People v. Ward
Decision Date | 19 September 1978 |
Docket Number | No. 49941,49941 |
Parties | , 21 Ill.Dec. 178 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Robert A. WARD, Appellant. |
Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Richard J. Wilson, Deputy Defender, and John L. Swartz and Edward R. Green, Asst. State App. Defender, Springfield, for appellant.
William J. Scott, Atty. Gen., Springfield , for the People.
The defendant, Robert Ward, was found guilty of perjury after a jury trial in the circuit court of Macon County. The appellate court affirmed his conviction (50 Ill.App.3d 885, 8 Ill.Dec. 861, 365 N.E.2d 1323), and we granted his petition for leave to appeal (58 Ill.2d R. 315). His contention is that his prosecution had been barred under the doctrine of collateral estoppel.
The defendant had been previously tried and found guilty of burglary. The trial court, however, granted his motion for a new trial on the ground that the evidence had been insufficient to support the jury's verdict. The case was not retried and the charge was later dismissed. The State acknowledges that the effect of the order for a new trial was to bar another prosecution on the burglary charge. (See Ill.Rev.Stat.1975, ch. 38, par. 3 4(a)(1); People v. Woodall (1975), 61 Ill.2d 60, 329 N.E.2d 203.) The prosecutor then secured an indictment of the defendant for perjury, which was founded upon answers he had given to several questions on direct examination while testifying at his burglary trial.
The burglary prosecution was by way of criminal information and it charged that the defendant had knowingly and without authority entered the garage of the house of the Marshall family in Decatur on October 11, 1975, with the intent to commit a theft. The State at trial introduced evidence to show that two "Mickey Thompson tires with mag wheels" had been stolen. As has been noted above, the trial judge found the State had failed to establish its case. The perjury indictment, following generally the language of the perjury statute, charged that the defendant, on direct examination at his burglary trial, made as answers false statements material to the issue while under oath, which he did not believe to be true "Q: And, okay, and then you left his house going around the corner, went south (on) Upton Lane, and went out. Did you stop at any time there by Marshall's house?
The only issue is the validity of the defendant's contention that the State was barred from prosecuting him for perjury under the doctrine of collateral estoppel. He acknowledges that there are circumstances under which one may be prosecuted for perjury regardless of his having been acquitted in a trial at which he gave the allegedly perjurious testimony (see People v. Niles (1920), 295 Ill. 525, 530, 129 N.E. 97), but he says that the prosecution was barred here by section 3-4(b)(2) of the Criminal Code of 1961 (Ill.Rev.Stat.1975, ch. 38, par. 3-4(b)(2)). That section provides:
Was the burglary prosecution terminated by a final order which required a determination inconsistent with the facts which would be necessary for the defendant's conviction here on a charge of perjury?
This court in People v. Borchers (1977), 67 Ill.2d 578, 582-84, 10 Ill.Dec. 346, 369, 367 N.E.2d 955, 957 considered the doctrine of collateral estoppel at length:
"This court recently discussed collateral estoppel in People v. Williams (1975), 59 Ill.2d 557, 560-62, 322 N.E.2d 461, 462-463:
'The doctrine of collateral estoppel, which bars relitigation of a decided question, applies to criminal as well as civil proceedings. (People v. Grayson, 58 Ill.2d 260, 319 N.E.2d 43; People v. Armstrong, 56 Ill.2d 159, 306 N.E.2d 14; People v. Haran, 27 Ill.2d 229, 232, 188 N.E.2d 707.) This was noted in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1194, 25 L.Ed.2d 469, 475, where, in the course of describing the doctrine, the court said:
* * * "
This court noted in People v. Haran, 27 Ill.2d 229, 231, 188 N.E.2d 707, that the doctrine of collateral estoppel was "well defined" in Hoffman v. Hoffman, 330 Ill. 413, 161 N.E. 723. There it was said:
330 Ill. 413, 417, 161 N.E. 723, 725.'
There are at times problems presented in seeking to apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel in criminal cases; it is sometimes difficult to determine what facts were actually adjudicated by the former verdict. (See People v. Haran (1963), 27 Ill.2d 229, 235, 188 N.E.2d 707.) Where the prosecution has had to prove several elements, a verdict of acquittal does not inform as to the basis for the jury's verdict. But the difficulties of application are not, of course, insuperable. This was illustrated by the Supreme Court in Ashe v. Swenson (1970), 397 U.S. 436, 444, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1194, 25 L.Ed.2d 469, 475-76:
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