Court Opinion

ID: 9534450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:39:58.318202+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:30:44.052834
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, also dissenting: Barbara Thingvold, the wife of Raymond Thingvold, was stabbed to death in her home in March 1987. Previously, in April 1986, she had been the victim of a stabbing attack which occurred in the offices of the ambulance company which she and her husband operated. The person or persons who stabbed Barbara Thingvold were never ascertained. Subsequently, however, her husband, Raymond Thingvold, was convicted by a jury of the offense of soliciting his wife’s murder. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 38, pars. 3—8, 8—1.) He was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 25 years. A fair reading of the evidence in this case leaves no doubt, reasonable or otherwise, but that the verdict of the jury was correct and that Raymond Thingvold was guilty of soliciting the murder of his wife. Thingvold was not charged with the actual murder which occurred in 1987 or the attempted murder which occurred in 1986. As noted, the assailant in those stabbings was never apprehended. No direct evidence was adduced which tied defendant to those attacks. That Thingvold hired the person or persons who conducted those attacks is, however, a compelling inference. A criminal complaint was filed against Raymond Thingvold in April 1987. The complaint charged that defendant had solicited George Nalan to murder his wife sometime between December 1, 1983, and April 30, 1986. At the trial, four witnesses testified that Thingvold had separately solicited each of them to commit murder. Roger Atkinson testified that between 1974 and 1976 defendant solicited him to murder defendant’s first wife, Diane, in order for defendant to collect on an insurance policy. Sid Haffendon and James Wagaman both testified that defendant solicited them to murder defendant’s now deceased second wife, Barbara, for the purpose of collecting insurance proceeds. According to their testimony, defendant, on separate occasions, recommended to both of them that they stab Barbara in the stomach since she had recently undergone a stomach operation. Finally, George Nalan testified that between 1983 and 1986 defendant repeatedly solicited him to kill Barbara. The State also presented two police officers who testified to the stabbing attack which Barbara sustained in April 1986. When defendant testified, he stated that Nalan called him in March 1987 in an attempt to extort money. In response to this testimony, the trial court determined that defendant had opened the door to the full circumstances under which this phone call took place for the purpose of witness credibility. Nalan was recalled by the prosecution and testified that he called defendant, pursuant to police instructions, three days after Barbara was murdered in an attempt to obtain incriminating statements. This was the first time the jury learned that defendant’s wife had been murdered. The court instructed the jury that the testimony regarding Barbara’s murder was to be used for the sole purpose of witness credibility. On appeal defendant argued, as he did before the trial court, that the information charging him with solicitation failed to allege that the offense occurred within the period of the statute of limitations. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 38, par. 3—5.) Under section 3 — 5, the prosecution of the offense of felony solicitation must be commenced within three years of the occurrence of the crime. The information stated that “between the dates of December 1, 1983 and the 30th of April 1986” George Nalan was solicited by defendant to murder his wife. Defendant argued that since the information failed to allege when the last act of solicitation occurred, or that any act occurred within three years of the date on which the information was filed, the information failed to properly allege that an offense occurred within the three-year statute of limitations. The appellate court concluded that the information was not fatally flawed, as it was specific enough to enable defendant to defend against the charge of solicitation and it referred to the statutory language which tolls the running of the statute of limitations until the last act in the series is committed. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 38, par. 3—8.) Secondly, defendant contended that the testimony of Atkinson, and the evidence regarding the stabbing attack and the murder of Barbara, were erroneously admitted. The appellate court determined that testimony of Atkinson as to the solicitation to murder defendant’s first wife, Diane, was properly admitted on the basis of illustrating a common motive. The appellate court, with Justice Reinhard dissenting, further ruled, however, that the other-crimes evidence regarding defendant’s current wife, Barbara, being stabbed in April 1986 and subsequently being stabbed to death in March 1987 was erroneously admitted. The majority of this court concludes: (1) the information was defective since it did not allege that any of defendant’s actions took place within the three-year statute of limitations; (2) the testimony of Atkinson was improperly admitted since it did not support the view that defendant was motivated to have Barbara killed for insurance proceeds; (3) the evidence regarding the April 1986 stabbing attack was improperly admitted since there was no concrete evidence linking defendant to the stabbing; and (4) the murder of Barbara was improperly admitted since this is other-crimes evidence and the issue of Nalan’s credibility was not a material issue in defendant’s trial for solicitation. I respectfully disagree. In order for an information to comply with the Illinois Constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, §8), it must substantially comply with the pleading requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963. Absolute compliance is not required. (People v. Smith (1984), 99 Ill. 2d 467, 470-71.) In People v. Smith, this court stated that an information is sufficient to withstand attack at the trial court level as long as the instrument gives notice of the elements of a charge, and specifies allegations of essential facts to enable the accused to adequately prepare a defense. Smith, 99 Ill. 2d at 471. The information in the present case charged defendant with the offense of solicitation with the intent that the offense of murder be committed. Additionally, the information informed defendant that the State was basing the offense upon a series of acts performed at different times. The fact that the information did not allege a specific date on which the last act of solicitation took place, or that any of defendant’s actions took place within the previous three years, is not fatal. The information alleged the applicability of section 3 — 8, which tolls the three-year statute of limitations for solicitation until the last act of solicitation takes place. This necessarily implied, and put defendant on notice, that the State was basing its prosecution on the fact that an act of solicitation had taken place within the previous three years. Ultimately, the trial judge instructed the jury that to sustain a charge of solicitation the State had to prove that defendant had committed at least one act of solicitation within three years prior to being charged with the offense. Thus, defendant was able to adequately prepare a defense and was in no way prejudiced by the wording of the information. Regarding Atkinson’s testimony that defendant solicited him to commit the murder of defendant’s first wife, Diane, evidence of other offenses is admissible to show motive, intent, or modus operandi. (People v. Romero (1977), 66 Ill. 2d 325, 330.) The testimony of Atkinson illustrates that defendant had a common motive and modus operandi for the solicitation of murder. The underlying motivation for the murder solicitations was the collection of insurance proceeds. The mere fact that defendant was attempting to persuade Atkinson to kill his first wife, rather than his second wife, which is at issue here, is not dispositive on that point. This common motive is sufficiently parallel between the prior solicitations of Atkinson and the solicitations of Nalan to allow the introduction of Atkinson’s testimony. This testimony also shows defendant’s modus operandi. The evidence of the stabbing attack upon Barbara in April 1986 was properly admitted by the trial court. As the majority notes, in order for other-crimes evidence to be admissible, proof that defendant participated in the crime need not be beyond a reasonable doubt, but must be more than mere suspicion. In the present case, the proof goes beyond mere suspicion. It is compelling. Given the fact that the attack occurred several weeks after defendant solicited Nalan to find someone to kill his wife, and that other evidence brought out the fact that defendant had instructed individuals to stab his wife due to her recent stomach operation, this evidence was circumstantially and inferentially relevant and admissible by the trial court. The testimony of George Nalan that Barbara was stabbed to death is characterized in the majority opinion as other-crimes evidence. While it certainly is other-crimes evidence, as Justice Reinhard pointed out in his appellate court dissent, the testimony of Nalan as to his reasons for telephoning defendant was offered for the purposes of establishing Nalan’s credibility and rehabilitating him as a witness. Nalan’s testimony was the sole means by which the State could prove Nalan’s motives for calling defendant. Additionally, the trial court gave the jury a protective and limiting instruction, unnecessarily so in my view, that this evidence was to be used for the sole purpose of determining witness credibility. The evidence of Barbara’s murder should have been admissible in any event. In a situation such as this, where an individual has solicited and discussed the proposed murder of his spouse with numerous individuals, it is circumstantially relevant that the spouse is later killed in a fashion which correlates with one of the methods he discussed. The fact that the intended victim of a solicitation for murder scheme was subsequently attacked or murdered is relevant because it gives rise to an inference of a chain of events which naturally tend to corroborate the solicitation. Admittedly, such circumstantial evidence is prejudicial. Eyewitness testimony is also prejudicial. The test for admissibility, however, is not whether evidence is prejudicial. The test, rather, is whether the evidence is circumstantially relevant and material. The majority, by looking at each of the above evidentiary issues separately and in isolation, 'has determined that such evidence was improperly admitted by the trial court. When considered as a whole, however, the compelling relevance of such evidence is apparent. Standing alone, a credible argument can be made for exclusion of separate items of evidence. However, considered in the light of the totality of the chain of evidence and the linkages that are demonstrated, the pieces fall into place. To determine if evidence is relevant, the evidence must be viewed in “light of logic, experience and accepted assumptions as to human behavior.” Marut v. Costello (1966), 34 Ill. 2d 125, 128. A forest is made up of individual trees. If a person were called on to prove the existence of a forest, he might do so by presenting evidence of individual trees until a sufficient number of trees had been identified so that reasonable men would conclude that the existence of a forest had been proven. It would not be a valid evidentiary objection that this oak tree or that walnut tree was not a forest. It would be necessary to view the evidence in its totality to determine the existence of the forest. The fact that 2,000 trees considered individually are not a forest does not militate against the fact that considered collectively they are. Similarly, in the case at hand, the individual items of evidence that the slain wife, Barbara, was twice subjected to murderous stabbing attacks and that the defendant had solicited the murder of a former wife would not, standing alone and in isolation, be evidence that defendant was guilty of the instant charge of soliciting the murder of his second wife, Barbara. But, as with the illustration in the case of the forest, when all of the evidence in this case is considered in its totality, including testimony that the defendant had solicited Barbara’s murder and had recommended stabbing as the preferred method, the linkages are clear and the circumstantial inferences are compelling. The defendant in this case had a fair trial. He was justly convicted of the solicitation of the murder of his wife, Barbara. That he is also guilty of Barbara’s actual murder by a hired assassin unknown can hardly be doubted. However, he was not charged with her murder. He was charged and convicted of solicitation to commit murder. This conviction should be affirmed. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the decision of the court.