Court Opinion

ID: 9518799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:02:14.560724+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:21.001401
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, specially concurring: I concur in the majority’s affirmance of defendant’s murder convictions and death sentence. I write separately, however, because one of the two factors upon which defendant was found eligible for the death penalty cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. A jury found defendant eligible for the death penalty on two separate grounds: defendant was convicted of murdering two or more persons (720 ILCS 5/9 — 1(b)(3) (West 1994)), and defendant committed the murders in a “cold, calculated and premeditated manner pursuant to a preconceived plan, scheme or design” (720 ILCS 5/9— 1(b)(11) (West 1994)). The majority rejects defendant’s constitutional challenge to this second eligibility factor, holding section 9 — 1(b)(11) is not unconstitutionally vague. I disagree. As I wrote recently in People v. Williams, 193 Ill. 2d 1, 58 (2000) (Heiple, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), the phrase “preconceived plan, scheme or design” defies explicit definition. A finding that the murder was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner pursuant to a preconceived plan, scheme, or design to take a human life does little more than describe the mens rea of any intentional murder. It is difficult to imagine a case of intentional murder in which the evidence would not be sufficient for such a finding. Indeed, if premeditation did not in fact exist to some extent, it might be argued that the killing was accidental or inadvertent. I fail to see how the phrase “preconceived plan, scheme or design” provides any greater limitation upon a sentencer’s discretion. “It is unclear from the language of the statute whether a defendant must have harbored the plan to kill for a second, a minute, an hour, or some other undefined period. Where the language of the statute is so vague that this court is incapable of formulating a standard for its application, such a statute necessarily provides insufficient guidance to a sentencer charged with determining whether a defendant is eligible to be put to death.” Williams, 193 Ill. 2d at 61 (Heiple, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Thus, as I concluded in Williams, the statute fails to provide sufficient guidance to a sentencer and is unconstitutionally vague. I would affirm defendant’s eligibility for the death penalty based solely on the fact that defendant committed two or more murders. See 720 ILCS 5/9 — 1(b)(3) (West 1994).