People v. Coleman

• Decision Date: 31 December 2014
• Docket Number: No. 5–11–0274.,5–11–0274.
• Citation: 24 N.E.3d 373
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Christopher COLEMAN, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

24 N.E.3d 373

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Christopher COLEMAN, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 5–11–0274.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District.

Dec. 31, 2014.

D. Peter Wise, Gates, Wise & Schlosser, P.C., Springfield, IL, for Defendant–Appellant.

Kris F. Reitz, State's Attorney, Waterloo, IL, Patrick Delfino, Director, Stephen E. Norris, Deputy Director, Sharon Shanahan, Staff Attorney, Office of the State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor, Mt. Vernon, IL, for Plaintiff–Appellee.

OPINION

Justice GOLDENHERSH

delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Defendant, Christopher Coleman, was charged by information with three counts of first-degree murder (720 ILCS 5/9–1(a)(1)

(West 2008)) after his wife, Sheri, and his two sons, Garett (d.o.b. 4/30/1998) and Gavin (d.o.b. 1/25/2000), were found dead in the family home. After a jury trial in the circuit court of Monroe County, defendant was convicted and sentenced to three concurrent life sentences. Defendant now appeals, raising the following seven issues: (1) whether the trial court erred in allowing the State to present the testimony of an expert linguist on the issue of authorship attribution, (2) whether the trial court erred in allowing the State to present sexually explicit photographs and videos of defendant and Tara Lintz, the woman with whom defendant was having an affair, (3) whether the trial court erred in allowing five witnesses to testify to hearsay statements attributed to Sheri Coleman regarding defendant's alleged desire to obtain a divorce and claims that Sheri was ruining his life and whether the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion for a mistrial after one of those witnesses testified that defendant beat Sheri, (4) whether the trial court erred in admitting the expert testimony of Lindell Moore in which he compared spray-painted writings found at the murder scene to defendant's handwriting, (5) whether the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of Marcus Rogers and Kenneth Wojtowicz, who testified about Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, (6) whether the trial court erred in allowing the admission of a hardware store receipt and in allowing a witness to testify to its content, and (7) whether the evidence adduced at trial proved defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. For the following reasons, we affirm.

¶ 2 FACTS

¶ 3 I. Pretrial

¶ 4 At 6:43 a.m. on May 5, 2009, defendant, who was employed as director of security for Joyce Meyer Ministries (JMM), an internationally renowned Christian ministry headquartered in Missouri, called his neighbor, Detective Sergeant Justin Barlow of the Columbia police department. Defendant told Barlow he had been at the gym and after his workout he called home to try to wake up his wife, Sheri, but Sheri did not answer. Defendant was concerned something had happened to Sheri. Barlow was aware that defendant had made previous reports to the Columbia police department that he and his family had been threatened due to his employment with JMM. Sergeant Barlow went to defendant's house to check on the welfare of defendant's family. Soon another officer arrived, and after ringing the doorbell and receiving no answer, they went to the back of the house and saw a basement rear window standing open. The police entered the home through the basement window and saw disturbing messages written on the walls in red spray paint. Defendant arrived home and was told to stay outside. The police went up the stairs to the second floor where they found Garett, Gavin, and Sheri dead.

¶ 5 When interviewed by the police, defendant told investigators Sheri was alive when he left the house at 5:45 a.m. to go to the gym. During the interview, police noticed scratches on defendant's arm. Defendant said he obtained one set of scratches a few days earlier, but was unsure how he got them. He said he received another abrasion on his arm after hitting his arm on the gurney in the ambulance in which he was transported after his family was found dead. Initially, defendant told the police his marriage was good, but later revealed that near the end of 2008, he and Sheri had some problems in their marriage, which they worked out through the help of counseling.

¶ 6 The police soon discovered defendant was having an affair with Tara Lintz, a high school friend of Sheri's who was living in Florida. Defendant denied the affair, but after being advised investigators were talking to Tara, defendant admitted to the affair, but minimized its intensity. As part of the murder investigation, many of defendant's and Sheri's friends were interviewed. Several friends told the police that Sheri was upset because defendant wanted a divorce. They said defendant told Sheri she was ruining his life, but he was afraid he would lose his job with JMM if he divorced her.

¶ 7 Investigators went to Florida and interviewed Tara. During the interview, she revealed, inter alia, that defendant told her he planned to serve divorce papers on Sheri on May 5, 2009, that she and defendant planned to go on a Caribbean cruise on June 14, 2009, and that they planned a tentative wedding date of January 2010. Tara also told investigators that she had been looking at engagement rings, registering on wedding registration websites, and looking for homes in the St. Louis area for her and defendant to live in upon their marriage, and that they had even discussed baby names.

¶ 8 Cybercrime investigators tracked threatening emails received by defendant pertaining to his job at JMM to defendant's laptop. In threatening letters addressed to defendant, the word “opportunities” was consistently misspelled as “oppurtunities.” Cybercrime investigators found several documents on defendant's computer in which the word “opportunities” is misspelled in the same manner as it was in the threatening letters.

¶ 9 Medical reports, including the results of the autopsies, showed that Sheri, Garett, and Gavin were all dead before 5 a.m. Police checked defendant's cell phone records and investigated where the calls were placed by defendant on the morning of the murders. Based upon the foregoing, defendant was charged by information on May 20, 2009, with three counts of first-degree murder by strangulation.

¶ 10 Prior to trial, numerous motions were filed, including a motion in limine or, in the alternative, a motion for a Frye hearing (Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923)

) regarding forensic linguistic analysis. The motion set forth that discovery provided by the State indicated the State was going to “attempt to produce evidence that the defendant sent multiple threats to himself, by e-mail and letter, to produce a fictitious suspect who could be blamed for the murder[s]” and was going to “attempt to produce evidence that the defendant spray painted graffiti throughout his house, where the victims were killed.” The motion went on to allege that the State had produced a curriculum vitae and a report from a purported expert in the area of forensic linguistic analysis (FLA), but that “FLA is not an accepted science” and “[t]o allow this FLA testimony under the rubric of expert testimony would be unfairly prejudicial.” Defendant sought an order prohibiting any mention of FLA evidence or, in the alternative, “prohibiting the solicitation of expert testimony on the subject of FLA, or grant[ing] the [d]efendant's motion unless the State establishes the validity of the FLA testimony after a Frye Hearing.” Defendant also filed a motion in limine to bar the testimony of the State's alleged FLA expert, Dr. Robert Leonard.

¶ 11 The trial court granted defendant's motion for a Frye hearing. During the hearing the State presented the testimony of Dr. Leonard, and defendant presented the testimony of his own expert, Dr. Ronald Butters. After the hearing, the trial court entered the following order:

“The Court, after conducting a Frye hearing, rules that the testimony of a Linguistic Expert may be admitted to the extent of noting similarities between the questioned documents and the known documents without presenting an opinion as to authorship by a specific person, and similarities between the questioned documents themselves.”

¶ 12 Defendant also filed a motion in limine to bar Lindell Moore's testimony. Moore is a forensic scientist with the Illinois State Police whose area of expertise is handwriting analysis. The trial court granted the motion with regard to any reference by Moore to the report of Richard Johnson, another laboratory handwriting analyst at the State Police lab in Springfield. The motion's relevancy objection was taken under advisement and reserved until the time of Moore's trial testimony.

¶ 13 Defendant also filed a motion in limine to bar evidence of sexually explicit texts, emails, photographs, and videos exchanged between defendant and Tara that were seized from computers and cell phones in defendant's and Tara's possession.

An in camera review of the many items was conducted. The State argued these items were relevant to show defendant's motive and the intensity of the affair. The trial court permitted three sexually explicit videos, with the caveat that images of breasts, buttocks, and genitalia be blacked out. There was an abundance of intimate photographs, but the State realized all would not be admitted and asked only for a limited amount, which the trial court allowed, again with the caveat that private parts be blacked out.

¶ 14 Both the State and the defense filed pretrial motions and supporting documents with regard to the hearsay testimony of 13 potential witnesses who would purportedly testify to statements made by Sheri regarding defendant's alleged desire for a divorce and his frustration over the fact that he believed his family was holding him back from realizing his full potential. The State presented 11 of these witnesses during a hearing on these motions. After the hearing, the trial court ruled broadly that the statements were...