Court Opinion

ID: 9714042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:29:17.685792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:22.949375
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE RAKOWSKI, specially concurring: I part company with the majority’s statement: “the prosecution flirts with error when its closing arguments depict defendants as being evil persons and victims as being good persons.” 295 111. App. 3d at 467. I would think that most reasonable people would agree that this senseless murder was evil, brutal, and in cold blood as depicted by the State. Moreover, to call the defendant evil, wicked, and vicious is completely proper. Webster defines “evil” as “morally reprehensible”; “sinful [and] wicked”; “arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct”; “causing discomfort or repulsion”; “offensive”; “disagreeable”; “causing harm”; “something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 402 (10th ed. 1996). All of these terms aptly portray defendant’s conduct. Nor do I find anything improper in the prosecution’s charge to the jury that it is their duty “to send a message to the likes of Michael Williams and to say that we are governed by the rule of law.” I agree in all other respects with the majority opinion. I write separately only to express my opinion that the prosecution’s argument and remarks were completely proper under the facts of this case.