Court Opinion

ID: 9859809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 22:42:03.049181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:07:00.483688
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, dissenting: I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that the defendant was denied due process by the trial court’s failure to hold, sua sponte, a fitness hearing pursuant to section 104 — 21(a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (725 ILCS 5/104 — 21(a) (West 1992)). Accordingly, I dissent. The defendant in this capital case did not request a fitness hearing while the matter was pending in the trial court. On appeal, the defendant now contends that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to demand a fitness hearing under section 104 — 21(a) and, further, that the trial court’s failure to conduct such a hearing in any event resulted in a denial of due process. Without specifically resolving the defendant’s claim of ineffective assistance, the majority summarily concludes that the failure to hold a fitness hearing in the trial court denied the defendant due process. Once more, the majority mistakenly equates a defendant’s statutory entitlement to a fitness hearing, found in section 104 — 21(a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, with a bona fide doubt of the defendant’s fitness. See People v. Kinkead, 168 Ill. 2d 394, 407 (1995); People v. Gevas, 166 Ill. 2d 461, 469 (1995). Moreover, the majority goes on to confuse the defendant’s failure to assert the procedures it believes are designed to secure due process with a denial of due process itself. In doing so, the majority fails to recognize that the statutory right to a fitness hearing in the circumstances defined by section 104 — 21(a) is much broader than the constitutional right with which it is mistaken. The statute grants to a defendant an entitlement to a fitness hearing in cases in which the constitutional right is not at all implicated. Under section 104 — 21(a), "[a] defendant who is receiving psychotropic drugs or other medications under medical direction” is entitled to a fitness hearing, even in the absence of evidence that might otherwise trigger an inquiry into the separate constitutional right. In this manner, the scope of the statute is considerably broader than the bona fide doubt of fitness with which it is equated. Presumably, the majority would grant the same relief to a defendant who had been treated with a common antibiotic or analgesic during trial or sentencing. At no time in the proceedings below did the defendant assert his statutory right to a fitness hearing, and the trial judge denied him nothing with respect to that right. Rather than being a question of due process, the issue is properly analyzed in terms of ineffective assistance of counsel. To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance, the defendant must satisfy the two-part test prescribed by the Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, 104 S. Ct. 2052 (1984), by demonstrating both a deficiency in counsel’s performance and prejudice resulting from the alleged deficiency. At a minimum, the defendant must show not simply that a fitness hearing would have been conducted if counsel had requested one, but that the outcome of the hearing would have been favorable to him. The majority perpetuates an unsound rule, ignoring the problems that continue to arise from the ill-conceived decisions in Kinkead, Gevas, and People v. Brandon, 162 Ill. 2d 450 (1994). As the majority notes, the legislature has now amended section 104 — 21(a), severely limiting the operation of the provision. This recent action suggests the legislature’s disagreement with the majority’s prior interpretations of the statute. Santiago v. Kusper, 133 Ill. 2d 318, 329 (1990). Today’s result, however, once more requires trial judges to make a special inquiry in every case to determine whether, in the language of the statute, the defendant has been "receiving psychotropic drugs or other medications under medical direction,” and to conduct a fitness hearing sua sponte if such drug usage has occurred. Contrary to accepted principles of waiver, the majority imposes these extraordinary duties even though the defendant, who knows he has been receiving medication, failed to invoke section 104 — 21(a) in the trial court. I would reject the defendant’s effort to transform the statutory right into a constitutional right, and would address the remaining issues raised on appeal by the defendant. CHIEF JUSTICE BILANDIC and JUSTICE HEIPLE join in this dissent.