Background
In October 2019, Pedro Guzman sexually assaulted D.B., an 18-year-old visitor from Mexico who was staying as a houseguest in his home in De Kalb County, Illinois. Following a pre-Halloween party at which D.B. consumed alcohol, she fell asleep and awoke to find Guzman on top of her, performing oral sex and then penetrating her vaginally while pinning her arms above her head. D.B. testified she was still intoxicated and lacked the strength to resist. After the assault, Guzman and family members sought to convince D.B. that the encounter had been a dream. D.B. subsequently reported the assault to police and underwent a sexual assault examination; DNA analysis placed Guzman as the source of male DNA found on a vaginal swab at an extraordinarily high statistical significance.
Guzman testified at trial that D.B. had initiated the sexual encounter by kissing and touching him and leading him to her bedroom. Following a jury trial, he was convicted of criminal sexual assault under 720 ILCS 5/11-1.20(a)(1) — commission of sexual penetration by force or threat of force — and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
On appeal, Guzman raised three arguments: that the pattern jury instructions on criminal sexual assault and the consent defense improperly shifted the burden of proof to him; that trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to object to those instructions; and that the State had presented insufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Court’s Holding
The Second District affirmed the conviction on all grounds. On the jury instruction challenge, the court held that the two pattern instructions at issue — IPI Criminal Nos. 11.60 and 11.63 — accurately stated Illinois law. Under Illinois statute and precedent, proof of force implicitly establishes nonconsent, but once the defendant raises a consent defense, the State bears the burden of disproving consent beyond a reasonable doubt. The instructions faithfully tracked these principles and imposed no improper burden-shifting. Because Guzman failed to object at trial, he was required to show plain error, but the court found no error at all — let alone a clear or obvious one.
On the ineffective assistance claim, the court applied the two-prong Strickland standard and rejected it summarily: because the instructions were legally correct, trial counsel had no basis to object, and an objection would not have changed the outcome. Neither deficient performance nor prejudice was established.
On the sufficiency challenge, the court held that Guzman forfeited the issue entirely. His opening brief contained only a bare, uncited assertion that “too much weight was afforded to uncorroborated testimony” — falling short of the argument and citation of pertinent authority required under Illinois Supreme Court rules. The court declined to overlook forfeiture and noted that, in any event, no corroboration requirement exists in Illinois for sexual assault victims’ testimony, and the jury’s verdict was supported by the evidence.
Key Takeaways
- Illinois pattern jury instructions on criminal sexual assault (IPI Criminal No. 11.60) and the consent defense (IPI Criminal No. 11.63) are legally accurate and do not shift the burden of proof to defendants when consent is raised as a defense to a force-based charge.
- Failure to object to jury instructions at trial forfeits appellate review; plain-error review requires a showing of clear or obvious error, which a legally correct instruction cannot supply.
- An ineffective assistance claim fails where the instructions counsel did not object to were proper — there is neither deficient performance nor resulting prejudice.
- A sufficiency-of-evidence argument that consists solely of conclusory assertions without legal analysis or citation to authority is forfeited under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 341; arguments raised for the first time or substantially augmented in a reply brief will not be considered.
- Illinois imposes no corroboration requirement on the testimony of sexual assault complainants — a victim’s credible testimony alone can sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the validity of Illinois’s standard pattern jury instructions in sexual assault prosecutions where consent is contested. Defense challenges to IPI Criminal Nos. 11.60 and 11.63 as burden-shifting have not gained traction in Illinois courts, and this ruling — though non-precedential under Rule 23(b) — illustrates how consistently appellate courts have rejected that theory. Practitioners defending sexual assault cases should take note that attacks on these instructions are unlikely to succeed and that failure to object at trial forecloses plain-error review absent a demonstrable legal defect in the instructions themselves.
The opinion also serves as a cautionary reminder about appellate briefing discipline. The court’s refusal to reach the sufficiency-of-evidence issue — despite acknowledging it likely would have affirmed on the merits anyway — underscores that bare assertions without supporting authority will be treated as forfeited, and that substantive arguments cannot be reserved for or significantly expanded in a reply brief.