Court Opinion

ID: 9745532
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 23:08:14.137199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:02.359859
License: Public Domain

CHIEF JUSTICE CLARK, concurring in part and dissenting in part: The majority finds that the sentencing judge considered evidence of the defendant’s traumatic youth as a relevant mitigating factor and therefore complied with the mandate of Eddings v. Oklahoma (1982), 455 U.S. 104, 71 L. Ed. 2d 1, 102 S. Ct. 869. (111 Ill. 2d at 167.) The record simply does not sustain this conclusion. The majority observes that the trial court, when imposing the sentence, concluded that only one mitigating factor existed that could be balanced against the aggravating factors present: the fact that the defendant was under extreme mental distress at the time of the offense. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1983, ch. 38, par. 9 — 1(c)(2).) It defies all logic to assume, as the majority does here, that inasmuch as the sentencing judge considered the mental distress the defendant was under at the time of the offense, it also follows that the judge considered the defendant’s traumatic youth in mitigation “and its contribution, if any, to the mental disturbance existing at the time that the crime was committed.” (111 Ill. 2d at 168.) The record is conspicuously void of any objective evidence to support the majority’s assumption, which I find particularly egregious since the defendant’s life literally hangs in balance upon its error. The majority apparently sees fit to second-guess the mental processes of the sentencing judge. It should be noted that in determining that no other mitigating factors existed, the sentencing judge stated for the record: “The Court has given great consideration to whether other mitigating factors exist. This Court is unable to determine the existence of any mitigating factors within or without the statute with the exception [of defendant’s extreme mental distress at the time of the offense] that I have noted.” From this statement, it is clear that the sentencing judge did not consider in mitigation the substantial evidence of the defendant’s troubled youth. I conclude, therefore, that the sentencing determination violated the constitutional standards of Eddings v. Oklahoma (1982), 455 U.S. 104, 71 L. Ed. 2d 1, 102 S. Ct. 869. For this reason, I would vacate the defendant’s sentence of death and remand the cause for a new sentencing hearing.