People v. Torres

This case presents question as to whether defendant’s trial counsel was ineffective for failure to seek exclusion of defendant’s chlamydia test results in 2013 and 2019 from his 2019 trial on charge of predatory criminal sexual abuse of child. Appellate Court, in affirming defendant’s conviction, found that exception to physician-patient privilege contained in 735 ILCS 5/8-802(7) allowed subject evidence into defendant’s trial, where said section applied to any and all privileged medical information relating to any person involved in criminal proceeding, where instant proceeding was criminal action arising from filing report with DCFS. In his petition for leave to appeal, defendant argued that section 8-802(7) did not apply, since court in Bons, 2021 IL App (3d) 180464, found that section 8-802(7) applied only to privileged medical information that actually triggered filing of report with DCFS and not to information discovered by State through its own independent investigation and subpoenas.