Court Opinion

ID: 9863342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 03:51:56.091667+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:41:42.701220
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE GARCIA, specially concurring: I agree completely with Justice McBride’s opinion. I write separately to answer the defendant’s claim that defense counsel was incompetent in promising to the jury that the defendant would testify and then advising the defendant not to take the stand. Defense counsel’s representation was not deficient because the record sufficiently demonstrates that “sound trial strategy required [defense counsel] to break [his] promise that the defendant would testify.” People v. Briones, 352 Ill. App. 3d 913, 919, 816 N.E.2d 1120 (2004). When a defendant is called to decide whether to testify, defense counsel must be free to give an honest, straightforward assessment of the adduced evidence without having defense counsel’s performance labeled deficient should counsel’s advice be contrary to a promise made to the jury in opening statements. Unlike Briones and the authorities cited therein that placed the explanation for the attorneys’ broken promises that the defendants would testify on incompetence, here the record supports a finding that the promise made and broken were products of reasonable trial strategy. When defense counsel told the jury that the defendant would testify that the “sexual conduct between himself and the victim” was not a crime, that promise stemmed from the defendant’s claim that the victim “consented” to the defendant’s sexual conduct. Defense counsel told the jury that the defendant and the victim knew each other, had consensual sex that night, and the defendant had prior “relations with the victim.” The reasonable inference to be drawn from the record is that the genesis of those assertions lies with the defendant. In light of the defense claimed by the defendant, it was reasonable for defense counsel to make the promise to the jury in his opening statement that the defendant would testify in an effort to keep the mind of the jury open during the State’s case. When the time came for the defendant to fulfill the promise made on his behalf to the jury, defense counsel also acted reasonably in advising him not to testify in light of counsel’s then assessment of the adduced evidence that the defendant would not benefit by testifying. See People v. Manning, 334 Ill. App. 3d 882, 892, 778 N.E.2d 1222 (2002) (defendant’s claim of ineffectiveness of counsel claim rejected because defendant’s decision not to testify was the result of trial strategy). That the defendant did not take the stand and make his “consent” claims directly to the jury reflects nothing more than a change of mind by the defendant. At the conclusion of the State’s case in chief, defense counsel was correct in his assessment that the defendant had little to gain by testifying. There is little likelihood the defendant’s version would have held up to cross-examination. See People v. Garrett, 44 Ill. App. 3d 429, 437, 358 N.E.2d 364 (1976), quoting 5 J. Wig-more, Evidence §1367, at 32 (Chadbourn rev. ed. 1974) (according to Wigmore, cross-examination is “ ‘the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth’ ”). If anything, his testimony would have made the jury’s decision easier: with the defendant’s “consent” testimony, the question before the jury would have been which of the two irreconcilable versions was credible. True, the defendant now claims he merely followed defense counsel’s advice not to testify, but counsel’s advice gave the defendant the opening he needed to extricate himself from his hopeless defense of consent. While I agree that defense counsel should strive to demonstrate “in the record that *** sound trial strategy required [defense counsel] to break [his] promise that the defendant would testify” (Briones, 352 Ill. App. 3d at 919), I conclude the record supports such a finding here. Defense counsel’s performance was not deficient either when he made the promise to the jury that the defendant would testify, based on the defendant’s claim of consent, which must have originated with the defendant, or when counsel advised the defendant not to testify, based on defense counsel’s then assessment that the defendant’s version could not withstand cross-examination. Each decision by defense counsel was the product of reasonable trial strategy, though the change in strategy at the conclusion of the State’s case in chief served different interests of the defendant than the promise of his testimony during opening statements. That said, I believe either defense counsel or the trial judge, during the colloquy on whether the defendant would take the stand, should have remarked that his decision to forego testifying would raise a conflict with the promise made to the jury during opening statements, an admonishment that might have gone a long way to rebutting the claim of ineffectiveness of trial counsel the defendant now makes before us.