Court Opinion

ID: 9711823
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:40:05.689769+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:07.758705
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE MYERSCOUGH, specially concurring: The other-crimes evidence was sufficiently similar to establish modus operandi and may have gone to state of mind as well. Both crimes occurred about the same time in the same area of Springfield, both victims were young females and were walking, both were followed by a vehicle from which the driver alighted, the man held a knife to the throats of both victims, both victims were forced into a vehicle, both victims were driven around and eventually released, and both victims identified defendant as the perpetrator. The dissimilarities are distinctions without a difference. Defendant was obviously driving a different vehicle — the crime occurred 10 years later. The only distinction in the knife was a matter of inches, perhaps a mere inaccurate guess on the victims’ parts. There was no evidence of a different type of knife. The victims were 14 and 19, both very young women of ages generally indistinguishable. Moreover, there was no pistol in the first incident — only a plastic toy gun. See 335 Ill. App. 3d at 776. (“ ‘a plastic silver pistol’ ”). In addition, the majority is clearly incorrect in stating that neither the State nor the trial court could conceive of how the sexual assault in the first crime could be admissible and, therefore, the State did not seek to admit the evidence of the sexual assault. The record states that the trial court’s ruling on defendant’s pretrial motion in limine allowed for the admission of defendant’s previous conviction, including the sexual assault, if defendant chose to testify that he was on electronic monitoring at the time of the second crime as part of his defense. The trial court reasoned that if defendant testified to being on electronic monitoring, it would be less prejudicial to allow the State to introduce the evidence of the 1990 conviction than to allow the jury to speculate as to why defendant was on electronic monitoring. The trial court further stated that the evidence supported its belief that this second crime was a “trial run,” perhaps further explaining why there was no sexual assault in the instant crime. However, defendant did not testify, so the prior sexual assault was not introduced. I also believe the reference to defendant as a “bad man” based on both crimes was fair discourse. I would affirm outright.