Court Opinion

ID: 9526111
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:12:29.379033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:18:25.900479
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, dissenting: Accepting both the defendant’s alternative arguments against the trial strategy followed here, the majority presumes that the defendant was prejudiced by the strategy and that his consent to it must appear on the record. I do not believe that either conclusion is required, and accordingly I dissent. The right to the effective assistance of counsel “is recognized not for its own sake, but because of the effect it has on the ability of the accused to receive a fair trial.” (United States v. Cronic (1984), 466 U.S. 648, 658, 80 L. Ed. 2d 657, 667, 104 S. Ct. 2039, 2046.) Ordinarily, then, a defendant must show that he has been prejudiced by counsel’s deficient performance, though there are “circumstances that are so likely to prejudice the accused that the cost of litigating their effect in a particular case is unjustified.” (466 U.S. 648, 658, 80 L. Ed. 2d 657, 667, 104 S. Ct. 2039, 2047.) When the adversarial process breaks down — when, for example, counsel is denied, or utterly fails to contest the State’s case, or, because of attendant circumstances, finds it impossible to provide adequate representation — then prejudice may be presumed. (See 466 U.S. 648, 660-61, 80 L. Ed. 2d 657, 668-69, 104 S. Ct. 2039, 2047-48.) The likelihood of prejudice in those cases is so great “that case by case inquiry into prejudice is not worth the cost.” (Strickland v. Washington (1984), 466 U.S. 668, 692, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, 696, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 2067.) Generally, too, the impairment is something for which the government is responsible and therefore can prevent. (466 U.S. 668, 692, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, 696, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 2067.) In neither Cronic nor Strickland, however, did the Supreme Court presume prejudice. In Cronic, a prosecution for mail fraud stemming from a check-kiting scheme, the Supreme Court rejected the inference by the court of appeals that counsel had been ineffective; that inference had been based on several circumstances, including the length of time counsel had had to prepare for the case, counsel’s youthfulness, and his principal expertise in a different area of law. In Strickland the court held that, in the circumstances there, counsel’s failure to present at a capital sentencing hearing additional character or psychological evidence regarding the defendant was neither a deficiency in performance nor a matter resulting in actual prejudice to the defendant. I do not believe that this case implicates any of the concerns identified by the Supreme Court as warranting a presumption of prejudice. The adversarial process did not break down here. Defense counsel’s strategy was not a matter that the prosecutor or trial judge devised. The primary issue in the proceedings was not whether the defendant was guilty of offenses punishable by death, but whether he should be sentenced to death. In this regard, I would note that on appeal here the defendant has not challenged the sufficiency of the evidence of his guilt. That evidence was overwhelming — it included the defendant’s confessions to these gruesome crimes — and trial counsel may well have concluded that the strategy used here was a reasonable course to follow. Going to trial preserved for the defendant matters that a guilty plea necessarily would have waived. One of the most significant of those was the ruling on his suppression motion, and the majority’s treatment of that issue demonstrates the value of preserving it for review. Moreover, although compulsion is not a defense to the crimes charged here (see Ill. Rev. Stat. 1981, ch. 38, par. 7—1), it may, as a mitigating circumstance, preclude a sentence of death (see Ill. Rev. Stat. 1981, ch. 38, par. 9—1(c)(4)), and defense counsel used the trial to develop a theory of compulsion in a way that would not have been practicable at a sentencing hearing. The defendant was tried jointly with Rufus Mister, the person who, counsel argued, compelled the defendant to commit the murders. The presence of the codefendant, charged on a theory of accountability for the same crimes, was used to strengthen the defendant’s claim of compulsion. Also, through cross-examination of the State’s witnesses at trial, defense counsel brought out information tending to support the theory that defendant's role in the crimes was compelled by Mister. In several ways, then, the jury was educated, as it were, on the defendant’s evidence in mitigation through information and impressions that could not have been duplicated at a sentencing hearing. Counsel may have believed, though, that the surest way to preserve credibility before the jury for his later argument, that the death sentence should not be imposed, was to acknowledge that the defendant had committed offenses for which a sentence of death could be imposed. What occurred here was analogous to the common practice in jury trials of acknowledging guilt of one offense to avoid conviction for another. To a similar end, counsel may have reasonably believed here that the strategy adopted at the trial and sentencing hearing was more likely to prevent a sentence of death than any other course of defense. Moreover, this choice of strategy was not inconsistent with anything that the defendant himself did or said at trial. In this regard I would note that in a number of the cases cited by the majority, acknowledgments of guilt by counsel were, indeed, contradicted by the defendants. See Francis v. Spraggins (11th Cir. 1983), 720 F.2d 1190 (defendant testified, denying that he committed the crime or that he made statements to the police, but counsel later conceded defendant’s guilt to jury, asking for a sentence other than death); People v. Fisher (1982), 119 Mich. App. 445, 326 N.W.2d 537 (defendant testified in support of his insanity defense, but in closing counsel asked instead for finding of guilty but mentally ill); State v. Wiplinger (Minn. 1984), 343 N.W.2d 858 (counsel, in cross-examination of State’s witnesses, effectively conceded defendant’s identity as person involved in offense; defendant interrupted the trial and voiced his objection to that); cf. Mullins v. Evans (10th Cir. 1980), 622 F.2d 504 (fearful that defendant’s parole eligibility date under trial judge’s sentence for conviction for lesser offense would be later than under mandatory life term for conviction for greater offense, counsel “threw the fight” and did whatever was possible to ensure conviction for greater offense; trial found to be a sham, and therefore defendant’s acquiescence to strategy was unimportant). Finally, the proceedings here were not tantamount to a guilty plea, and the defendant was not required to be admonished of his trial rights, in the manner of our Rule 402 (87 Ill. 2d R. 402), when defense counsel’s strategy became evident. Unlike People v. Smith (1974), 59 Ill. 2d 236, and People v. Stepheny (1974), 56 Ill. 2d 237, defense counsel did not make an agreement with the prosecutor regarding the outcome of the case or stipulate to the sufficiency of the evidence of the defendant’s guilt. Instead, defense counsel required the State to put on its witnesses, remaining free to challenge the sufficiency of the State’s evidence, and counsel did so, moving for a directed verdict at the close of the State’s case. Moreover, counsel moved to suppress the defendant’s confession. See People v. Sampson (1985), 130 Ill. App. 3d 438, and People v. Fair (1975), 29 Ill. App. 3d 939 (in stipulated bench trials, presentation of factual or legal defense, including motion to suppress confession, renders unnecessary admonitions regarding trial rights). Because the adversarial process did not break down here, I believe that an inquiry into prejudice is worth the cost. I would not presume that the defendant was prejudiced by trial counsel’s choice of strategies, nor would I presume that the choice was made without the defendant’s consent. Instead, I would require in this case that the defendant establish that the strategy was adopted without his consent or, failing that, that he was prejudiced by trial counsel’s representation. Whether the trial strategy should have been permitted is not the question here; the question is whether the strategy was without the defendant’s consent or was prejudicial to him. The defendant should not be permitted now to question the trial strategy, which allowed him to preserve pretrial issues for appeal, test the legal sufficiency of the State’s case, and offer mitigating evidence in the guilt- or-innocence phase, while at the same time attempting to maintain his credibility with the jury, without a showing on his part of his lack of consent to the strategy, or of prejudice to him.