Court Opinion

ID: 9860302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:17:31.73881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:20:40.776988
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE STEIGMANN, specially concurring: Although I agree with the majority opinion, I write specially to indicate my disagreement with Daniels to the extent that it could be read as standing for the proposition that the failure of a trial court to obtain a written jury waiver constitutes automatic reversible error of a conviction obtained at a bench trial. The primary cases upon which Daniels relied, Jennings and Nuccio, are both erroneous. In Nuccio, the defendant argued that he could not be held to have acquiesced in his counsel’s waiver of jury trial made outside defendant’s presence. Defendant further argued that he did not waive his right to a jury trial simply by remaining silent during trial. (Nuccio, 263 Ill. App. 3d at 316, 636 N.E.2d at 1155.) The Second District Appellate Court chose not to address that issue on its merits but instead decided the issue based on the court’s reading of section 115 — 1 of the Code (725 ILCS 5/115 — 1 (West 1992)). The appellate court held that defendant’s jury waiver was defective because he never executed a written jury waiver, as required by section 115 — 1 of the Code. The Nuccio decision does not indicate whether defendant failed to raise the jury waiver issue in a post-trial motion. In Jennings, as in the present case, the defendant failed to raise this issue in his post-trial motion, but the Third District Appellate Court rejected the State’s waiver argument in the following two-sentence analysis: "Supreme Court Rule 615(a) provides that 'defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the trial court.’ [Citations.] The right to a jury trial is a substantial right, and issues regarding the waiver of that right should be considered even when not properly preserved. People v. Watson (1993), 246 Ill. App. 3d 548, 616 N.E.2d 649.” Jennings, 268 Ill. App. 3d at 444, 644 N.E.2d at 1203. • There are at least two things wrong with this analysis. First, Watson dealt with a purported jury waiver made by defense counsel outside of the presence of the defendant, and the appellate court held that the record failed to establish that the defendant knowingly and voluntarily surrendered his right to a jury trial. However, in Jennings, as in Daniels, no claim exists that the defendant did not knowingly and voluntarily waive his right to a jury trial; instead, in Daniels, the defendant merely claims that he did not execute a written jury waiver. Second, the statement of the third district that "[t]he right to a jury trial is a substantial right” (268 Ill. App. 3d at 444, 644 N.E.2d at 1203) and, therefore, defects affecting this substantial right may be noticed as plain error under Supreme Court Rule 615(a) is, at best, disingenuous. The issue both in Jennings and in Daniels had nothing to do with whether the defendant knowingly waived a substantial right (namely, his right to a jury trial). The issue really is simply one of the consequences of the trial court’s failure to comply with a prophylactic rule (signing a written jury waiver) designed to impress upon the defendant the importance of the action he is taking. To put the matter another way, section 115 — 1 of the Code need not require that a jury waiver be in writing, and if it did not so require, no "substantial right” would have been presented to this court in Daniels or to the third district in Jennings. When so viewed, it is clear that we are dealing with a statutory right, not a constitutional one. If this is so, how does a trial court’s failure to enforce the defendant’s statutory right (by ensuring that he sign a jury waiver) constitute automatic plain error under Rule 615(a)? Such a holding would not comport with Enoch, which held that under Rule 615(a), "any error, defect, irregularity or variance which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded.” Enoch, 122 Ill. 2d at 189, 522 N.E.2d at 1131. As a last point, note that section 115 — 1 of the Code did not always read as it does presently. Prior to its amendment in 1987, it simply provided that all prosecutions shall be tried by a jury "or the court when a jury is waived by the defendant in open court.” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1985, ch. 38, par. 115 — 1.) In 1987, the legislature added the language requiring a defendant to execute a jury waiver in writing as part of other changes which permitted a bench trial only when both "the State and the defendant waive such jury trial in writing” in certain prosecutions. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 38, par. 115 — 1.) Subsequently, the supreme court voided that portion of the statute when the court held that the State’s right to insist upon a jury trial violated the Illinois Constitution. (See People ex rel. Daley v. Joyce (1988), 126 Ill. 2d 209, 533 N.E.2d 873.) As a result, the legislature deleted the now-unconstitutional provisions from that section but left the language about defendant’s waiving a jury trial "in writing.” Ill. Rev. Stat. 1991, ch. 38, par. 115 — 1 (as amended by Pub. Act 87 — 410, eff. January 1, 1992 (1991 Ill. Laws 2029)). This brief legislative history reveals that the second and third districts seriously erred when they created their "automatic reversible error” assessments in Nuccio and Jennings; the legislature never intended any such thing. In Daniels and the present case, this court addressed a prophylactic statutory rule, and the majority opinion now constitutes a rejection of both Nuccio and Jennings.