Court Opinion

ID: 9729443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:35:46.355876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:58.211376
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree that we should affirm defendant’s convictions, vacate his death sentence, and remand this cause to the circuit court for resentencing. Contrary to the majority, however, I do not believe that the State should be permitted to seek the death penalty on remand. For the reasons set forth in my dissent in People v. Bull, 185 Ill. 2d 179 (1998), Illinois’ present death penalty law violates the eighth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution (U.S. Const., amends. VIII, XIV) and article I, section 2, of the Illinois Constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 2) and is therefore unenforceable. In reaching this conclusion, I am fully aware that my six colleagues have voted unanimously to uphold this state’s capital sentencing scheme, notwithstanding the undisputed fact that it will inevitably lead to the execution of innocent persons. See People v. Bull, 185 Ill. 2d at 215-18; People v. Brown, 185 Ill. 2d 229, 260-61 (1998). If the majority’s view involved nothing more than a dispute over a legal point, e.g., the construction of a statute, I would normally feel constrained to adhere to its position no matter how misguided I felt it to be. Once the court has ruled on a question of law and its members have had the chance to voice their disagreement, the majority’s ruling becomes the law of the state and is binding in all pending and future cases. No further dissents are appropriate. People v. Kidd, 175 Ill. 2d 1, 59 (1996) (Harrison, J., dissenting). The situation here, however, is qualitatively different. The flaw in Illinois’ death penalty law goes beyond questions of statutory construction, legal interpretation, or judicial philosophy. The problem inheres in the system itself. Experience has shown that the present mechanism for handling capital offenses simply does not work in a just and reliable way. Under these circumstances, the result in every death case is suspect, and no sentence of death should be allowed to stand. For the foregoing reasons, the circuit court should be directed on remand to impose a sentence other than death.