Court Opinion

ID: 9735213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:05:33.503046+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:56.045827
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, dissenting: I agree that the State has waived its right to challenge the timeliness of defendant’s second post-conviction petition. Contrary to the majority, however, I do not believe that the trial court acted properly in dismissing that petition. Even if the issues asserted in the petition were raised or could have been raised in defendant’s initial post-conviction proceedings, those proceedings were fundamentally flawed. Accordingly, defendant should not be precluded from seeking relief in a successive post-conviction proceeding. People v. Flores, 153 Ill. 2d 264, 273-74 (1992). Where, as here, a defendant seeks relief under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act (725 ILCS 5/122 — 1 et seq. (West 1994)), he is entitled to an evidentiary hearing if the allegations in his petition make a substantial showing of a deprivation of rights under the United States and/or Illinois Constitutions. In determining whether an evidentiary hearing is required, the circuit court must take all well-pleaded facts in the petition and affidavits as true. People v. Coleman, 183 Ill. 2d 366, 378 (1998). If the circuit court dismisses the petition without an evidentiary hearing, as the circuit court did in this case, its assessment of the sufficiency of the petition enjoys no deference on appeal. Rather, the judgment of the circuit court is subject to plenary review. Coleman, 183 Ill. 2d at 388-89. Based upon the well-pleaded allegations in defendant’s petition and supporting affidavits, I believe that defendant did make a substantial showing that his constitutional rights were violated. Most significant is defendant’s charge that he was denied due process by the trial judge’s refusal to recuse himself from the case. Due process requires a judge to recuse himself or herself where actual bias exists (People v. Hall, 157 Ill. 2d 324, 332 (1993)) or where his or her hearing the case would create the appearance of partiality (In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 136, 99 L. Ed. 942, 946, 75 S.Ct. 623, 625 (1955)). Those circumstances were present here. Defendant and the trial judge had a preexisting adversarial relationship. Before sitting on this case, the trial judge served in the State’s Attorney’s office and had successfully prosecuted defendant for armed violence. The judge then used that same conviction as an aggravating factor in imposing the death sentence in this case. The result, in effect, is that defendant was sent to the executioner by the same man responsible for securing the conviction that made him death eligible. This constitutes a fundamental departure from the constitutional promise of an unbiased tribunal. I note, moreover, that when the trial judge prosecuted defendant, he agreed to a plea bargain which permitted defendant’s release on probation after a relatively short period of time. It was while defendant was on probation for that offense that he committed the crimes at issue in this case'. The judge was aware of these circumstances, and it would not be unreasonable to assume that his decision to sentence defendant to death was influenced by some sense of personal responsibility for having placed defendant in a position where he was able to kill. At the very least, the situation presented “ ‘a possible temptation such that the average person, acting as judge, could not hold the balance nice, clear and true between the State and the accused.’ ” People v. Coleman, 168 Ill. 2d 509, 540-41 (1995), quoting People v. Del Vecchio, 129 Ill. 2d 265, 275 (1989). This is the second time in as many years that we have had to deal with this trial judge’s failure to recuse himself from a capital case involving a post-conviction challenge. In People v. Steidl, 177 Ill. 2d 239 (1997), as here, the judge denied the post-conviction petition without an evidentiary hearing. In that case, however, our court reversed and remanded for an evidentiary hearing before a different judge, holding, inter alla, that the judge should have recused himself from the case because his long-term professional association with defendant’s original trial attorney prevented him from making an unbiased assessment of defendant’s claim that the attorney was ineffective. Steidl, 177 Ill. 2d at 265-66. The conflict in this case is no less serious than the one we condemned in Steidl. If anything, the compromise in this defendant’s due process rights is even more egregious. Defendant’s due process problems were not limited to the bias of the trial judge. Besides having been tried and sentenced to death by his former prosecutor, defendant was also prosecuted by the attorney who formerly served as his defense counsel. The prosecutor, who was directly involved in defendant’s capital sentencing hearing, was the same lawyer who had unsuccessfully defended defendant against the armed violence charge which the trial judge prosecuted while he was State’s Attorney. Where an attorney provides direct representation to a defendant, has a significant role in the defendant’s case, and is privy to the defendant’s confidences, that attorney may not thereafter serve as a prosecutor in proceedings against his former client. That is so not only when the subsequent proceedings involve the same offense for which the attorney originally provided representation (see People v. Courtney, 288 Ill. App. 3d 1025, 1031-33 (1997)), but also when the proceedings are related as they were here. Because the armed violence. conviction was integral to obtaining the death sentence, the attorney’s prior representation of defendant on the armed violence charge created a per se conflict which should have prevented participation by her and her office in defendant’s subsequent prosecution for capital murder. For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the judgment of the circuit court and remand the cause for appointment of a special prosecutor to represent the State and for an evidentiary hearing before a different judge. I would also direct the circuit court to set aside defendant’s sentence of death, regardless of the outcome of the evidentiary hearing. 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). Accordingly, even if the circuit court determines that defendant’s post-conviction petition must fail on the merits, defendant’s death sentence cannot stand. At a minimum, defendant must be given a sentence other than death. I therefore dissent.