Court Opinion

ID: 9524125
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:50:10.563006+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:58:39.301087
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE KUEHN, dissenting: I dissented in People v. O’Quinn, registering my disagreement with the majority opinion that the amendments to the criminal code which are at issue here could be applied to an offense committed before their enactment. People v. O’Quinn, 339 Ill. App. 3d 347, 791 N.E.2d 1066 (2003). Because my chief concern was over the lack of speed at which Mr. O’Quinn was prosecuted, I did not fully address why I felt that using the amendments to prosecute the crime of infant murder violated the constitutions’ prohibition of ex post facto laws. Therefore, I respectfully depart again, to fully explain my view. Hereafter, I will abide by the law crafted by my colleagues. This case involves a long-standing fundamental principle. Our forefathers, being somewhat concerned about abuses of governmental power, assured themselves that lawmakers could never criminalize and punish conduct with a bill that outlawed it after the fact. They placed a constitutional constraint upon the use of legislation to penalize someone for behavior that was not illegal at the time that it was committed. Our constitutions guard against ex post facto laws and reserve the pains of punishment for those who engage in conduct that society has clearly prohibited in advance. It is deep-rooted that, in America, people are only prosecuted for breaking laws that are already in existence, not for ex post facto bans on some activity. This case examines whether legislation that empowered Illinois juries to determine the brutality of a particular offense and, based on that determination, subject an offender to greater punishment runs counter to this fundamental constitutional protection. The majority’s resolution of this question finds reason in the following passage of the opinion: “The amended versions of section 111 — 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 and section 5 — 8—2(a) of the Unified Code [citation] merely affect a mode of procedure. The amendments clearly did not alter legal rules to make convictions easier, nor did they increase the punishment for a previously committed offense or make any changes to the elements of the offense of murder. The only change made is that the finder of fact must determine the existence of the relevant aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt, thereby increasing the burden required of the State.” 344 Ill. App. 3d at 439. I take issue with this position. When Mr. Forcum killed Renee DiCicco, the most severe crime that could be charged and submitted to a jury for its determination was a crime composed of three basic elements. The State was authorized to allege and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that: 1. Mr. Forcum caused Renee DiCicco’s untimely death, 2. without legal justification, and 3. with the intent to kill. However, because of changes in the law, made after Mr. Forcum’s extremely brutal behavior, jurors were permitted to determine an added fact that constituted an element of a greater offense and that carried a greater penalty than the offense defined by the three elements of murder. The law’s amendment allowed the State to seek a jury determination that: 1. Mr. Forcum caused Renee DiCicco’s untimely death, 2. without legal justification, and 3. with the intent to kill, and 4. Renee DiCicco’s death was accompanied by brutal and heinous behavior indicative of wanton cruelty. Contrary to the majority’s view, this change in what a jury could determine about Mr. Forcum’s guilt was not procedural. There simply cannot be any more substantive a change in the law than a change to the list of matters that a jury must decide to determine the extent of a person’s guilt. The jury trial guarantee promises that a jury must test every accusation made against an accused. United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 510, 132 L. Ed. 2d 444, 450, 115 S. Ct. 2310, 2313 (1995). Here, the list of accusations to be decided was changed after the criminal conduct had already occurred. The very substance of what this defendant could be charged and prosecuted with changed. And the defendant’s exposure to punishment changed as well. In truth, the statutory amendments did not change anything about the procedure for arriving at a proper punishment. Both before and after the statutory changes, procedure called for the jury to first determine a list of factual issues and reach a verdict of guilt or innocence on the State’s charges. After the jury’s finding of guilt, the sentencing judge needed to consider a list of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in order to arrive at a just sentence. This was the procedure before the statutory amendments. It remains the procedure after them. The only change wrought by the amendments was a jury’s measure of someone’s guilt, a change in the substance of what a jury could find to be a killer’s criminal behavior. The amendments changed the jury’s list of factual issues — they changed the potential scope of guilt. However, the procedure for arriving at a just sentence did not change. The majority’s suggestion that the only change in the law benefited Mr. Forcum, by increasing the State’s burden, is misplaced. The harm done by the statutory amendments is manifest. Mr. Forcum had to defend against an additional element of criminality, an element that enhanced his penalties, an element that could not have been tried before a jury and, therefore, could not have enhanced punishment, at the time that Mr. Forcum took a human life. No one could be constitutionally punished with an enhanced sentence at the time that this murder was committed. People v. Swift, 202 Ill. 2d 378, 379, 781 N.E.2d 292, 292 (2002). While it is true that the amendments do not change the elements of the crime of murder, as that crime was defined at the time of this offense, the amendments do enact an additional element that, if proven beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury, proves the commission of a crime more egregious than murder. Accordingly, the amendments allow the State to establish guilt for additional conduct that warrants greater punishment than murder. It is difficult for me to view such a change as a simple matter of procedure rather than an enactment of a substantive change to the criminal code. In effect, the amendments empower the State to prove the commission of more evil conduct than the conduct necessary to commit murder and to punish those who commit it more severely. Such legislative authority having been given after the fact would seem to offend the protection provided by the ex post facto prohibition against outlawing and prosecuting conduct after the fact. The majority views the brutal and heinous finding as “solely an element of sentencing.” 344 Ill. App. 3d at 440. This misapprehends the difference between crime and punishment. The jury finding authorized by the legislative changes, a finding that exposed this defendant to a greater penalty, is not about sentencing or punishment. It is about the conduct committed. It is about crime — not punishment. The majority thinks it finds support for its view in language from a recent Illinois Supreme Court opinion. People v. De La Paz, 204 Ill. 2d 426, 435-37, 791 N.E.2d 489, 495-96 (2003). It points to language in De La Paz that says: “Apprendi is about sentencing only. For Apprendi concerns to come into play, a criminal defendant must already have been found guilty of the underlying crime. *** The most that can be said is that an Apprendi violation results in a defendant’s imprisonment on a charge one element of which — the sentencing enhancement — was not proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.” De La Paz, 204 Ill. 2d at 436-37, 791 N.E.2d at 495-96. I cannot take this to mean what the majority thinks it means. Indeed, outside the realm of Apprendi, and a determination of its prospective application, our high court would never countenance a person’s imprisonment when the State had failed to prove an element of the crime charged. However, if my colleagues are correct, it is impossible to reconcile this passage with what the people who wrote Apprendi v. New Jersey have to say about it. Justice Scalia recently noted: “Our decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey [citation] clarified what constitutes an ‘element’ of an offense for purposes of the Sixth Amendment’s jury-trial guarantee. Put simply, if the existence of any fact (other than a prior conviction) increases the maximum punishment that may be imposed on a defendant, that fact — no matter how the State labels it — constitutes an element[ ] and must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. [Citation.] Just last Term we recognized the import of Apprendi in the context of capital-sentencing proceedings. In Ring v. Arizona [citation], we held that aggravating circumstances that make a defendant eligible for the death penalty ‘operate as “the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense.” ’ [Citation.] That is to say, for purposes of the Sixth Amendment’s jury-trial guarantee, the underlying offense of ‘murder’ is a distinct, lesser[-]included offense of ‘murder plus one or more aggravating circumstances’ ***.” (First emphasis added; later emphasis omitted.) Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania, 537 U.S. 101, 111, 154 L. Ed. 2d 588, 598-99, 123 S. Ct. 732, 739 (2003). This defendant was properly convicted of the “distinct, lesser[-] included offense” of first-degree murder. He was not properly convicted of the “greater offense” of brutal and heinous murder indicative of wanton cruelty because that offense did not exist until it was created by our legislature in February of 2001 by the passage of Public Act 91 — 953. Pub. Act 91 — 953, § 10, eff. February 23, 2001. Applying an element created in February of 2001 to conduct performed in 2000 violates the constitutions’ prohibition of ex post facto laws. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.