People v. Seawright

Decision Date15 May 1992
Docket NumberNo. 1-90-0935,1-90-0935
Parties, 171 Ill.Dec. 183 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Keith SEAWRIGHT, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtUnited States Appellate Court of Illinois

James R. Kavanaugh, Chicago, for defendant-appellant.

Jack O'Malley, State's Atty. of Cook County, Chicago (Renee Goldfarb, James E. Fitzgerald and Janet C. Mahoney, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellee.

Presiding Justice EGAN delivered the opinion of the court:

A jury convicted the defendant, Keith Seawright, of the murder of his wife, Estralita; he was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment followed by a three year period of mandatory supervised release.

Around 8 a.m. on June 23, 1986, the police were called by the defendant to his home at 262 Arcadia in Park Forest. The police found the defendant's wife, Estralita, in bed; she had been shot twice in the face. She was revived by paramedics but died on the way to the hospital. The defendant subsequently told the police that he conspired with a co-worker, Tim Reynolds, to kill his wife and that Reynolds did the killing. After the police investigated and exonerated Reynolds, the defendant confessed that he had shot his wife. He now maintains that his confession was the result of an illegal arrest and detention; that he was not proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; and that other errors deprived him of a fair trial.

The defendant filed a pre-trial motion to quash arrest and suppress evidence, claiming that he was arrested without probable cause. He also filed a motion to suppress his statements, arguing that they were not made voluntarily, and a motion to suppress evidence acquired when his home was searched. When the hearing on the defendant's pre-trial motions commenced, Judge Richard Samuels presided over the case.

The defendant's attorney told Judge Samuels that the motion to quash arrest and the motion to suppress statements were separate motions; however, he believed that the evidence on the two motions would overlap. Therefore, he explained that the evidence presented on the motion to quash arrest would be adopted as evidence on the motion to suppress statements.

After a hearing, Judge Samuels denied the motion to quash arrest; he found that the defendant had been arrested between 2 and 2:30 p.m. on June 23 and that the police had probable cause to arrest him at that time. The motion to suppress statements was continued to a later date.

On the next court date, the defendant's attorney filed a motion to reconsider the motion to quash arrest. He explained that evidence that would be introduced on the motion to suppress statements should also be considered on the motion to quash arrest. Judge Samuels did not say whether he would reconsider his ruling on the motion to quash arrest but continued the case to a later date.

Judge Samuels retired and was replaced by Judge Paul Foxgrover. At the next court date, the defendant told Judge Foxgrover that the case was up on a motion to reconsider the motion to quash arrest. He explained that new evidence would be introduced during the motion to suppress statements which should also be considered on the motion to quash arrest. Judge Foxgrover noted that Judge Samuels had made findings of fact when he denied the motion to quash; he expressed reservations about reconsidering findings of fact. At the defendant's request, however, he agreed to defer his ruling on the motion to reconsider until after the hearing on the motion to suppress statements.

After hearing testimony and arguments on the motion to reconsider, the motion to suppress the defendant's statements and the motion to suppress evidence obtained during the search of his home, Judge Foxgrover denied all three motions.

This is a confusing record, as Judge Foxgrover noted. The parties agreed to hear the pre-trial motions jointly. The statements of facts contained in the parties' briefs do not separate the testimony of the witnesses who testified at the motion to quash and suppress from their testimony at the trial. Our examination of the record discloses that the testimony of the witnesses at the pre-trial hearings was substantially the same as their testimony at trial. In any event, we shall consider the evidence adduced at trial in addition to the evidence presented at the pre-trial hearing in passing on the propriety of the trial judge's ruling on the motion to quash arrest and suppress evidence. (People v. Caballero (1984), 102 Ill.2d 23, 79 Ill.Dec. 625, 464 N.E.2d 223.) For the sake of brevity our statement of facts will, except in certain specified instances, make no distinction between the pre-trial testimony and the trial testimony.

Officer Fred Bailey of the Park Forest Police Department testified that he went to 262 Arcadia in Park Forest around 8 a.m. on June 23, 1986, in response to a call about a possible homicide. The defendant was at the front door; he told Bailey that his wife, Estralita, had been injured and was in the bedroom. Bailey and Sergeant Peck went into the bedroom and observed the victim and then went outside where the defendant was standing in the driveway. The defendant appeared unemotional.

The officers asked him what he had done before calling them. The defendant said that he had left for work around 10:30 p.m. the previous night and worked the 11 to 7 shift at a paper company in Alsip. He left work around 7:10 a.m. and arrived home approximately 20 or 25 minutes later. He parked in the driveway and used his key to enter the house through the back door. He saw several items of paper scattered about the kitchen and the living room, and all the lights in the house were on. He called to his wife but received no answer. He went into the bedroom and saw his wife lying on the bed. He tried to find her pulse and to wake her. He then went into the living room where he found the phone unplugged; he plugged it into the wall and called the police. He ran next door to get his neighbor; he brought the neighbor back to his house, showed her his wife and told her that he had called for the police and an ambulance.

Detectives Kuester, Lancaster and Myers arrived at the scene around 8:15 a.m. Lancaster took photos of the scene. Kuester talked with Bailey in the driveway, and Bailey told him what had happened. Kuester and Bailey approached the defendant and had a brief conversation with him. Kuester identified himself and asked the defendant to tell him what had happened. The defendant told Kuester essentially the same story he had related to Bailey. He said that when he found his wife, he pulled the blankets back and felt her body to see whether she was breathing. He went to the neighbor's house and knocked on her door; when she came to the door, he told her that his wife had been raped and beaten, and he told her to call the police. He did not explain why he found it necessary to call his neighbor.

Kuester told the defendant that he wanted Bailey to take a formal statement for his case report; he asked the defendant if he would accompany Bailey to the police station for an interview. The defendant said that he would. During this conversation, the paramedics brought the victim out of the house and took her away in an ambulance. Kuester testified that the defendant did not say that he wanted to go to the hospital with his wife. Bailey drove the defendant to the police station; the defendant was not handcuffed, and he sat in the front seat of the car. On the way to the police station the defendant said that he needed some cigarettes. Bailey stopped at a gas station where the defendant went inside alone and purchased cigarettes.

When they arrived at the police station, Bailey took the defendant into the detectives' office. Bailey worked on his notes and only spoke to the defendant to verify the information he had previously given. Periodically, the defendant would ask Bailey if he thought Estralita was dead, but he never asked if he could go to the hospital.

After the defendant and Bailey left, Kuester and Lancaster called for the evidence technicians and continued their investigation. The house was secured as a crime scene; officers were stationed at various locations to prevent access to the scene. The evidence technicians arrived around 9:30 a.m., and Kuester and Lancaster stayed and assisted them until about 11 a.m.

Kuester and Lancaster walked up the driveway and observed the exterior of the house and the back yard. They found a shell casing in the driveway and a cassette tape on the air conditioner in the back yard. They found some jalousie window slats on the ground outside the garage, and they also noticed broken glass on the ground outside the garage and through the window in the interior of the garage. There was a sizeable opening into the garage. The doors to the garage were locked.

Kuester and Lancaster decided to look around the house to try to determine any offender's point of entry. They entered the kitchen and observed that the rear kitchen window was completely open. The screen from the open window was in the back yard near the window; it appeared to have been pushed out from inside the house. Kuester noticed that the window on the storm door was loose from its frame. The storm door and the wooden door behind it showed no signs of forcible entry. The windowsill underneath the open kitchen window was clean and free of any marks. The aluminum kitchen sink below the window was free of any scuff marks or shoe prints. The window edge and glass were uniformly dusty with no marks suggesting entry or exit through the window. There was dust on the window and around the frame of the window.

In the living room, Kuester and Lancaster saw various items, including department store bags and purses, scattered on the floor. The furniture, stereo equipment and television all appeared to be in their proper places. Books, papers, purses and other small objects were lying...

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