Court Opinion

ID: 9535569
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:50:57.642283+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:17.016159
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, also dissenting: I believe that a new trial is necessary for an additional reason. Danny Saylor’s statement to police that his sister, the defendant, had admitted participating in the crime was improperly used as impeachment evidence. At the defendant’s trial, Saylor was called as a witness by the State. Saylor had previously told police that the defendant had admitted participating in their stepfather’s murder by hitting him over the head with a pipe while her younger sister, Debbie Saylor, repeatedly stabbed him. He informed the court, however, before his testimony, that he would contradict that statement. True to his word, Danny Saylor did contradict his previous statement by testifying that it was Debbie Saylor, not the defendant, who had said that the defendant hit the victim over the head with a pipe while she, Debbie Saylor, repeatedly stabbed him — same statement, different speaker. He did testify, however, that the defendant was with Debbie Saylor at the time she made that statement to him and did not protest or contradict it. At the request of the State, the court then made him a court’s witness and allowed the State to impeach his testimony with evidence of his prior statement. Under the circumstances, impeachment evidence of any kind was inappropriate. The defendant’s brother’s testimony did not damage the State’s case. It helped it. Defendant’s silence in the face of her sister’s statement could be construed as an admission. The purpose of impeachment evidence is to discredit direct testimony. A prior inconsistent statement is admitted into evidence only to cancel out the witness’ testimony and not as substantive evidence. Otherwise it is usually hearsay. The State would have been in a worse position if both statements had been cancelled out than if Saylor’s in-court statement had been allowed to stand. It therefore had no legitimate reason to impeach his testimony with his prior statement. The State’s purpose in introducing this evidence as a prior inconsistent statement could only have been so that the jury might use it as substantive evidence of defendant’s guilt. This is impermissible. In People v. Johnson (1929), 333 Ill. 469, this court was presented with a similar situation. Prior to trial, a witness told police that she had purchased a radio, very similar to one taken in a burglary, from the defendant, who was accused of the burglary. On the stand, however, she testified that she had bought the radio, not from the defendant, but from a curly-headed friend of the defendant while in the defendant’s presence. As such, the testimony was still helpful to the State’s case, although not as helpful as the witness’ pretrial statement to the police. The court held that it was therefore not impeachable and reversed the defendant’s conviction. In People v. Chitwood (1976), 36 Ill. App. 3d 1017, a witness told police that the defendants had told her they had burglarized two schools. During the trial, however, she denied that the defendants had told her anything about the burglary. The trial judge made her a court’s witness and allowed the State to impeach her with her previous statement. On appeal, the court held that she could not be impeached by the State because there was nothing to impeach. It quoted Professor McCormick: “ ‘An affirmative answer would have been material and subject to be impeached by an inconsistent statement, but a negative answer is not damaging to the examiner, but merely disappointing, and may not be thus impeached. In this situation the policy involved is *** the protection of the other party against the hearsay use by the jury of the previous statement.’ (McCormick, Evidence sec. 36 (2d ed. 1972) (footnotes omitted).)” 36 Ill. App. 3d 1017, 1025. I think Johnson and Chitwood represent proper rejections of the use of prior statements under the circumstances presented by this case, and I would follow them.