Court Opinion

ID: 9742547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:15:41.798264+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:33.514462
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CARTER, specially concurring: I concur with the majority’s legal analysis and decision. I am specially concurring because of the comments regarding the trial court’s reference to People v. Willock, No. 3—99—0227 (October 6, 2000) (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23). As noted in the majority opinion, the trial judge in this case had been the trial judge in Willock, where his trial decision was reversed. Although it is well known that an unpublished order of the appellate court is not precedential (166 Ill. 2d R. 23(e)), it is not unusual, nor surprising, for a trial judge to refer to one of his cases, not as precedential, but perhaps as persuasive authority. The whole unpublished-opinion doctrine has always raised the question, how much deference does a trial judge give to an appellate court’s decision on an issue that comes before him again when, like it or not, he has already been given guidance by the appellate court on the same or similar issues. The judge in that situation is obviously under no obligation to follow the unpublished decision because it lacks the force of true precedent. However, unlike the decision of a court of another jurisdiction, which normally depends upon the case’s legal reasoning for its influence, an unpublished decision on an issue from the same trial judge tends to have a type of hybrid extra persuasive influence. That kind of unpublished decision of a superior court in the same judicial hierarchy causes the trial judge to consider it in the real world. In my experience, trial judges do not simply ignore cases from the appellate court, especially when they were the trial judge, regardless of whether the case was published or unpublished. That approach is especially true when the published opinions on the issues perhaps give less guidance than the unpublished decision. Thus, in this case, where this panel of the appellate court is treating an issue differently than a previous panel in an unpublished decision, it is understandable that at the trial level, the judge made a reference to the earlier case. For the reasons stated, I specially concur.