People v. Torres, 2012 IL 111302

Torres was convicted of first-degree murder by bench trial and sentenced to 20 years.
Appellant argued the State violated his confrontation right by introducing Pena’s pretrial testimony from the 1983 preliminary hearing.
Pena, the State’s key unavailable witness, was deported to Mexico in 1984; the State later located Torres in 2007.
The State moved to admit Pena’s preliminary-hearing transcript at trial; defense argued cross-examination at the hearing was inadequate.
The trial relied on Pena’s testimony, supported by other witnesses, to place Torres in the bar during the shooting; Pena’s testimony was the central linkage.
Appellate court reversed on the evidentiary issue, but the Supreme Court affirmed, addressing both evidentiary and constitutional dimensions.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Pena’s former testimony was admissible as unavailable witness evidence	People contends Pena was unavailable and had adequate cross-examination opportunities	Torres contends cross-examination was inadequate, violating confrontation rights	Admissibility requires unavailability and adequate prior cross-examination; potential error if not met
Whether the cross-examination at the preliminary hearing was adequate under motive and focus	People argues the cross-examination addressed key issues and mirrored trial focus	Torres argues cross-examination was limited and not adequate given discovery limits	Cross-examination was not adequately probing, given limitations and restrictions at the hearing
Whether the deportation/stipulated unavailability suffices to satisfy the unavailability requirement	People relied on deportation as unavailability	Torres contends unavailability was not proven or explored adequately	Deportation alone, without showing reasonable good-faith efforts, does not automatically satisfy unavailability; here the record supports a stipulation but not sufficient proof of unavailability
Whether admission of Pena’s testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt	People contends Pena’s testimony was crucial to locate Torres in the bar	Torres argues the error affected the verdict	Cannot deem the error harmless given Pena’s central role in linking Torres to the scene

People v. Tennant, 65 Ill. 2d 401 (Ill. 1976) (adequate cross-examination required for former testimony admission)
People v. Horton, 65 Ill. 2d 413 (Ill. 1976) (preliminary-hearing admissibility involves constitutional confrontation considerations)
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (U.S. 2004) (adequate opportunity to cross-examine and witness unavailability govern admission of former testimony)
Rice v. Ingram, 166 Ill. 2d 35 (Ill. 1995) (motive and focus test for cross-examination at prior proceeding re admission)
Sutherland v. People, 223 Ill. 2d 187 (Ill. 2006) (two-factor framework for admitting former testimony (unavailability and adequate cross-examination))
People v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 (U.S. 1980) (good-faith effort to obtain witness; unavailability is case-specific)
Bowen v. Idaho, 183 Ill. 2d 103 (Ill. 1998) (unavailability standard; prosecutorial duty to locate)