Court Opinion

ID: 9727937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:53:12.836285+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:44.387048
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE STOUDER, dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the views of my colleagues in this case. Where, as in this case, a defendant has been found not guilty because of the State’s failure to introduce evidence, then, in my opinion, the State has no right of appeal. My views have been set forth at length in my dissenting opinion in People v. Deems (3d Dist., No. 77-520, filed July 19, 1979), and they will not be restated here. The majority opinion proceeds as if this were an appeal by a plaintiff in the ordinary civil case without any special regard that this case is a criminal case and the rights of appeal by the State are limited in such a case. The opinion of the majority also suggests that a state’s attorney has unlimited discretion in the control of a criminal case which can not be interfered with by a judge, or, in other words, a judge has no function in enforcing the rules of court regarding the manner in which cases are brought to trial. I find no support for such a contention and in Deems I have indicated that this is not the rule. To suggest that the judge has no function in the orderly administration of the affairs of his court would cloak the state’s attorney with the authority to be judge as well as prosecutor. So far as the procedure in this case is concerned, the trial judge concluded that the case had been set for trial, the defendant was present in open court ready to proceed, and most critically, the prosecution was well aware of the illness of its principal witness before the morning of the trial and could have sought a continuance before it did so on the morning of trial. If the State had its witnesses present and the defendant moved for a continuance under similar circumstances and such continuance were denied, we would have approved the court’s exercise of its discretion. This being the case, I fail to see how the trial court abused its discretion in recognizing that the prosecution owed the court the same duty as a defendant to seek timely continuances. If a continuance was not timely sought, the motion should be denied and the trial proceed. The trial did proceed, and in view of the failure of the State to present any evidence, resulted in a judgment of not guilty, a decision on the merits of the charge and hence not appealable.