Court Opinion

ID: 9745857
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 13:36:48.509453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:05.358037
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE McDADE, dissenting: The majority has found that the State proved defendant guilty of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child beyond a reasonable doubt (392 Ill. App. 3d at 69), that the trial court did not violate defendant’s state rights by ordering him to complete a sex offender evaluation which it “considered *** when sentencing defendant” (392 Ill. App. 3d at 70), and, finally, that the trial court did not violate defendant’s fifth amendment rights by compelling him to complete the sex offender evaluation and using the results to sentence him (392 Ill. App. 3d at 73). The majority based its final judgment on the rule that “[w]hen defendants are not entitled to Miranda warnings, they must either claim the fifth amendment privilege or they waive it” (392 Ill. App. 3d at 73), and, here, defendant was not entitled to Miranda warnings (392 Ill. App. 3d at 73) and did not claim his fifth amendment privilege. I concur with the majority’s judgment that the State proved defendant guilty of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child beyond a reasonable doubt. I disagree with the majority’s judgment that the trial court did not violate defendant’s state and constitutional rights. I dissent from that portion of the judgment affirming defendant’s sentence. The majority acknowledges that “[t]here is no requirement for a sex offender who is not eligible for probation to submit to a sex offender evaluation” (392 Ill. App. 3d at 70) but concluded that the trial court did not violate defendant’s rights in requiring him to do so because “the statute does not prohibit a trial court from ordering a sex offender evaluation for a defendant who is not eligible for probation” (emphasis added) (392 Ill. App. 3d at 70). The majority concludes that the trial court did not violate defendant’s state rights because sections 5 — 3—2(a)(6) and 5 — 3—2(b) of the Unified Code of Corrections “allow[ ] the trial court to order supplementary information to be included in the [presentence] report” (392 Ill. App. 3d at 70) and that no reason exists “to disallow a sex offender evaluation in nonprobationary cases if the trial court deems it helpful in sentencing a defendant” (392 Ill. App. 3d at 70). Section 5 — 3—2(a)(6) reads as follows: “(a) In felony cases, the presentence report shall set forth: *** (6) any other matters *** the court directs to be included.” 730 ILCS 5/5 — 3—2(a)(6) (West 2006). Section 5 — 3—2(b) reads, in pertinent part, as follows: “(b) The investigation shall include a physical and mental examination of the defendant when so ordered by the court. If the court determines that such an examination should be made, it shall issue an order that the defendant submit to examination at such time and place as designated by the court and that such examination be conducted by a physician, psychologist or psychiatrist designated by the court.” 730 ILCS 5/5 — 3—2(b) (West 2006). There are, in fact, two reasons to disallow a sex offender evaluation in nonprobationary cases, regardless of whether the trial court deems it helpful in sentencing a defendant. First, the trial court has no direct authority to order the testing. The majority recognizes this fact when it finds that nothing in the Code prohibits the trial court’s order but fails to find an express grant of authority for the trial court’s order. What the majority fails to acknowledge is that an order entered without authority is void. The supreme court, in construing section 5 — 5—3 of the Code, has expressly held that “[a] sentence not authorized by statute is void.” People v. Williams, 179 Ill. 2d 331, 336, 688 N.E.2d 1153, 1155 (1997). Despite the provision in section 5 — 3—2(a)(6) for “any other matters *** the court directs to be included” in the presentence report, that provision in section 5 — 3—2(a)(6) is not broad enough to encompass a sex offender evaluation under well-established rules of statutory construction. The rule of statutory construction that I believe contradicts the majority’s judgment that section 5 — 3—2(a)(6) permits the trial court to order a sex offender evaluation in a nonprobationary case, simply because it deems it helpful in sentencing the defendant, is the rule, which our supreme court has found to be “axiomatic[,] that specific statutory provisions generally control over general provisions on the same subject.” Zimmerman v. Village of Skokie, 183 Ill. 2d 30, 63, 697 N.E.2d 699, 716 (1998). The rule that “[wjhere two statutory provisions cover the same subject matter, the more specific statute governs” (Huskey v. Board of Managers of Condominiums of Edelweiss, Inc., 297 Ill. App. 3d 292, 295, 696 N.E.2d 753, 755 (1998)), applies where different sections of the same statute “provide for a different procedure” covering the same subject matter (Huskey, 297 Ill. App. 3d at 295, 696 N.E.2d at 755). Additionally, in interpreting written instruments, we follow the principle that “it is the better rule that the intention should be given full effect which appears in the more principal and specific clause, and that the general clause should be subjected to such modification or qualification as the specific clause makes necessary.” Heifner v. Board of Education of Morris Community High School District No. 101, Grundy County, 32 Ill. App. 3d 83, 88, 335 N.E.2d 600, 604 (1975). Section 5 — 3—2(b—5) of the Code, which defendant relies on to argue that the trial court exceeded its authority, reads as follows: “In cases involving felony sex offenses in which the offender is being considered for probation or any felony offense that is sexually motivated as defined in the Sex Offender Management Board Act in which the offender is being considered for probation, the investigation shall include a sex offender evaluation by an evaluator approved by the Board and conducted in conformance with the standards developed under the Sex Offender Management Board Act.” 730 ILCS 5/5 — 3—2(b—5) (West 2006). Section 5 — 3—2(b—5) is a specific grant of authority in limited situations to order a defendant to submit to a sex offender evaluation and controls over any general grant of authority in section 5 — 3— 2(a)(6) to order “other matters” to be included in a presentence report. Section 5 — 3—2(b—5) is also more specific in addressing sex offender evaluations than the general authority to order a “mental examination” under section 5 — 3—2(b). Under the controlling provision of the Code, the trial court may only order a sex offender evaluation when “the offender is being considered for probation” (730 ILCS 5/5 — 3— 2(b — 5) (West 2006)). The trial court lacked any authority to order defendant to submit to a sex offender evaluation. Its order is, therefore, void. Accordingly, I would reverse the trial court’s order that defendant submit to a sex offender evaluation and remand for new sentencing proceedings in which the trial court did not use the results of the examination in sentencing defendant. The second reason to disallow the trial court’s actions in this case is that the trial court effectively used the results of the sex offender evaluation to impose a harsher sentence on defendant without requiring the State to prove those results beyond a reasonable doubt. Doing so, the trial court violated defendant’s sixth and fourteenth amendment rights as described by the United States Supreme Court in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 476-77, 147 L. Ed. 2d 435, 447, 120 S. Ct. 2348, 2355-56 (2000). The court violated defendant’s rights even though it sentenced him within the applicable statutory range. The Illinois Supreme Court has recognized that “Apprendi “*** requires the State to prove to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt all facts underlying the sentence imposed on the defendant.’ (Emphasis added.) [Citation.]” People v. Green, 225 Ill. 2d 612, 621, 870 N.E.2d 394, 400 (2007), quoting Hill v. Cowan, 202 Ill. 2d 151, 158, 781 N.E.2d 1065 (2002). The Illinois Supreme Court interpreted Apprendi to hold that the rights addressed in Apprendi “extend[ ] to all facts necessary to establish the range of penalties potentially applicable to the defendant.” Cowan, 202 Ill. 2d at 154, 781 N.E.2d at 1067. Here, in sentencing defendant, the trial court stated as follows: “This might be an entirely different situation had that assessment come back and said that you are not at risk of reoffending but this, in fact, indicated that you were a higher risk of reoffending because of everything contained within that statement.” This court should be left with no doubt the trial court relied heavily on defendant’s sex offender evaluation in fashioning his sentence and that the results of that evaluation resulted in a harsher sentence against him. Because the trial court relied on facts not proved beyond a reasonable doubt to subject defendant to a harsher sentence, I would find that the court violated his constitutional rights. Accordingly, I would reverse his sentence and remand for a new sentencing hearing. Regardless of my findings that the trial court both exceeded its statutory authority under Illinois law and violated defendant’s federal constitutional rights, I dissent because I believe the majority’s reasoning is flawed in that it misapplies the law with regard to the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The majority finds that defendant forfeited his fifth amendment rights because “defendant was not entitled to Miranda warnings prior to being compelled to participate in the court-ordered sex offender evaluation” (392 Ill. App. 3d at 73) and defendant did not assert his fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The basis of the majority’s judgment that defendant’s failure to assert the fifth amendment privilege in the trial court results in forfeiture of his fifth amendment rights is its misapplication of the rule, stated by the United States Supreme Court, that, absent a requirement for Miranda warnings, a defendant who “ ‘desires the protection of the [fifth amendment] privilege *** must claim it or he will not be considered to have been “compelled” within the meaning of the Amendment.’ ” Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420, 427, 79 L. Ed. 2d 409, 419, 104 S. Ct. 1136, 1142 (1984), quoting United States v. Monia, 317 U.S. 424, 427, 87 L. Ed. 376, 380, 63 S. Ct. 409, 410-11 (1943). Initially, I note that, as previously discussed, the trial court’s order that defendant submit to a sex offender evaluation lacked statutory authority and was void. “An argument that an order or judgment is void is not subject to waiver.” People v. Thompson, 209 Ill. 2d 19, 27, 805 N.E.2d 1200, 1205 (2004). The majority misreads the Supreme Court’s holding in Murphy. Although it did rely on the general proposition quoted above, the Murphy Court clarified that the issue is always whether the defendant has been “compelled,” and that the fifth amendment “ ‘privileges him not to answer official questions put to him in any other proceeding, civil or criminal, formal or informal, where the answers might incriminate him ***.’ [Citation.]” Murphy, 465 U.S. at 426, 79 L. Ed. 2d at 418, 104 S. Ct. at 1141, quoting Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U.S. 70, 77, 38 L. Ed. 2d 274, 281, 94 S. Ct. 316, 322 (1973). In Murphy, the Court found that the government had not “compelled” the defendant to answer incriminating questions because he was under only a general obligation to appear and answer questions truthfully. The Court found that such an obligation “did not in itself convert Murphy’s otherwise voluntary statements into compelled ones.” Murphy, 465 U.S. at 427, 79 L. Ed. 2d at 419, 104 S. Ct. at 1142. The Court further explained that a witness under a general compulsion to testify and who answers incriminating questions has not been compelled to be a witness against himself if he answers a question which “both he and the government should reasonably expect to incriminate him.” Murphy, 465 U.S. at 428, 79 L. Ed. 2d at 420, 104 S. Ct. at 1142. Therefore, to the extent Murphy stands for the proposition that a failure to assert the privilege against self-incrimination results in the forfeiture of the privilege, it only goes so far as to hold that the privilege is forfeited when a reasonable person compelled to answer questions would expect his answers to incriminate him. See Murphy, 465 U.S. at 429 n.5, 79 L. Ed. 2d at 421 n.5, 104 S. Ct. at 1143 n.5 (“We emphasize that Murphy was not under arrest and that he was free to leave at the end of the meeting. A different question would be presented if he had been interviewed by his probation officer while being held in police custody or by the police themselves in a custodial setting”). The Court reached its conclusion because “ ‘[the] Constitution does not forbid the asking of criminative [sic] questions.’ [Citation.]” Murphy, 465 U.S. at 428, 79 L. Ed. 2d at 420, 104 S. Ct. at 1142, quoting United States v. Monia, 317 U.S. 424, 433, 87 L. Ed. 376, 382-83, 63 S. Ct. 409, 413 (1943) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Nonetheless, the Court made clear that even when the witness is only under a general compulsion to testify (not to answer specific questions) the court must still “ask *** whether the particular disclosure was ‘compelled’ within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment.” Murphy, 465 U.S. at 428, 79 L. Ed. 2d at 420, 104 S. Ct. at 1143-43. Here, the majority concedes that the trial court ordered defendant to complete the sex offender evaluation and offers nothing to suggest that defendant could, at any time, refuse to cooperate in the evaluation. Although the majority states that “defendant was informed of the purpose of the evaluation, and the evaluation was used solely for that purpose” (392 Ill. App. 3d at 73), nothing suggests defendant knew the trial court would impose a harsher sentence based solely on the results of the evaluation and that he could refuse to participate. The trial court clearly believed, erroneously, that it had the authority to order the evaluation, and its statements at sentencing reveal that it imposed a harsher sentence based on the evaluation without informing defendant he could refuse to participate in violation of defendant’s fifth amendment rights. Thus I find that the majority’s fifth amendment analysis is fatally flawed and its purported reliance on Murphy totally misplaced. Even were this court to read Murphy to stand broadly, as the majority mistakenly has, for the proposition that absent an independent requirement that a defendant receive Miranda warnings, he “ordinarily must assert the privilege rather than answer if he desires not to incriminate himself’ (Murphy, 465 U.S. at 429, 79 L. Ed. 2d at 420, 104 S. Ct. at 1143), the Murphy Court went on to hold that “application of this general rule is inappropriate in certain well-defined situations.” Murphy, 465 U.S. at 429, 79 L. Ed. 2d at 420, 104 S. Ct. at 1143. Those situations include ones where “some identifiable factor ‘was held to deny the individual a “free choice to admit, to deny, or to refuse to answer.” ’ [Citation.]” Murphy, 465 U.S. at 429, 79 L. Ed. 2d at 420, 104 S. Ct. at 1143, quoting Garner v. United States, 424 U.S. 648, 657, 47 L. Ed. 2d 370, 378-79, 96 S. Ct. 1178, 1183 (1976), quoting Lisenba v. California, 314 U.S. 219, 241, 86 L. Ed. 166, 182, 62 S. Ct. 280, 292 (1941). The nature of the information and the manner in which the court obtained it present a situation which the Supreme Court has already found to deny the defendant the free choice to refuse to answer and one which can result in a violation of fifth amendment rights even when the defendant does not assert the fifth amendment privilege. In Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 461, 68 L. Ed. 2d 359, 368, 101 S. Ct. 1866, 1872 (1981), cited by defendant in the case at bar, the Supreme Court held that the admission of testimony concerning the results of a pretrial psychiatric evaluation at the penalty phase of the defendant’s trial violated his fifth amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination because the defendant was not advised before the examination that he had a right to remain silent and that any statement he made could be used against him in sentencing proceedings. Estelle, 451 U.S. at 463, 68 L. Ed. 2d at 369, 101 S. Ct. at 1873. The Court began by holding that “the State’s attempt to establish *** future dangerousness by relying on the unwarned statements *** infringes Fifth Amendment values.” Estelle, 451 U.S. at 463, 68 L. Ed. 2d at 369, 101 S. Ct. at 1873. The court found that because the respondent’s “future dangerousness was a critical issue at the sentencing hearing, and one on which the State had the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt” (Estelle, 451 U.S. at 466, 68 L. Ed. 2d at 371, 101 S. Ct. at 1874-75), “the Fifth Amendment privilege was implicated” (Estelle, 451 U.S. at 466, 68 L. Ed. 2d at 371, 101 S. Ct. at 1875). For reasons I have already discussed, I would find that the trial court’s use of the sexual offender evaluation to increase defendant’s penalty required that the record contain proof of those results beyond a reasonable doubt. Regardless, the holding in Estelle is not limited to the situation where state law mandates proof of a sentencing factor beyond a reasonable doubt or even where a sentence is increased beyond a statutory minimum based on a factor applied at sentencing. The Court made clear that the fifth amendment is implicated whenever compelled statements are used at the sentencing phase of trial because “[w]e can discern no basis to distinguish between the guilt and penalty phases *** so far as the protection of the Fifth Amendment privilege is concerned. Given the gravity of the decision to be made at the penalty phase, the State is not relieved of the obligation to observe fundamental constitutional guarantees.” Estelle, 451 U.S. at 462-63, 68 L. Ed. 2d at 369, 101 S. Ct. at 1873. The Estelle Court did not rely on the State’s attempt to prove an element of the offense, as it pertains to sentencing, with the defendant’s self-incriminating statements. Rather, the Court stated generally that “[a]ny effort by the State to compel respondent to testify against his will at the sentencing hearing clearly would contravene the Fifth Amendment.” Estelle, 451 U.S. at 463, 68 L. Ed. 2d at 369, 101 S. Ct. at 1873. The Court’s holding is clear that “[a] criminal defendant *** may not be compelled to respond to a psychiatrist if his statements can be used against him at a *** sentencing proceeding.” Estelle, 451 U.S. at 468, 68 L. Ed. 2d at 372, 101 S. Ct. at 1876. The fifth amendment, as applied by the United States Supreme Court in Estelle, prohibits the trial court’s actions in this case. The trial court compelled defendant to respond to a psychiatrist and then used his statements against him at sentencing proceedings. Defendant received no warnings of his right to refuse to participate in the sex offender evaluation based on his privilege against self-incrimination before making the statements. Under Estelle, defendant cannot be said to have waived the privilege. The trial court, in using defendant’s compelled statements against him at sentencing, violated defendant’s fifth amendment rights. Because I concur with the majority that the evidence is sufficient to prove defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, I concur in that portion of its judgment. Because I agree with defendant that the trial court violated his fifth amendment rights, I would vacate defendant’s sentence and remand for a new sentencing hearing. I would further order the trial court that it may not compel defendant to participate in a sex offender evaluation because (a) it lacks any statutory authority to do so and, nonetheless, (b) any use of compelled statements defendant made in such an evaluation in sentencing him would violate the fifth amendment. Accordingly, I dissent from that portion of the majority’s judgment affirming defendant’s sentence.