Court Opinion

ID: 9819047
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:18:08.300569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:28.993464
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE FREEMAN, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. Defendant filed his petition on July 10, 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 1998, the law had changed from one of automatic reversal to a case-specific inquiry. See People v. Burgess, 176 Ill. 2d 289 (1997); People v. Neal, 179 Ill. 2d 541 (1997). The parties argued the case before this court in September 1998. Unfortunately for defendant, 16 months later, this court again changed the law in this area in People v. Mitchell, 189 Ill. 2d 312 (2000). In Mitchell, this court held, contrary to 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 the outcome of the 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 363 (Freeman, J., dissenting, joined by Harrison, C.J. and McMorrow, J.). Consistent with that dissent, I continue to believe that the court’s action in Mitchell was unwarranted. I, therefore, would 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 395 (Freeman, J., dissenting, joined by Harrison, C.J., and McMorrow, J.); People v. Jones, 191 Ill. 2d 194, 202-03 (2000) (Freeman, J., dissenting, joined by Harrison, C.J. and McMorrow, J.). That said, I wish to again stress the continued unfortunate and unjust result of the court’s decision in Mitchell. In this case, as in our recent case of People v. Jones, 191 Ill. 2d 194 (2000), the law changed in mid-appeal. This change in law harms this defendant, as it did defendant Jones, because the court today rules on procedural grounds that did not exist at the time defendant’s attorneys filed his brief and argued the case. See Jones, 191 Ill. 2d at 203 (Freeman, J., dissenting, joined by Harrison, C.J., and McMorrow, J.). My colleagues today hold that defendant’s allegations and supporting affidavits do not establish “prejudice resulting from his trial counsel’s failure to request a fitness hearing.” 191 Ill. 2d at 359. Frankly, I am not surprised that defendant’s post-conviction evidence does not meet this high standard because at the time defendant filed his petition, this was not the standard to be utilized in such cases. All that was required under our case law to succeed on such a claim was evidence showing the defendant’s ingestion of a psychotropic drug under medical direction at the time of the proceedings. Defendant’s claim fails today simply because at the time he pleaded his Brandon claim defendant did not have the foresight to know that this court would, almost one and one-half years after the date of his oral argument, raise the quantum of evidence necessary to assert a successful ineffective assistance of counsel claim. CHIEF JUSTICE HARRISON and JUSTICE McMORROW join in this dissent.