Court Opinion

ID: 9819051
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:18:09.311961+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:29.034824
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE FREEMAN, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. Defendant filed his petition for post-conviction relief on August 15, 1996. At that time, the law in this state provided an automatic rule of reversal for those defendants who were entitled to a fitness hearing by virtue of their ingestion of psychotropic drugs. See People v. Nitz, 173 Ill. 2d 151 (1996); People v. Birdsall, 172 Ill. 2d 464 (1996) ; People v. Brandon, 162 Ill. 2d 450 (1994). By .the time the parties completed the briefing in this case, in June 1999, the law had changed from one of automatic reversed to a case-specific inquiry. See People v. Burgess, 176 Ill. 2d 289 (1997); People v. Neal, 179 Ill. 2d 541 (1997) . Unfortunately for defendant, this court has again changed the law in this area by virtue of the recent decision in People v. Mitchell, 189 Ill. 2d 312 (2000). This latest change occurred after the parties had oral argument in this case. In Mitchell, this court held, contrary to prior precedent, that a psychotropic drug claim couched in terms of a denial of due process is not cognizable under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act. The court further held that, in order to establish ineffective assistance of counsel for counsel’s failure to request the statutorily mandated fitness hearing, a defendant must show that such a hearing would have resulted in a finding that defendant was, in fact, unfit. I dissented in Mitchell, arguing that the decision was contrary to stare decisis. See Mitchell, 189 Ill. 2d at 362-63 (Freeman, J., dissenting, joined by Harrison, C.J., and McMorrow, J.). I continue to believe that the court’s action in Mitchell was unwarranted and would, therefore, decide this appeal, along with its procedural complexities, on the basis of the law as it stood prior to the issuance of Mitchell. See Mitchell, 189 Ill. 2d at 393-94 (Freeman, J., dissenting, joined by Harrison, C.J., and McMorrow, J.). Notwithstanding the above, I also take issue with deciding this appeal without the benefit of ordering the parties to rebrief the issue in light of Mitchell. Just as in Mitchell, defendant here has not been heard in this court’s sua sponte debate over the correctness of Brandon and its progeny. See Mitchell, 189 Ill. 2d at 362-63 (Freeman, J., dissenting, joined by Harrison, C.J., and McMorrow, J.). At the same time that the Mitchell appeal was under advisement, several similar cases were also under advisement. As such, the briefing in those cases was completed prior to the date Mitchell was released. Each of the defendants in those cases is affected by the change in law precipitated by the decision. In this case, as in our recent case of People v. Moore, 189 Ill. 2d 521 (2000), the law changed in mid-appeal. I demonstrated in my dissent in Moore the debilitating effect the change of law had on defendant Moore’s burden of proof. See Moore, 189 Ill. 2d at 546-47 (Freeman, J., dissenting, joined by McMorrow, J.). The change in law caused by Mitchell is even more harmful to this defendant because the court today rules entirely on procedural grounds that did not exist at the time defendant filed his brief and argued the case. CHIEF JUSTICE HARRISON and JUSTICE McMORROW join in this dissent.