Court Opinion

ID: 9860524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:24:54.959726+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:16:06.475140
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree that we should vacate defendant’s death sentence. In my view, however, there is no need to remand the cause to the circuit court for resentencing. Under the circumstances of this case, the only function a new sentencing hearing would serve is to permit the State to seek the death penalty again. That should not be an option. For the reasons set forth in my dissent in People v. Bull, 185 Ill. 2d 179 (1998), this state’s present death penalty law does not meet the requirements of the eighth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution (U.S. Const., amends. VIII, XIV) or article I, section 2, of the Illinois Constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 2). Defendant must therefore receive a sentence of imprisonment. Because defendant has been found guilty of murdering more than one victim, the term of his imprisonment must be natural life. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1991, ch. 38, par. 1005—8—1(a)(1)(c).