Our panel of leading appellate attorneys review Thursday's Illinois Supreme Court opinions in the civil cases Leetaru v. The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois and Illinois State Treasurer v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission and the criminal case People v. Barner. 

CIVIL

Leetaru v. The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

By Alyssa M. Reiter, Williams, Montgomery & John Ltd.

Issues of sovereign immunity divided the Court in this suit by a doctoral student against the University of Illinois and one of its associate vice chancellors (Guenther). Leetaru filed a circuit court action to enjoin further action in connection with an investigation defendants were pursuing against him regarding allegations that he engaged in academic misconduct. Leetaru contended that defendants violated University rules and regulations in conducting the investigation, exceeded their authority, and deprived him of due process.

The circuit court dismissed the action, finding that the Court of Claims had exclusive jurisdiction. After the appellate court affirmed, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded.

The defendants’ jurisdictional challenge was premised on the State Lawsuit Immunity Act, which generally provides that, except as provided in the Court of Claims Act and certain other statutes, the State of Illinois shall not be made a defendant in any court.  But, the Court held that Leetaru’s complaint did not assert a claim against the State “as such.”  The complaint named the Board of the University, a public corporation, and Guenther. And, while formal identification is not dispositive, substantively, the suit alleged that the defendants acted beyond their authority and violated Leetaru’s constitutional rights. The Court held that “sovereign immunity affords no protection when agents of the State have acted in violation of statutory or constitutional law or in excess of their authority….” 

The Court reversed and remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings on the merits.

Three Justices dissented, setting forth an extensive analysis of the framework of and case law regarding the Immunity Act.  The dissent contended that the University was an arm of the State and it was subject to the Immunity Act irrespective of the nature of the relief sought (i.e., even if  injunctive).  Separately considering the claims against Guenther, the dissent asserted that those claims did not fall within the officer suit exception because the suit alleged only past violations, not ongoing violations.

Illinois State Treasurer v. Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission

By Karen Kies DeGrand, Donohue Brown Mathewson & Smyth LLC

Finding himself in somewhat of a jurisdictional Catch-22, the Illinois State Treasurer could not invoke appellate jurisdiction over a Workers’ Compensation Commission decision because the Treasurer had failed to post an appeal bond.  The Treasurer challenged the Commission’s award to Janina Zakarzecka, an injured home health care provider whose employer did not carry workers’ compensation insurance and thus sought recovery for on-the-job injuries from the state’s Injured Workers’ Benefit Fund. Zakarzecka sustained injuries when she fell down stairs at the home where she worked.

Contending that Zakarzecka failed to present evidence that her injuries arose from a risk of the employment, the Treasurer, as custodian of the Fund, mounted a judicial challenge to the Commission’s award. The supreme court began its review of the appellate court’s dismissal of the case for lack of jurisdiction by recounting the requirement of strict compliance with the Act’s procedure for judicial review. The general presumption of subject matter jurisdiction of the Illinois courts  is not applicable to review of administrative decisions. Those decisions require the courts to exercise special statutory jurisdiction, which is defined solely by the statutory scheme; in this case, the Workers’ Compensation Act.

The Treasurer did not, and could not, contend that the claim against the Fund constituted a claim against the state. Were that the case, Section 19(f)(1) of the Act would have precluded judicial review altogether. 820 ILCS 305/19(f)(1) (West 2012). Yet, the award was against the Fund, and the Treasurer acted only as custodian, and he could not align his position with cities and other governmental entities exempted by the statute from the bond requirement. Similarly, based on the plain language of Section 19(f)(2), which broadly requires “the one against whom the Commission shall have rendered an award for the payment of money” to post bond as a prerequisite to invoking the jurisdiction of the circuit court, the supreme court rejected the Treasurer’s argument that the legislature intended to subject only employers and insurers to the bond requirement.

The supreme court also rejected the Treasurer’s other arguments, including that the bond requirement was akin to court costs the Treasurer was excused from paying in other contexts. Concluding with the observation that it would interpret the Act liberally to provide financial protection for injured workers, the supreme court invited the legislature to amend the statute if it did not intend to apply the appeal bond requirement to the Fund. 

CRIMINAL

People v. Barner

By Jay Wiegman, Office of the State Appellate Defender

The sixth amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” U.S. Const., amend. VI. This portion of the sixth amendment is known as the confrontation clause.  In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), the United States Supreme Court held that a defendant must be able to confront a witness who has made testimonial statements unless the witness is unavailable and there has been a prior opportunity for cross-examination.  The Crawford Court refused to spell out a comprehensive definition of "testimonial," but recognized that it applies, at a minimum, to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial, and to police interrogations.

Shortly after Crawford was decided, the United States Supreme Court explained the distinction between testimonial and nontestimonial statements as follows: “Statements are nontestimonial when made in the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. They are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate that there is no such ongoing emergency, and that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.” Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 822 (2006).

In People v. Barner, 2015 IL 116949, announced today, the Illinois Supreme Court considered whether a  defendant’s right to confrontation under the sixth amendment of the United States Constitution, as held in Crawford and its progeny is violated when State witnesses are allowed to testify concerning the DNA laboratory work and conclusions of nontestifying scientists.  Barner was arrested in 2002 and charged by criminal complaint with aggravated criminal sexual assault for an offense that occurred in 1999.  All of the DNA work at issue in this case was conducted between 1999 and 2001, before the defendant was charged in the current matter.

Following a jury trial, the defendant was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.  On appeal, the defendant argued that his constitutional right to confront witnesses had been violated when the prosecution was allowed to present the testimony of three state experts concerning the DNA laboratory work and conclusions of nontestifying scientists, who were not subject to cross-examination by him.

Writing for a six-person majority, Justice Theis first discussed three cases in which the United States Supreme Court has considered whether scientific reports are testimonial under Crawford and subject to the strictures of the confrontation clause: Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305 (2009), Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 564 U.S. ___, 131 S. Ct. 2705 (2011), and Williams v. Illinois, 567 U.S. ___, 132 S. Ct. 2221 (2012).

Williams is the most analogous to the instant case.  In Williams, DNA evidence was analyzed by the same private laboratory that was used in the instant case.  At trial, an Illinois State Police crime lab employee testified that the DNA profile obtained by the private lab matched the defendant’s DNA profile, which was obtained from the State’s forensic database. The expert witness did not have any first hand knowledge of how the evidence was handled, what tests were actually run on the swab or the manner in which the tests were conducted, but was permitted to testify that the DNA evidence matched the defendant's to a reasonable degree of medical certainty.  Five members of the Court held that the expert testimony at issue did not violate the confrontation clause, four of whom reasoned that the expert testimony did not violate the Confrontation Clause because "that provision has no application to out-of-court statements that are not offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. When an expert testifies for the prosecution in a criminal case, the defendant has the opportunity to cross-examine the expert about any statements that are offered for their truth. Out-of-court statements that are related by the expert solely for the purpose of explaining the assumptions on which that opinion rests are not offered for their truth and thus fall outside the scope of the Confrontation Clause." Barner, 2015 IL 116949, ¶51, quoting Williams,132 S. Ct. at 2228.  The fifth vote was provided by Justice Thomas, who concluded that there was no violation of the confrontation clause because the statements at issue, while being admitted for the truth of the matter asserted, lacked the formality and solemnity associated with testimonial evidence.

The Barner Court then considered People v. Leach, 2012 IL 111534, in which the Court held that an autopsy report was not testimonial because it was not prepared for the primary purpose of accusing a targeted individual or for the primary purpose of providing evidence in a criminal case. The Leach Court also found that under Justice Thomas' "formality and solemnity rule," autopsy reports prepared by a medical examiner's office in the normal course of its duties are nontestimonial. Based on Williams and Leach, the Court then held that the DNA reports were nontestimonial, and their admission through the testimony of the ISP employee did not violate defendant’s right to confrontation. Moreover, even if the testimony concerning the reports of the nontestifying witnesses violated defendant’s right of confrontation, it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

Justice Kilbride dissented. As he stated in his dissent in Leach, Justice Kilbride considers Williams to be “a fractured opinion with no majority support for its rationale.” He further noted that many other courts have questioned Williams' precedential value. Nor did he consider the error to be harmless.