People v. Sebby

Summary

The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the appellate court's affirmance of Montana Sebby's conviction for resisting a peace officer, holding that the trial court's failure to ask prospective jurors whether they understood and accepted the four Zehr principles mandated by Rule 431(b)—asking instead whether they had 'any problems' with or 'believed in' those principles—was clear error, and that because the trial evidence was a closely balanced credibility contest, the error alone threatened to tip the scales of justice under the first prong of the plain error doctrine. The court rejected the State's request to graft an additional seriousness-of-error requirement onto the first prong, reaffirming that prejudice rests on the closeness of the evidence, and it declined the position that close-of-trial instructions on the same principles cure the voir dire violation. The cause was remanded for a new trial.