Court Opinion

ID: 9744830
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:18:27.185201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:52.331739
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which concludes that the defendant’s death sentence must be vacated. The majority concludes that the instructions given to the jury at the first stage of the sentencing hearing were deficient and thus erroneous since the jury was not instructed as to the defendant’s intent. Although language regarding the defendant’s intent was not given at the sentencing hearing, such error was harmless for two reasons. First, because it is obvious from the record that the defendant intended to kill the victim, whom he stabbed in the chest and robbed. Second, because the sentencing jury had been fully instructed as to the defendant’s intent at the trial itself. At trial, the same jury returned a general verdict finding the defendant guilty of murder. Such a general verdict raises the presumption that the finding of the jury was that the defendant intentionally murdered the victim. People v. Thompkins (1988), 121 Ill. 2d 401, 456. Based on the foregoing, it is not possible that, at the sentencing stage, the jury could have been misled by the instructions into finding defendant eligible for the death penalty without believing that defendant killed the victim with the requisite intent or culpable mental state. Accordingly, any error in the eligibility instructions was harmless. People v. Jones (1979), 81 Ill. 2d 1,10. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.