Court Opinion

ID: 9517420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:16:30.360393+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:48:43.682096
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE KUEHN, specially concurring: I concur in the majority opinion. I write separately to underscore the absence of a strategy that can be deemed sound and to emphasize the importance of making a record when counsel pursues a course that touches upon a decision that only the defendant can make. Whether or not a lesser-included offense is submitted for decision is a defendant’s call. People v. Brocksmith, 162 Ill. 2d 224, 229-30, 642 N.E.2d 1230, 1233 (1994). Thus, when the evidence would support the submission of lesser-included offenses for consideration yet an all-or-nothing strategy is pursued, it would seem to be good practice to make a record of the defendant’s desire to forego decision on any of the lesser-included offenses. This is particularly so when the charge is first-degree murder and the evidence will support a finding of involuntary manslaughter. The dissipation of criminal culpability, and its attendant punishments, is nowhere greater than when dealing with a homicide committed recklessly, as opposed to being committed with knowledge that death or great bodily harm will ensue from certain acts. When defense counsel tenders a defense that, if believed, constitutes involuntary manslaughter, counsel fails to provide the kind of representation that the constitution contemplates, if he fails to make involuntary manslaughter a potential outcome, tendered for decision. This is even more the case when the decision is left to a judge, schooled in the law. Presumably, a judge would know that what the defendant claimed to have occurred, as a matter of law, constitutes a crime. The defendant’s version of what happened simply does not absolve him of criminal responsibility. Thus, the tendered defense left the judge with a certain decision, uncluttered by the possibility that the defendant committed involuntary manslaughter, recklessly disregarding a substantial risk of harm by introducing a loaded gun into the affray, a gun that he very well may have discharged accidently, rather than intentionally. The judge had no alternative but to convict the defendant of first-degree murder. On remand, the trier of fact will have the opportunity to find the defendant guilty of the crime that he claims to have committed. For the reasons stated, I respectfully concur.