, the jury sent a note to the judge seeking further instructions. Without contacting the defendant or his counsel, the judge responded that the jurors should read the instructions before them and continue to deliberate. The first question posed is whether this ex parte communication from the judge to the jury is per se reversible error. It is not. The law is that where there is an ex parte communication from a judge to a jury, it is the State’s burden to prove that the communication was harmless. The judge’s response added nothing to the jury’s storehouse of information. He neither gave nor clarified any issue of fact or law. In short, he did not answer their question. The majority correctly characterizes the judge’s response as "an answer which was tantamount to no answer.” Where, as here, there was in effect no communication, it was by definition harmless. Thus, the State met its burden. Justice Harrison, concurring, believes that any ex parte communication from judge to jury should be per se reversible error. Under the concurring justice’s view, the content of the question and the response would be wholly irrelevant. While adoption of this view would be simple of application, it is not the law in Illinois today and should not be so. The second question is whether the judge had a duty to answer the jury’s question. The majority believes that he had such a duty and that his failure to answer the question constitutes reversible error. The inquiry in this situation should be whether the jury was fully and fairly instructed. It was. Jury instructions were agreed upon by the State and defendant. With the exception of minor agreed changes to four of these instructions, they were all Illinois pattern jury instructions (IPI) read verbatim to the jury. All issues were covered. It is wholly irrelevant that the judge’s refusal to answer the jury’s question was ex parte. The question here is whether the judge’s refusal to answer the question was prejudicial to the defendant. The establishment of that burden rests upon the defendont. The majority opinion erroneously assigns this burden to the State and concludes that failure to answer was prejudicial. As a matter of law, it was not the State’s burden. As a matter of fact, it was not prejudicial. Reference to the facts as set forth in the majority opinion leaves no doubt that the verdicts of armed robbery and murder which were returned were the only correct verdicts. There was error in the giving of the jury instructions, it is true, but that error was in the defendant’s favor. That error was the giving of the voluntary and involuntary manslaughter instructions at all. Given the undisputed evidence of the armed robbery, the killing could have been nothing but murder. The giving of these manslaughter instructions was beneficial to the defendant. It was the trial court’s error in the giving of these two instructions, however, which prompted the jury’s question, "Can the defendant be guilty of armed robbery and voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, or must murder be the only option with armed robbery?” The only correct answer to the jury’s question would have been, "Murder is the only option with armed robbery.” The other choice was not to answer the question and, instead, to simply redirect the jury to the instructions that were already before it. The judge chose the latter option. In doing so, he chose the response most favorable to the defendant. Since the trial judge’s ex parte communication to the jury neither added nor detracted from any matter of fact or law that was already before the jury, it was the equivalent of no communication at all. He simply declined to answer the jurors’ question and referred them to the instructions already before them. Thus, there was no prejudice arising from the ex parte nature of the communication. The judge’s response was, in fact, favorable to the defendant since it did not foreclose the jury from returning a verdict of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter. The latter verdicts would have been an improper result but would have been binding on the prosecution. The judge did not answer the jury’s question. It is more than a stretch to classify this nonanswer as an ex parte communication and to conclude therefrom that the defendant suffered prejudice. In failing to answer the jury’s question, the judge left open the possibility of a manslaughter verdict, a result which, albeit improper, would have been to the defendant’s benefit. Thus, there was no prejudice to the defendant in any respect. The majority is troubled because the jury manifested confusion on a legal issue during its deliberations and the trial judge refused to offer any further explanations to guide it. Thus, a murder trial has been reversed and a new trial ordered. There is no dispute that the jury was fully and fairly instructed at the conclusion of the evidence. The law was completely before it. When it sought elaboration and explanation, the trial judge simply referred it back to the instructions which it had.' This was a complete and perfect response. The majority opinion in this case subverts the jury-deliberation process. It is yet another case of judicial handwringing in the search for that unreachable goal— perfect justice. The fact of the matter is that juries are often confused. Jurors misperceive facts and misconstrue points of law. Rumor has it that they have even been hung on the matter of electing a foreman. The whole theory of jury trial, however, is that the jury hears the facts; the judge instructs it on the law; and the jury sits down together and works it out. Sometimes this working-out process takes minutes, sometimes hours, sometimes days. Sometimes they never work it out and a new trial has to be ordered. What the process does not contemplate, however, is a continuing dialogue between judge and jury with the judge, in effect, participating in the process and leading them along the way. Unfortunately, that is the direction in which the majority is pointing. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.