People v. Flowers

• Decision Date: 18 December 1989
• Docket Number: No. 1-86-2441,1-86-2441
• Citation: 192 Ill.App.3d 292,139 Ill.Dec. 381,548 N.E.2d 766
• Parties: , 139 Ill.Dec. 381 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Marvin A. FLOWERS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 766

548 N.E.2d 766

192 Ill.App.3d 292, 139 Ill.Dec. 381

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Marvin A. FLOWERS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-86-2441.

Appellate Court of Illinois,

First District, First Division.

Dec. 18, 1989.

Supplemental Opinion Dec. 18, 1989.

Randolph N. Stone, Public Defender of Cook County, Chicago (Robert P. Isaacson, Asst. Public Defender, James B. Haddad of Northwestern University School of Law, of counsel), for defendant-appellant.

Cecil A. Partee, State's Atty. of Cook County, Chicago (Inge Fryklund, Kevin Sweeney, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel), for plaintiff-appellee.

Justice BUCKLEY delivered the opinion of the court:

After a jury trial, defendant, Marvin Flowers, was convicted of murder, armed robbery and armed violence and sentenced to concurrent prison terms of 40 years for murder and 15 years for armed robbery. In a previous order issued pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 23 (107 Ill.2d R. 23), we affirmed defendant's conviction. Defendant now appeals from the dismissal of his petition which sought relief under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act. Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 38, par. 122-1 et seq.

The evidence adduced at trial was reported at length in our prior order affirming defendant's conviction and will not be repeated here. Suffice it to say, that testimonial and physical evidence linked defendant to the scene where the victim was robbed and beaten.

According to police, defendant gave two accounts, first he told them that as he entered the victim's store, he saw two men beating the victim. He further stated that the pair threatened to kill him and his girl friend if he did not put his fingerprints on the bat and gun used to assault the victim. He also claimed to have driven the victim's car away from the scene under duress. However, after he failed to explain how this could be possible when he alone was observed driving from the scene in the victim's car and it was he who was found in possession of the gun, defendant changed his story. He then claimed that the victim had attacked him initiating a fight between them. When the victim reached for a weapon, defendant grabbed a nearby baseball bat and struck the victim several times. Realizing that the victim would not pay the money which he owed him, defendant took cash and property from the store, loaded the items into the victim's car and drove away.

The jury was given pattern jury instructions on the offenses of murder and voluntary manslaughter (belief of justification). (Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Criminal, Nos. 7.02, 7.06 (2d ed. 1981) (hereinafter IPI Criminal 2d Nos. 7.02, 7.06).) At trial, defendant neither objected to these instructions nor offered alternatives.

After deliberation, the jury signed verdict forms finding defendant guilty of both murder and voluntary manslaughter. The trial court instructed the jury that voluntary manslaughter was a lesser-included offense of murder, that guilty verdicts for both offenses would not be accepted, and that they were to identify which of the two verdict forms actually reflected their determination of guilt. Thereafter, the jury returned a guilty verdict for murder.

Among the issues raised and disposed of adversely to defendant on his direct appeal were the contentions that the trial court erred in refusing to enter judgment on the voluntary manslaughter verdict where the jury returned guilty verdicts of both murder and voluntary manslaughter and that the trial court erred in its oral instruction to the jury.

Defendant subsequently filed the instant post-conviction petition seeking relief by contending that fundamental fairness mandated the relaxation of res judicata principles because certain appellate court decisions indicated that the affirmance of his conviction or sentence was improper, and that the appeal of a factually similar case, i.e., People v. Almo (1984), 123 Ill.App.3d 406, 78 Ill.Dec. 716, 462 N.E.2d 835, was then pending appeal in the supreme court. ¹ In response, the trial court removed the post-conviction petition from its call pending the resolution of Almo. However, in People v. Almo (1985), 108 Ill.2d 54, 90 Ill.Dec. 885, 483 N.E.2d 203, the supreme court ruled adversely to defendant holding that the trial court was not required to enter judgment on voluntary manslaughter where the jury presents verdicts of both murder and voluntary manslaughter and that it is proper procedure for the trial court to orally instruct the jury concerning lesser-included offenses in the manner done in the instant case. Acknowledging that Almo was resolved against him, defendant filed a supplemental petition alleging that his petition for post-conviction relief was nontheless meritorious. The trial court dismissed the petition.

In appealing this dismissal, defendant contends that the trial court violated double jeopardy and collateral estoppel protections when it rejected the jury's verdict of voluntary manslaughter and ordered further deliberations and that the trial court's inherently contradictory and confusing instructions denied him due process of law. ²

While the instant appeal was pending before this court, the supreme court rendered its decision in People v. Reddick (1988), 123 Ill.2d 184, 122 Ill.Dec. 1, 526 N.E.2d 141, and we allowed defendant's request to file such decision as additional authority. Our review of this decision satisfies us that the holding of Reddick is dispositive.

In Reddick, the supreme court held that in cases where, as here, the accused is charged with murder and contends that his acts, if unjustified, were committed with either an unreasonable belief of justification or as the result of intense provocation, the IPI instructions on murder and voluntary manslaughter, i.e., IPI Criminal 2d, Nos. 7.02 and 7.06, incorrectly set forth the State's burden of proof. (Reddick, 123 Ill.2d at 197, 122 Ill.Dec. at 6, 526 N.E.2d at 146.) Moreover, it noted that:

"[C]ertain instructions, such as the burden of proof and elements of the offense, are essential to a fair trial and that the failure to give such instructions constitutes grave error when, viewing the record as a whole, it appears that the jury was not apprised of the People's burden of proof." Reddick, 123 Ill.2d at 198, 122 Ill.Dec. at 7, 526 N.E.2d at 147.

In a similar case, the United States Supreme Court proscribed instructions, which by the use of a presumption, relieved the State of its burden of persuasion as beyond a reasonable doubt on an essential element of the offense charged. (Francis v. Franklin (1985), 471 U.S. 307, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 85 L.Ed.2d 344.) There, the court noted that it is axiomatic that due process has been violated if a conviction is not based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime charged and that the failure to correctly instruct the jury of the State's burden of proof calls the integrity of the fact-finding process at the accused's trial into question. Francis, 471 U.S. at 313, 105 S.Ct. at 1970, 85 L.Ed.2d at 352-53.

In Reddick, the supreme court noticed the instructional error, although neither defendant raised the issue before the trial court, and one of them failed to raise the matter on appeal. (Reddick, 123 Ill.2d at 198, 122 Ill.Dec. at 7, 526 N.E.2d at 147.) The question whether the error was of sufficient gravity to relax the principles of res judicata where, as here, defendant's conviction had become final prior to the issuance of the Reddick decision was not considered by the court.

In Yates v. Aiken (1988), 484 U.S. 211, 108 S.Ct. 534, 98 L.Ed.2d 546, however, the United States Supreme Court gave retroactive effect to its decision in Francis even though the petitioner's conviction had become final prior to, but where his collateral attack was pending at the time of the announcement of the Francis decision. Because the Supreme Court viewed the principle enunicated in Francis to be so fundamental to the concept of due process, it considered the rule of Francis to be an application of principles of law which were well settled at the time of the petitioner's conviction. The decision in Francis was not viewed as creating a new principle of law which would be appliable only to convictions which had not yet become final; accordingly, the rule of Francis was applied in a pending collateral attack. Yates, 484 U.S. at 211, 108 S.Ct. at 536-37, 98 L.Ed.2d at 552-54.

Addressing the propriety of applying the rule of Reddick, we note that our supreme court unequivocally held that giving the pattern jury instructions on murder and voluntary manslaughter in circumstances identical to those in the instant case failed to correctly set the State's burden of proof and constituted grave, nonwaivable error. Thus, the court recognized the fundamental impact on the fact-finding process resulting from the use of such instructions. Moreover, the rule enunciated in Reddick was clearly predicated upon well-settled principles of law. Consequently, although defendant's conviction was final prior to the issuance of the Reddick decision, we conclude that the rule of Reddick should be applied to defendant's pending collateral attack on his conviction. (Yates, 484 U.S. 211, 108 S.Ct. 534, 98 L.Ed.2d 546. Compare Allen v. Hardy (1986), 478 U.S. 255, 106 S.Ct. 2878, 92 L.Ed.2d 199.) This is particularly appropriate in the instant case where the jury's confusion was exhibited by its return of guilty verdicts of both offenses. Although the trial court instructed the jury concerning the law applicable to cases where the greater offense and a lesser-included offense are charged, these instructions did not address the failure of the written instructions to set forth the State's burden of proof. Applying the rule of Reddick, defendant is entitled to a new trial on the murder charge.

As to defendant's armed robbery conviction, defendant concedes, and we agree, that the Reddick murder...