Court Opinion

ID: 9706506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:45:07.607978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:23.200989
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HUTCHINSON, dissenting: I continue to dissent. As I stated in my previous dissent, I believe that defendant was denied a fair and impartial trial due to the prosecutorial misconduct that occurred during State’s Attorney Glen Weber’s rebuttal closing argument. The Johnson decision does nothing short of further cementing my belief that defendant is entitled to a new trial. In Johnson, our supreme court applied the principles and standards of review utilized in Blue to determine whether the cumulative effect of alleged prosecutorial misconduct and trial error had deprived the defendants of a fundamentally fair trial warranting reversal despite “overwhelming evidence” of their guilt. Johnson, 208 Ill. 2d at 60. In the present case, the trial was all but over. The jury was to hear no more evidence. The jurors had already heard a closing argument from Weber and a responsive closing argument from defense counsel. Their attention turned back to and focused on Weber. Weber approached and began his rebuttal closing argument. The stage belonged to Weber. Free from interruption, free from any surresponse by defense counsel. Whereupon Weber proceeded to attack defendant’s constitutional right to a jury trial (see U.S. Const., amend VI) and arguably his presumption of innocence (see Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Criminal, No. 2.03 (4th ed. 2000)) when he told the jury that defendant could have chosen to do what “80 to 90 percent of [defendants do in this county” and that is “they be honest [and] forthright,” and “[t]hey go into the courtroom and they plead guilty.” Next, Weber attacked the veracity of defendant and defense witnesses (see Slabaugh, 323 Ill. App. 3d at 729). He then used a metaphor to liken defendant to an animal, a “rat in a maze.” This was clearly improper. See Johnson, 208 Ill. 2d at 80, citing People v. Johnson, 119 Ill. 2d 119, 139 (1987). Weber concluded by asking the jury to “send [defendant] a message,” yet another exhortation questioned in Johnson. See Johnson, 208 Ill. 2d at 86-87. One cannot unring a bell. See People v. Rivera, 277 Ill. App. 3d 811, 819 (1986); see also People v. Brown, 27 Ill. App. 3d 891, 897-98 (1975), citing Maness v. Meyers, 419 U.S. 449, 460, 42 L. Ed. 2d 574, 584, 95 S. Ct. 584, 592 (1975). In this case, though, the jury was subjected not to a bell but to a constant cacophony of prosecutorial misconduct of constitutional proportions. In my view, Weber’s rebuttal closing argument created a “ ‘negative synergistic effect, rendering the degree of overall unfairness to defendant more than that flowing from the sum of the individual errors.’ ” Johnson, 208 Ill. 2d at 65, quoting People v. Hill, 17 Cal. 4th 800, 847, 952 P.2d 673, 699, 72 Cal. Rptr. 2d 656, 682 (1998). Because all of these errors occurred during rebuttal, Weber’s vitriolic words were the last the jury heard from either party before retiring to deliberate. Therein lies the real prejudice. See generally Thirty-Second Annual Review of Criminal Procedure: Prosecutorial Misconduct, 91 Geo. L.J. 556 (May 2003) (providing an overview of improper comments by prosecutors). This case clearly illustrates the problem of “prosecutorial recidivism,” that is, “the tendency of the same prosecutor or office to engage in misconduct repeatedly, even in the face of admonishments from the court.” P. Speigelman, Prosecutorial Misconduct in Closing Argument: The Role of Intent in Appellate Review, 1 J. App. Prac. & Process 115, 120 (1999). Our past admonitions to Weber and his characterization of another defendant in another case as a “rat in a maze” (see People v. Doll, No. 2 — 02—0564 slip op. at 15 (2003) (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23) (Gilleran Johnson, J., specially concurring, joined by McLaren, J.)) lead me to conclude that Weber’s conduct in the present case consisted of nothing less than “a calculated course of action to play upon and incite the emotions *** of the jury.” People v. Williams, 161 Ill. 2d 1, 81 (1994). Rather than discussing the quantum of evidence presented supporting defendant’s guilt and applying waiver principles, I submit that the majority should have invoked the plain-error rule to review all of defendant’s allegations of prosecutorial misconduct that were not properly preserved. See Johnson, 208 Ill. 2d at 64. Waiver is a limitation on the parties, not the court. Blue, 189 Ill. 2d at 127, citing People v. Kliner, 185 Ill. 2d 81, 127 (1998). I believe that defendant’s interest in receiving a fair trial and our overall interest in preserving the integrity of the judicial process warranted excusing the procedural default. I further believe that Weber’s misconduct during his rebuttal argument viewed in its entirety was sufficient in and of itself to require reversal. I believe that defendant was deprived of what he was entitled to receive and what the State was constitutionally required to provide: a fair trial. For the reasons set forth in my original dissent and for these reasons now, I continue to respectfully dissent.