Court Opinion

ID: 9529479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:51:14.226472+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:49.044431
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE CLARK, concurring: I concur in the decision and judgment of the court, but I am concerned that the majority’s assumption, arguendo, that joint representation exists may lead to confusion and may be seen as inconsistent with our recent decision in People v. Robinson (1979), 79 Ill. 2d 147. We held there that a public defender’s office is not an entity sufficiently similar to a law firm to invoke a per se conflict of interest rule whenever two or more assistant public defenders separately represent alleged coperpetrators of an offense. Therefore, by assuming, even for the sake of argument, that joint representation exists, the majority herein accepts a thesis which has been rejected by this court. I think the preferable approach would be to decide that there was no joint representation in this case. Since the defendant hinges the presence of a conflict of interest, and consequently ineffective assistance of counsel, upon the establishment of joint representation, it would seem that once no joint representation was found, the remainder of defendant’s contentions must fail.