People v. Walker, 63966

• Citation: 519 N.E.2d 890,116 Ill.Dec. 675,119 Ill.2d 465
• Decision Date: 11 February 1988
• Docket Number: No. 63966,63966
• Parties: , 116 Ill.Dec. 675 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Deborah Ann WALKER, Appellant.
• Court: Supreme Court of Illinois

Page 890

519 N.E.2d 890

119 Ill.2d 465, 116 Ill.Dec. 675

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Deborah Ann WALKER, Appellant.

No. 63966.

Supreme Court of Illinois Feb. 11, 1988.

Daniel D. Yuhas, Deputy Defender, Office of the State Appellate Defender, John J. Hanlon, Asst. Defender, Springfield, for appellant.

Thomas J. Difanis, State's Atty., Chase Leonhard, Asst. State's Atty., Urbana, for appellee.

Neil F. Hartigan, Atty. Gen., Roma J. Stewart, Sol. Gen., Mark L. Rotert, Joan G. Fickinger, Asst. Attys. Gen., Patrick A. Tuite, President, Illinois Attorneys for Criminal Justice, Joshua Sachs, Chicago, for amicus curiae.

Justice CLARK delivered the opinion of the court:

For the past 114 years, Illinois law has protected the constitutional right to a fair and impartial trial in criminal cases by providing for the substitution of a judge who is allegedly prejudiced against a defendant. (See. Ill.Rev.Stat.1874, ch. 146, pars. 18 through 21.) Although the procedure for invoking the protections of the automatic-substitution-of-judge statute has varied over time, the prophylactic purpose of the statute has remained the same: this court has consistently held that the statute vests criminal defendants with the "absolute right" to have an assigned trial judge substituted upon a timely written motion containing a good-faith allegation that the judge is prejudiced. (See People v. Peter (1973), 55 Ill.2d 443, 458, 303 N.E.2d 398; People ex rel. Walker v. Pate (1973), 53 Ill.2d 485, 506, 292 N.E.2d 387; People v. Moore (1962), 26 Ill.2d 236, 237, 186 N.E.2d 328.) The vigor with which this court has upheld the basic constitutional right to a trial before a fair and impartial judge is reflected in this court's long held view that the provisions of the automatic-substitution-of-judge statute should be construed liberally "to promote rather than defeat" substitution, and its willingness to find reversible error where the statute is not so construed. See, e.g., People v. Smith (1963), 28 Ill.2d 445, 447, 192 N.E.2d 880; People v. Mosley (1962), 24 Ill.2d 565, 570, 182 N.E.2d 658; People v. Dieckman (1949), 404 Ill. 161, 164, 88 N.E.2d 433.

The issue in this appeal is whether section 114-5(a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 38, par. 114-5(a)), a part of the current substitution-of-judge statute, violates the separation of powers clause of the 1970 Constitution (Ill. Const.1970, art. II, § 1).

The defendant, Deborah Ann Walker, was charged by indictment in the circuit court of Champaign County with one count of battery (Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 38, par. 12-3) and one count of aggravated battery (Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 38, par. 12-4(b)(6)) on June 19, 1986. At her arraignment on June 24, 1986, the defendant entered a plea of not guilty and was advised by the arraigning judge that the bailiff had randomly assigned her case to the trial calendar of circuit judge Robert J. Steigmann. On June 27, three days after arraignment, the defendant filed a timely motion for substitution of judge pursuant to section 114-5(a). Section 114-5(a) provides:

"Within 10 days after a cause involving only one defendant has been placed on the trial call of a judge the defendant may move the court in writing for a substitution of that judge on the ground that such judge is so prejudiced against him that he cannot receive a fair trial. Upon the filing of such a motion the court shall proceed no further in the cause but shall transfer it to another judge not named in the motion. The defendant may name only one judge as prejudiced, pursuant to this subsection; provided, however, that in a case in which the offense charged is a Class X felony or may be punished by death or life imprisonment, the defendant may name two judges as prejudiced." Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 38, par. 114-5(a).

In compliance with section 114-5(a), the defendant alleged in her motion that Judge Steigmann was prejudiced against her and that she believed that she would not receive a fair and impartial trial before him. On July 29, the State's Attorney for Champaign County filed an objection to the defendant's motion for substitution of judge and a countermotion requesting that section 114-5(a) be declared "an unconstitutional infringement upon the inherent powers of the judiciary." The State's Attorney did not then, and does not now, dispute the good faith of defendant's allegation of prejudice or her fear that she would not receive a fair trial before the assigned circuit judge.

Following a hearing on the defendant's motion for substitution of judge and the State's Attorney's objection and countermotion, the circuit judge, in a written order, ruled section 114-5(a) unconstitutional as an undue infringement on judicial administrative authority. Drawing upon his personal experience of hearing criminal cases for over nine years, the circuit judge stated that the section 114-5(a) motion had become a motion for substitution of judge "not for prejudice, but for preference." (Emphasis in original.) As an example, the judge took "judicial notice" of his experience in presiding over criminal cases while on temporary assignment in Cook County. According to the judge, after he would grant a section 114-5(a) motion for substitution of judge, defense counsel would often reveal that the basis for the motion was that the judge usually sat downstate.

We allowed the defendant's motion for leave to appeal as a matter of right (107 Ill.2d R. 603). It should be noted that after leave to appeal was granted, we allowed the Attorney General to file a 25-page amicus brief urging the court to reverse the circuit court's ruling that found section 114-5(a) unconstitutional. The Attorney General has thus asked, albeit in not as blunt language, that we hold contrary to the State's Attorney's position on appeal. We allowed the Illinois Attorneys for Criminal Justice to also file an amicus brief in support of the defendant's position on appeal.

The separation of powers clause of the Illinois Constitution provides: "The legislative, executive and judicial branches are separate. No branch shall exercise powers belonging to another." (Ill. Const.1970, art. II, § 1.) Our constitution does not attempt to define legislative, executive and judicial power, it being neither practicable nor possible to enumerate the myriad powers of government and to declare that a given power belongs exclusively to one branch for all time. In both theory and practice, the purpose of the provision is to ensure that the whole power of two or more branches of government shall not reside in the same hands. Knuepfer v. Fawell (1983), 96 Ill.2d 284, 292, 70 Ill.Dec. 708, 449 N.E.2d 1312; City of Waukegan v. Pollution Control Board (1974), 57 Ill.2d 170, 174, 311 N.E.2d 146.

The separation of powers provision was not designed to achieve a complete divorce among the three branches of our tripartite system of government. (Strukoff v. Strukoff (1979), 76 Ill.2d 53, 58, 27 Ill.Dec. 762, 389 N.E.2d 1170; People v. Reiner (1955), 6 Ill.2d 337, 342, 129 N.E.2d 159.) Nor does it prescribe a division of governmental powers into rigid, mutually exclusive compartments. (People v. Joseph (1986), 113 Ill.2d 36, 41, 99 Ill.Dec. 120, 495 N.E.2d 501; In re Estate of Barker (1976), 63 Ill.2d 113, 119, 345 N.E.2d 484.) Because each branch of government is not required to exercise its powers in complete isolation of the other two branches, the separation of powers doctrine contemplates a government of separate branches having certain shared or overlapping powers. (Gillespie v. Barrett (1938), 368 Ill. 612, 614, 15 N.E.2d 513; People ex rel. Witte v. Franklin (1933), 352 Ill. 528, 534, 186 N.E. 137.) Thus, the decisions of this court recognize that the separation of powers provision does not prohibit every exercise of functions by one branch of government which ordinarily are exercised by another. (Knuepfer v. Fawell (1983), 96 Ill.2d 284, 292, 70 Ill.Dec. 708, 449 N.E.2d 1312; City of Waukegan v. Pollution Control Board (1974), 57 Ill.2d 170, 174-75, 311 N.E.2d 146; see also 1 F. Cooper, State Administrative Law 16 (1965).) More specifically, this court has held that the legislature has the power to enact laws concerning judicial practice which "do not unduly infringe upon the inherent powers of the judiciary." People v. Taylor (1984), 102 Ill.2d 201, 207, 80 Ill.Dec. 76, 464 N.E.2d 1059; People v. Davis (1982), 93 Ill.2d 155, 161, 66 Ill.Dec. 294, 442 N.E.2d 855; Agran v. Checker Taxi Co. (1952), 412 Ill. 145, 149, 105 N.E.2d 713.

We are mindful in our analysis that, like all legislative enactments, a strong presumption of constitutionality attaches to section 114-5(a), and that the burden rests upon the State's Attorney, as the challenging party, to demonstrate its invalidity. (Sanelli v. Glenview State Bank (1985), 108 Ill.2d 1, 20, 90 Ill.Dec. 908, 483 N.E.2d 226; Chicago National League Ball Club, Inc. v. Thompson (1985), 108 Ill.2d 357, 368, 91 Ill.Dec. 610, 483 N.E.2d 1245.) Initially, we note that the parties agree that the circuit judge, in ruling section 114-5(a) unconstitutional, mistakenly believed that he could properly take judicial notice and consider his personal experience with instances where the good faith of an allowed section 114-5(a) motion was later revealed suspect. Citing Vulcan Materials Co. v. Bee Construction (1983), 96 Ill.2d 159, 70 Ill.Dec. 465, 449 N.E.2d 812, and People v. Davis (1976), 65 Ill.2d 157, 2 Ill.Dec. 572, 357 N.E.2d 792, the State's Attorney concedes that the judge's experience and observations are not judicially noticeable facts capable of immediate substantiation by easily accessible sources of indisputable accuracy. Nevertheless, the State's Attorney asserts that section 114-5(a) violates the separation of powers doctrine because the statute conflicts with rules of this court and, alternatively, even if it does not conflict with any supreme court rul...