People v. Smith

• Decision Date: 07 June 1984
• Docket Number: No. 82-2459,82-2459
• Citation: 80 Ill.Dec. 310,465 N.E.2d 101,124 Ill.App.3d 805
• Parties: , 80 Ill.Dec. 310 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kyle SMITH, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 101

465 N.E.2d 101

124 Ill.App.3d 805, 80 Ill.Dec. 310

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kyle SMITH, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 82-2459.

Appellate Court of Illinois,

First District, Fourth Division.

June 7, 1984.

James J. Doherty, Public Defender of Cook County, Chicago, for defendant-appellant.

Richard M. Daley, State's Atty., Chicago, for plaintiff-appellee.

JIGANTI, Justice:

The defendant, Kyle Smith, was charged with two counts of murder. Following a bench trial he was found guilty but mentally ill on both counts and was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment. The defendant's only arguments on appeal concern the finding of mental illness. After the offense was committed but before the trial commenced, the Illinois legislature passed a statute that permitted a finding of guilty but mentally ill. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 38, par. 115-4(j).) The defendant contends that this statute violates the ex poste facto clauses of both the United States and Illinois constitutions (U.S. Const., art. I, sec. 10; Ill. Const., 1970, art. I, sec. 16) and is unconstitutional as applied. Further, he contends that the statute is violative of the due process and equal protection clauses of both constitutions (U.S. Const., amend. XIV; Ill. Const., 1970, art. I, sec. 2) and is therefore unconstitutional on its face. The defendant also maintains that the trial court committed error in its sentencing.

Prior to the instant offense the defendant was convicted of armed robbery and aggravated battery. While serving a term of imprisonment the defendant complained of hearing voices and his conduct was described as irrational. He was psychiatrically examined and then sent to the psychiatric ward at Menard, where he received antipsychotic medication. Several months after he was released from prison in February 1981 the defendant again complained of hearing voices. His family noticed a change in his behavior when he acted in an excessively nervous manner and mumbled to himself. A week prior to the instant offense the defendant was examined by a psychiatrist and medication was prescribed. He continued to act irrationally and took his prescribed medication on only one occasion. One week later, the defendant fatally stabbed the victim in the instant case.

The defendant's first contention is that the guilty but mentally ill statute is unconstitutional in its application as violative of the ex post facto clauses of the United States and Illinois constitutions. He argues that the statute increases his punishment since he suffers adverse collateral consequences by being adjudicated mentally ill in addition to being found guilty of murder. The defendant points out that prior to the enactment of the guilty but mentally ill statute he was subject to only one adjudication of guilt if he unsuccessfully raised the defense of insanity. However, under the guilty but mentally ill statute the defendant is subject to adjudications of both guilt and mental illness. This additional adjudication of mental illness, the defendant maintains, increases his punishment because he suffers the stigma of mental illness, the impairment of his ability to find employment or retain custody of a child, the increased probability of future commitment to mental hospitals and the uncertainty of whether his reputation will be redeemable. The defendant further observes the existence of a number of licenses that may be either suspended or denied if an individual is adjudicated mentally ill.

The defendant argued that the above-cited instances of alleged increased punishment are not balanced out by any benefit received by a defendant who has been adjudicated mentally ill. He points out that the sentencing court may impose identical sentences upon defendants who are guilty of the same offense even if one is adjudicated mentally ill and the other is not. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 38, par. 1005-2- 6(a).) He further asserts that the Department of Corrections has the same discretion under the guilty but mentally ill statute to provide treatment to guilty but mentally ill inmates as it does under the statute controlling inmates who are not adjudicated to be mentally ill. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 38, par. 1005-2-6(b).) Finally, the defendant cites empirical data provided by several commissions on the insanity defense. This data reveals that, out of 44 defendants found guilty but mentally ill in Illinois, not a single defendant had been committed to a hospital for treatment. (Final Report of the Task Force on the Insanity Defense, State of Virginia 37-38 (Nov. 30, 1982).) The data further discloses that on a national level, mental health treatment is clearly no more available to those found guilty but mentally ill than to other convicts. National Mental Health Association, Myths and Realities: Report of the National Commission on the Insanity Defense 26-27, 32-34 (Mar. 1983).

In further support of his argument that he has suffered increased punishment, the defendant cites United States ex rel. Massarella v. Elrod (7th Cir.1982), 682 F.2d 688, cert. denied (1983), 460 U.S. 1037, 103 S.Ct. 1426, 75 L.Ed.2d 787. In Massarella the offense of perjury had been reclassified from an indictable misdemeanor to a felony. The court found that the defendant who had been convicted of perjury suffered increased punishment because with the conviction of a felony he was ineligible for State elective office, suffered longer curtailment of his voting rights, and was disqualified from holding numerous licenses. Therefore, the court found that as a result of this increased punishment the reclassification of the offense of perjury violated the ex post facto clause.

In response to the State's contention that three Illinois court decisions have found the guilty but mentally ill statute not to be violative of the ex post facto clauses, the defendant maintains that the issue raised here, whether the defendant's punishment was increased, was not specifically addressed by those other courts. People v. DeWit (1984), 123 Ill.App.3d 723, 79 Ill.Dec. 188, 463 N.E.2d 742; People v. Dalby (1983), 115 Ill.App.3d 35, 70 Ill.Dec. 818, 450 N.E.2d 31; People v. Marshall (1983), 114 Ill.App.3d 217, 70 Ill.Dec. 91, 448 N.E.2d 969.

We find the defendant's arguments on this issue unavailing. In order for a law to be ex post facto, it must materially alter the legal situation of the accused to his disadvantage. (Weaver v. Graham (1981), 450 U.S. 24, 101 S.Ct. 960, 67 L.Ed.2d 17.) To disadvantage a defendant the statute must punish as a crime an act which was previously lawful, increase the penalty for the crime, or deprive one charged with a crime of any defense available according to the law at the time when the act was committed. (Dobbert v. Florida (1977), 432 U.S. 282, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d 344.) In Dobbert, the United States Supreme Court stated:

"It is equally well settled, however, that '[t]he inhibition upon the passage of ex post facto laws does not give a criminal a right to be tried, in all respects, by the law in force when the crime charged was committed.' Gibson v. Mississippi, 162 U.S. 565, 590 [16 S.Ct. 904, 910, 40 L.Ed. 1075] (1896). '[T]he constitutional provision was intended to secure substantial personal rights against arbitrary and oppressive legislation, see Malloy v. South Carolina 237 U.S. 180, 183 [35 S.Ct. 507, 508, 59 L.Ed. 905 (1915) ], and not to limit the legislative control of remedies and modes of procedure which do not affect matters of substance.' Beazell v. Ohio, supra at 171 [46 S.Ct. 68 at 69, 70 L.Ed. 216 (1925) ].

Even though it may work to the disadvantage of a defendant, a procedural change is not ex post facto." Dobbert v. Florida (1977), 432 U.S. 282, 293, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 2298, 53 L.Ed.2d 344.

While the defendant may be correct in maintaining that he has been stigmatized by the adjudication of mental illness, that his potential ability to retain custody of a child has been impaired, that the probability of his future commitment to a mental hospital has been increased, and that he is uncertain that his reputation will be redeemable, these findings do not materially alter the legal situation to his disadvantage. (Weaver v. Graham (1981), 450 U.S. 24, 101 S.Ct. 960, 67 L.Ed.2d 17.) Nor has the defendant been deprived of substantial personal rights because of arbitrary or oppressive legislation. (Dobbert v. Florida (1977), 432 U.S. 282, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d 344.) Rather, the fact that the defendant has been convicted of the most serious of crimes, murder, imposes the most dramatic stigma on the defendant and also engenders most of the collateral consequences that the defendant claims arise from the finding of mental illness. His argument is premised on the idea that the finding of mental illness increases these possibilities. If they do, they do not do so to a material degree so as to alter his legal situation. It appears to this court that, considering the fact the defendant has been convicted of murder, the additional finding of mental illness ameliorates the culpability attendant to a finding of murder.

The defendant also contends that there is no balancing of benefits to the defendant attendant to the new guilty but mentally ill statute. We fail to see that there is any legal requirement that there must be a balancing. The only requirement we perceive is that stated in Dobbert that the ex post facto provision was intended to secure substantial and personal rights against arbitrary and oppressive legislation. Legislation designed to classify inmates in the penitentiary appears to be a rational classification and is well within the discretion of the legislature in its efforts to provide for the running of the penitentiary system.

Furthermore, Massarella furnishes no support for the defendant. The statute found to be an ex post facto statute in Massarella increased the punishment because prior to this statute the defendant would not...