Court Opinion

ID: 9731769
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:57:33.275182+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:21.075862
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE SIMON, specially concurring: Brenda Green was in custody from September 8, 1972. She moved for discharge under the 120-day rule on January 19, 1973, and renewed the motion on the day of trial, April 24, 1973. I agree that her discharge was properly denied because her motions to quash arrest and suppress physical evidence filed on December 15, 1972, and her motion to suppress statements and amended motion to suppress physical evidence filed on January 19, 1973, started the running of new 120-day periods. I disagree that the discovery motion filed on November 14, 1972, was a proper reason for denying defendant’s motion for discharge. The State filed a discovery motion on the same date defendant Green’s was filed. The court granted the State 15 days to respond to defendant’s discovery request and the defendant 15 days thereafter to respond to the State’s discovery and continued the matter for 31 days. The length of the continuance was obviously granted to provide the first 15 days for the State’s answers and the second 15 days for the defendant’s answers. The State did not file its answers to defendant’s discovery within the time provided by the court, but did not move for any extension of that time. There is no justification for charging the defendant with delay for that portion of.the 31-day period which was provided for the defendant to respond to the State’s discovery. If the defendant is charged with occasioning delay for the period of time the court granted the State to answer defendant’s discovery motion, which was until November 29, 1972, the defendant was still in custody for more than 120 days thereafter. Defendant’s discovery motion was filed on the same day the public defender was appointed to represent her. The court asked whether the public defender was willing to acknowledge that the continuance would be by agreement of the parties, which would suspend the running of the 120-day period. The following then occurred: “The Court: What is your position Mr. Lincoln? Mr. Lincoln [public defender]: I couldn’t continue it by agreement or motion defendant Green. In filing my motion for discovery, I do not want to cause any delay in the trial. # # » Mr. Lincoln: Only to cause a delay, such as my request for Grand Jury testimony, I would be willing to waive that part of the motion. Mr. Goldberg [State’s Attorney]: Inquire whether it will be a bench or jury. The Court: No. He has filed his motion. Under the Nunnery case, it is motion defendant. The record will show I am taking it as motion defendant Green # * # Mr. Lincoln: We will object to the motion defendant. The Court: Objection is overruled.” In People v. Vanderbilt (1975), 27 Ill.App.3d 168, 326 N.E.2d 418, where a substantially similar colloquy took place, the court regarded the public defender’s protests about being held responsible for delay as indicating willingness to withdraw any part of the discovery motion which would cause delay or even to withdraw the motion in its entirety, and held that the discovery motion did not occasion delay. In this case, as in Vanderbilt, when the discovery motion was filed, the prosecutor did not say how much time the State needed to comply. The court gave the prosecutor 10 days in Vanderbilt and 15 days in this case. Consistency in treatment of discovery motions should produce the same result in this case as in Vanderbilt. The trial judge’s reference to the Nunnenj case in the colloquy set forth above was to the appellate court decision in People v. Nunnery (1972), 4 Ill.App.3d 217, 280 N.E.2d 537. It held that the filing of a discovery motion automatically extends the time for bringing the defendant to trial for another 120 days. The supreme court reversed, however, holding that a discovery motion does not invariably cause delay. (People v. Nunnery (1973), 54 Ill.2d 372, 297 N.E.2d 129.) Whether such a motion should be viewed as occasioning delay caused by the defendant is to be determined by its timeliness, its need, and its complexity. (People v. Thomas (1975), 25 Ill.App.3d 88, 322 N.E.2d 597; People v. Scott (1973), 13 Ill. App.3d 620, 301 N.E.2d 118.) It is clear that the trial judge interpreted Nunnery to relieve him of exercising any discretion with respect to these factors or any similar considerations and the need to make any decision based upon them. It is not possible, therefore, to determine, as the court’s opinion attempts to do, whether the trial judge abused his discretion since he assumed in granting a continuance on defendant’s motion that the motion automatically commenced the running of a new term. The discovery motion was timely. It was filed by the public defender at the earliest possible moment, on the day of his appointment; this being only the 68th day of custody, there was ample time to respond to it before the expiration of the term. The State has not taken the position that the discovery sought by the defendant was unnecessary or that the motion was dilatory. In fact, the State did not contest any part of the motion. The court’s opinion lists the contents of the discovery motion to demonstrate that it was complex. But this approach fails to show how much time and effort were required to respond or whether the State was able to answer the motion within the portion of the 120-day period remaining, and it is these aspects of the discovery the trial judge must resolve in deciding whether it is causing delay. The public defender’s request, as noted by the court, was the form discovery motion routinely used by his office, a form with which the State’s Attorney’s office was familiar and one which closely parallels Supreme Court Rule 412 which governs what type of discovery should be given defendants. Although in some respects the defendant’s discovery motion called for information in addition to that specified in Supreme Court Rule 412, an examination of the disclosure filed by the State reveals that the State responded only to the matters in the defendant’s request which are specified in Rules 412(a), (b) and (c). If this discovery motion is held to be complicated and time-consuming, every such motion filed by the public defender of Cook County would have to be appraised in the same way. Apparently neither the trial judge nor the State thought the motion was unusually complicated, for the court granted the State only 15 days to respond, and even though his answer was not actually placed in the court records until later, the prosecutor never objected or asked for additional time. The most telling factors in determining how much time and effort the State’s response required are the brevity of the answer and the fact that defense counsel did not feel it necessary to seek more information or more detail than was provided. The entire disclosure provided by the State consisted of a list of witnesses and their addresses plus a two-page document containing eight brief paragraphs, none of them more than six lines in length. The latter document in essence represents that the State would make available such of the information as is required by Supreme Court Rule 412 either as it had in its possession, without identifying what it had, or when it received such information. In addition, the State answered that it was not aware of any prior criminal convictions of persons it intended to call as witnesses, or of any electronic surveillance of conversations to which the accused was a party, and that the State was not in possession or control of information which negated the guilt of the accused. The information referred to in its response was of the type that the State itself would require in order to try its case and, thus, the motion did not require the State to produce anything which it would not otherwise prepare. Upon reviewing the disclosures made by the State in these two documents, I do not share the court’s opinion that the discovery motion was so complicated that the answers it called for could not have been provided by diligent effort in the time allowed by the trial judge or within a sufficient length of time prior to the expiration of the 120-day period so that the trial need not have been delayed beyond 120 days. Concededly it took some effort to ascertain the existence of the matters inquired about and prepare the two brief documents which constituted the State’s response to the discovery motion, but to view them as occasioning delay in proceeding to trial is in effect reinstating the Nunnery rule prior to its reversal by the supreme court. I also disagree with the court’s expression that it is virtually impossible for the trial judge to anticipate that the answers would not be lengthy. (See People v. Ward (1973), 13 Ill.App.3d 745, 750, 301 N.E.2d 139.) This is an appraisal the trial judge can make with reasonable certainty on the basis of his experience with identical discovery forms together with such views as the prosecutor may offer relating to unusual features of the discovery in a particular case. Here the prosecution offered no views and was not asked for any, although it had acquired knowledge of how complex the case was and consequently how time-consuming compliance with the discovery motion might be when evidence was presented at the preliminary hearing and before the grand jury. Moreover, the trial judge, if in doubt, can leave open the question of whether defendant occasioned delay until he sees the State’s answers. The information requested by the defendant required nothing more of the State than for it to continue its preparation for trial, at the same time advising the defendant of the information it acquired, and the State in its discovery disclosure provided the defendant with nothing more. In Nunnery the discovery motion was made on the 115th day of the term, at a time when the State indicated its readiness to proceed with trial. The supreme court held that no delay could be attributed to the defendant because the State in order to be ready for trial necessarily possessed the information the defendant was requesting. The court’s ruling on the discovery aspect of this case would encourage defense counsel to wait almost until the moment set for trial, a time they could be sure that the State had assembled its facts, to request discovery so that, as in Nunnery, they could avoid being charged with delay. However, it is more orderly practice to encourage defense counsel to inform the State at the earliest possible date of their discovery needs. Routine discovery proceedings which may require some additional effort by the prosecution, but which involved the court in nothing more than setting a timetable for responses, should not be regarded as delaying the trial; and they should not be converted by our courts into justification for delay. The defendant’s motions to suppress evidence, to suppress statements and to quash arrest were contested by the State and required an evidentiary hearing. On February 1, 1973, the public defender advised the court that he would be ready for trial after these motions had been ruled upon. The evidentiary hearing required the testimony of two police officers, an assistant State’s attorney and a deputy sheriff as well as of the defendant. These motions, unlike the discovery motion, were vigorously contested and could not have been disposed of without the court hearing evidence and giving them its consideration. Although as a matter of convenience the evidentiary hearing was postponed until after the jury was picked, the trial could not proceed without this hearing. It is true that it would have been possible for the court to hold a hearing on these motions between December 15, 1972, when they were first filed and January 5, 1973, when the first 120-day period expired and then proceed to trial prior to that date, but under Illinois decisions the need for an evidentiary hearing on these motions caused the 120-day period to commence running again. (People v. Wilson (1974), 19 Ill.App.3d 466, 469, 311 N.E.2d 759; People v. Schoeneck (1971), 1 Ill.App.3d 395, 274 N.E.2d 483; People v. Ross (1971), 132 Ill.App.2d 1095, 271 N.E.2d 100.) The first of these motions was filed on December 15, 1972, after 99 days of the 120-day period had run. Notwithstanding the representation of defendant’s counsel to the court on December 15,1972 (set forth at length at the beginning of the majority opinion), the evidentiary hearing could not have been held that day because the witnesses had not been subpoenaed. Even though a new 120-day period commenced on December 15, 1972, defendant Green would have been entitled to discharge because her trial did not commence until April 24, 1973, except for the fact that on January 19, 1973, she filed amended motions, as well as a new motion to suppress her statement and these started the running of a new 120-day period. It is because of these motions rather than the discovery motion that I agree defendant was not entitled to be discharged.