Court Opinion

ID: 9711021
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:23:01.734543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:01.704950
License: Public Domain

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE GREEN, dissenting: I share the majority’s concern with the breadth of the in limine order. However, I have difficulty in conceiving how it prevented the introduction of much competent evidence or any that the defendant intended to offer. A law enforcement officer testifying on behalf of the prosecution may be impeached by evidence that he holds prejudice against a class of people to whom the defendant belongs. (McCormick, Evidence §40, at 78 (2d ed. 1972); 81 Am. Jur. 2d Witnesses §557 (1976).) In United States v. Kartman (9th Cir. 1969), 417 F.2d 893, the court of appeals held the district court to have erred in prohibiting the defense from cross-examining a government witness as to whether he bore a prejudice against anti-war demonstrators, a group to which the defendant belonged. In the case on review, the trial court did permit the defendant to ask one of the police officers if he bore a prejudice against blacks. The in limine order would have prevented the defendant from introducing evidence of any of the officers’ prejudice against blacks as shown by prior conduct. Neither at trial nor on review, however, has the defendant shown that he intended to use this type of evidence for impeachment or that he was prevented from doing so. Defendant did complain at trial that the in limine order would prevent him from presenting his defense of “compulsion.” In People v. Unger (1977), 66 Ill. 2d 333, 362 N.E.2d 319, an accused had been tried for escape from a penal institution. He presented evidence that other inmates had sexually attacked, beaten and threatened him with death and testified that he was afraid to report this to prison authorities for fear of reprisal from other inmates. At trial that accused had requested an instruction on the defense of compulsion. The supreme court ruled that the proper defense was that of necessity and that the jury should have been instructed on that defense. At the first trial defendant testified that (1) Officer Schweighart, when arresting him, grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him; (2) because he feared Schweighart was trying to break his arm, he pulled it loose and the two then fell to the ground. Defendant also offered testimony at that trial that Officer Schweighart had a reputation for treating blacks roughly in making an arrest. He offered this evidence to show that that officer was likely to have been rough on the occasion in question, thus supporting defendant’s theory of what happened. The in limine order would have prevented the defendant from offering this evidence of alleged prior misconduct at the second trial. The defendant’s theory of “compulsion” or necessity was apparently the theory that he was justified in pulling away from the police officer in order to prevent the officer from breaking his arm. Evidence of prior aggression by an individual to prove that individual was likely to have been an aggressor on a subsequent occasion is admissible only on behalf of a defendant in a homicide case to prove aggression by the victim. (McCormick, Evidence §193, at 461 (2d ed. 1972).) It would not have been admissible in the instant case. The application of the order did not restrict the defendant from the use of admissible evidence to prove his claimed defense in this way. This case illustrates the difficulties encountered by a trial judge in attempting to conduct the criminal trial of a pro se defendant charged with conduct arising out of a social protest when the defendant exhibits a compulsion to carry the protest into the courtroom. The thrust of the defendant’s objection to the in limine order was that it prevented him from doing this. In his brief on appeal, he cites the order as being erroneous because it deprived him of due process, equal protection, the right of confrontation, and “most importantly” freedom of speech and the right to petition for redress of grievances by preventing him from raising the issue of why he was protesting. No authority has been called to our attention which supports defendant’s contention that he had a right to explain to the jury his reasons for being present at Douglass Center. No logical reason for that proposition has been advanced. One may not exonerate himself from social protest civil disobedience which amounts to a crime on the grounds that the civil disobedience was for a just cause. The in limine order properly excluded reference to defendant’s reasons for being present. Trial judges should be cautious in entering broad in limine orders. Before doing so, they would be well advised, particularly in criminal cases involving pro se defendants, to attempt to anticipate proper evidence that might be excluded by the order even though the defendant does not indicate his intention to use such evidence. Here, the trial judge carefully examined each aspect of the order and permitted the defendant to be heard separately as to each. None of his objections were directly in point. Because there is little conceivable proper evidence that the order would have excluded and no showing that defendant intended to introduce such evidence, I do not consider the entry of the order to have been reversible error. The court properly gave the Prim instruction. I would affirm.