Quick Takes on Illinois Supreme Court Opinions Issued Thursday, June 5, 2025
Leading appellate attorneys review the two Illinois Supreme Court opinions handed down Thursday, June 5.
People v. Smart, 2025 IL 130127
By Kerry J. Bryson, Office of the State Appellate Defender
Cecil Smart was charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse based on allegations that he engaged in sexual activity with a minor, J.P., including mouth-to-penis and hand-to-penis contact. At the time, Smart was employed as a basketball coach at Breakthrough Urban Ministries, where J.P. met Smart. The minor reported that the charged conduct occurred after Smart took him and two of Smart’s nephews on an outing to see fireworks, providing him with alcohol throughout the night. J.P. said he fell asleep in Smart’s bed after they returned to his house, and he later awoke to find Smart engaging in the charged conduct. Over a defense objection, the State was allowed to present evidence of an incident where Smart had slapped another teenage boy’s buttocks after driving the boy home alone in violation of Breakthrough’s prohibition on being alone with any minor in its programs.
At issue on appeal was whether, where Smart denied commission of the charged conduct and did not claim that his acts were accidental or inadvertent, the State could properly introduce evidence of other misconduct for the purpose of proving intent. The Supreme Court held that Smart’s failure to contest intent was of no consequence to the State’s ability to admit other misconduct evidence for the purpose of proving intent. Smart was charged with a specific intent crime, thus requiring the State to establish his intent regardless of what the defense did or did not claim. In reaching this conclusion, the Court acknowledged the competing concerns at play. On the one hand, the State always bears the burden of proving intent for specific intent crimes, even if not put expressly at issue by the defense. On the other hand, prior misconduct evidence is often unfairly prejudicial and has little probative value where intent is not contested.
To balance those competing interests, the Court set forth a framework for determining whether other misconduct evidence is admissible in a given case. First, the court must determine whether the evidence is relevant for a non-propensity purpose, such as motive, intent, opportunity, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident. Ill. R. Evid. 404(b). If so, the court must go on to determine how the evidence advances that purpose. If it does so without relying on a propensity inference, the court must weigh the danger of unfair prejudice against the probative value of the evidence. Ill. R. Evid. 403. Alternatively, if the evidence’s relevance is dependent on a propensity inference, it may only be admitted if it satisfies one of the relevant propensity statutes – 725 ILCS 5/115-7.3, 115-7.4, or 115-20.
Here, the court erred in allowing the other misconduct evidence because it was predicated on a propensity inference and did not satisfy any of the relevant propensity statutes. That is, for the other misconduct to be relevant, the court had to infer that Smart had a propensity to sexually molest teenage boys, or, more specifically that Smart intended to touch J.P. for the purpose of sexual gratification because a month prior he had touched a different boy’s buttocks. That is a textbook propensity inference. But, the evidence did not fit within the parameters of 115-7.3, the only potentially-relevant propensity statute on these facts, because it did not show commission of a statutorily-enumerated offense. Thus, it’s admission was error.
Ultimately, though, the Court found this evidentiary error harmless. Smart was convicted at a bench trial, and the record failed to demonstrate that the court relied on the inadmissible evidence in finding him guilty. The evidence was admitted via a stipulation which lacked a clear assertion that the prior misconduct was for the purpose of sexual gratification, thereby diminishing its impact even for a propensity purpose. And, the judge did not refer to the improperly-admitted evidence in rendering the guilty verdict, but instead relied primarily on her conclusion that J.P. was a credible witness. Under these circumstances, there was no reasonable probability of a different result had the evidence not been admitted, and the error was harmless. The matter was remanded to the appellate court to consider other issues that were raised but not yet addressed below.
The dissent agreed that admission of the evidence was erroneous but would have found reversible error. Specifically, the dissent pointed to the fact that the trial court admitted the other misconduct evidence over Smart’s objection, and also rejected his post-trial motion on the issue, as evidence that the trial court believed the other misconduct evidence could properly be considered in determining Smart’s guilt. Given that the State relied on the improper evidence to assert that Smart had engaged in a pattern of sexual misconduct, that the trial court did not expressly disavow consideration of the improperly-admitted evidence, and that the case hinged on J.P.’s credibility, the dissent would have found a reasonable probability that Smart would have been acquitted absent the evidence and would have reversed and remanded for a new trial.
People v. Spencer, 2025 IL 130015
By Jay Wiegman, Office of the State Appellate Defender
In Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), the United States Supreme Court held that the eighth amendment “forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders.” Miller, 567 U.S. at 479. The Supreme Court has explained that mandatory life-without-parole (LWOP) sentencing schemes are constitutionally flawed because juveniles are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing, and mandatory sentencing schemes, by their nature, preclude a sentencer from taking account of those differences. Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. at 471, 476. This is primarily because a juvenile’s character is not as well formed as an adult’s character, a juvenile’s traits are less fixed than an adult’s traits, and a juvenile’s actions are less likely to be evidence of irretrievable depravity. People v. Clark, 2023 IL 127273, ¶ 55 (citing Miller, 567 U.S. at 471). In Illinois, a prison sentence of 40 or more years constitutes a life sentence when imposed on a person under the age of 18 at the time of the commission of the offense, and can only be imposed if the trial court properly considers the offender’s prospects for rehabilitation. People v. Buffer, 2019 IL 122327.
In People v. Spencer, 2025 IL 130015, the Illinois Supreme Court considered whether and how Miller applies in the context of young adults. Following a jury trial, Spencer was convicted of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder and home invasion for an offense committed when he was 18 years old. At the time of his sentencing hearing in 2020, Spencer faced a minimum sentence of 76 years. While the sentencing court found Spencer’s youth and lack of a criminal record to be mitigating, the circuit court also attached great significance to the seriousness of the offenses. The circuit court imposed a total sentence of 100 years. A divided appellate court held that Spencer’s as-applied constitutional challenge based on Miller failed since the sentence was not a de facto life sentence because section 5-4.5-115(b) of the Code of Corrections created parole review for offenders who were under the age of 21 at the time of the offense, once the offender had served 20 years of the sentence.
A unanimous Illinois Supreme Court found that Spencer’s sentence was not a de facto life sentence because Miller does not apply to emerging adults. Writing for the Court, Justice Neville noted that for sentencing purposes, the Supreme Court had clearly and consistently drawn the line between juveniles and adults at the age of 18. The Court observed that other jurisdictions had repeatedly rejected claims for extending Miller to offenders 18 years of age and older.
Next, though the Court recognized that the science that formed the basis for Miller might assist emerging adults in supporting an as-applied, proportionate penalties clause challenge, the Court found that Miller did not directly apply to Spencer. Because he was under the age of 21 when the offense were committed, and because he was sentenced after June 1, 2019, the effective date of the Act that provided for parole review after a defendant has served 20 years or more of his sentence, Spencer “was sentenced under a statutory scheme that makes him eligible for parole before he spends more than 40 years in prison.” Spencer, 2025 IL 130015, ¶ 35. Similar to People v. Dorsey, 2021 IL 123010, in which the Court found that a judicially imposed sentence greater than 40 years but that offers day-for-day good conduct sentencing credit “does not cross the Buffer line if it offers the opportunity to demonstrate maturity and obtain release within 40 years or less of incarceration.” Spencer, 2025 IL 130015, ¶ 37.
Noting that a “defendant may challenge a sentence of any length” (including an as-applied challenge to a Class B misdemeanor), the Court also held that Spencer is not precluded from bringing an as-applied challenge to his sentence pursuant to the Illinois Proportionate Penalties clause. Spencer, 2025 IL 130015, ¶ 43 (citing People v. Fuller, 187 Ill.2d 1, 5-6 (1999)). Because as-applied challenges are, by definition, reliant upon the development of a sufficient factual basis, the Court found that the proper venue for Spencer’s as-applied challenge is in a post-conviction proceeding. Spencer, 2025 IL 130015, ¶ ¶ 44-45. Thus, the Court found that Spencer is not foreclosed from bringing his as-applied challenge to his 100-year sentence under the proportionate penalties clause through a postconviction proceeding.