Morris v. Wills
| Decision Date | 18 April 2023 |
| Docket Number | 21 C 1188 |
| Parties | Robert E. Morris, R-71372, Petitioner, v. Anthony Willis, Warden, Menard Correctional Center, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
1
Robert E. Morris, R-71372, Petitioner,
v.
Anthony Willis, Warden, Menard Correctional Center, Respondent.
No. 21 C 1188
United States District Court, N.D. Illinois
April 18, 2023
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
THOMAS M. DURKIN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Petitioner Robert E. Morris, a prisoner at Menard Correctional Center, brings this pro se habeas corpus action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his 2013 murder and attempted armed robbery convictions from the Circuit Court of Cook County. (Dkt. 1.) For the reasons below, this Court denies the petition and declines to issue a certificate of appealability.
I. Background[1]
A. The Murder and Attempted Armed Robbery
On April 3, 2009, seventy-nine-year-old Robert Sanders (the victim) was sitting in the driver seat of his blue Chevrolet outside a currency exchange in Calumet City, Illinois, when a man entered the front passenger side of his car and attempted to rob him. People v. Morris, 2015 IL App (1st), 140846-U, ¶¶ 5, 19. The offender, later identified as Petitioner, fired multiple gunshots during the attempted robbery, causing the victim severe injuries, respiratory failure, and
other significant health issues. Id. at ¶¶ 5, 41. The victim remained in a nursing home for the next two years before eventually succumbing to his wounds on April 30, 2011. Id. at ¶¶ 5, 15. The cause of death was identified as aspiration pneumonia due to multiple gunshot wounds, and his manner of death a homicide. Id. at ¶ 41. Petitioner was subsequently charged with murder and attempted armed robbery. Id. at ¶ 5.
B. Petitioner's Trial
The State's Case
At trial, the State presented the testimony of William Binns, an eyewitness who was standing in line at the currency exchange when Petitioner attacked the victim. Id. at ¶ 18. Binns testified that he was looking out the window to check on his car when he saw a tall, dark-skinned man in a gray hooded sweatshirt enter the front-passenger side of the car that was parked next to his, and begin to struggle with the older man seated in the driver seat. Id. He described the victim's car as a tan Buick but later acknowledged the victim's car was a blue Chevrolet. Id. at ¶ 19.
Binns explained that the struggle went on for a few minutes when he heard two or three gunshots. Id. at ¶ 18. At that point, Binns observed Petitioner exit the car, close the front-passenger door, and walk quickly past the currency exchange. Id. Binns testified that he saw the shooter's face as he passed. Id.
Following the incident, Binns left the currency exchange to check on his car and saw the victim had been shot. Id. He spoke with officers from the Calumet City Police Department at the scene. Id. Two weeks later, he identified Petitioner in a lineup. Id. at ¶ 19. He subsequently testified before a grand jury and again identified Petitioner as the shooter. Id. He also made an in-court identification at trial. (Dkt. 21-16, p. 205.)
Several police officers and other emergency personnel also testified for the State. Calumet City paramedic Joseph Brazzale testified that he responded to the crime scene and found the victim sitting in the driver's seat of a car with blood on his hands and shirt. Morris, 2015 IL App (1st) 140846-U, ¶ 21. The victim told Brazzale that someone tried to rob him and shot him. Id.
Calumet City police officer George Jones testified that he photographed the crime scene and dusted for fingerprints. Id. at ¶ 23. He found fingerprints on the passenger door of the victim's car. Id. The officer lifted prints from the interior and exterior front passenger window and the exterior front passenger door frame, and submitted the fingerprint lifts to the Illinois State Police crime lab for testing. Id.; (Dkt. 21-17, p. 28-35.)
Calumet City police detective Casey Erickson testified that he received notice that the fingerprints that had been submitted to the crime lab matched Petitioner. Morris, 2015 IL App (1st) 140846-U, ¶ 37. He issued a BOLO (be on the lookout) with Petitioner's photograph. Id. A high school resource officer observed Petitioner walking near the school where he worked and alerted the Calumet City Police Department. Id. at ¶ 25. Petitioner was subsequently arrested. Id.
Detective Erickson testified that he spoke with Petitioner after he was taken into custody. Id. at ¶ 38. The detective informed Petitioner of the armed robbery and asked him if he had been in the area that day. Id. Petitioner told the detective that he may have been around there, but denied knowing anything about an armed robbery. Id. Detective Erickson then told Petitioner that they were going to place him in a lineup, to which Petitioner asked, “if the old man was okay.” Id. The detective explained that, at that point, Petitioner had only been informed that there had been an armed robbery; he had not been given details about the victim or that he had been hurt. Id.
Calumet City police sergeant Kevin Rapacz testified regarding his visit with the victim the day after Petitioner was taken into custody. Id. at ¶ 33. He brought with him a photo array. Id. Petitioner's counsel objected to the State introducing testimony about any identification the victim made from the photo array, arguing it was hearsay and violated the defendant's right to confront witnesses. Id. The State responded that it would not be eliciting the substance of the conversation between the sergeant and the victim; rather the testimony would be offered to show the course of the investigation. Id. The trial court overruled defense counsel's objection, rejecting the argument that the mention of a photo array would lead to the inference that the victim made some kind of identification because the inference could go “both ways.” Id.
Sergeant Rapacz explained that the victim was alert when he visited, but could not speak and could communicate only with his hands and head. Id. at ¶ 34. The sergeant testified that he went to the hospital for the purpose of having the victim view a photo array containing six photos. Id. His testimony proceeded as follows:
Q: And who was contained in that photo spread
A: Robert Morris.
Q: Did you in fact, present [the victim] with that photo spread?
A: Yes.
Q: After doing so, what did you do?
A: We responded to the police department to continue our investigation of Robert Morris.
(Dkt. 21-17, p. 191.) The photo array was admitted into evidence. Morris, 2015 IL App (1st) 140846-U, ¶ 47.
Back at the police station, Sergeant Rapacz and Detective Erickson conducted a physical lineup that included Petitioner. (Dkt. 21-17, p. 191-92.) Sergeant Rapacz testified that Binns identified Petitioner from the lineup. Morris, 2015 IL App (1st) 140846-U, ¶ 34.
On cross-examination, defense counsel sought to elicit testimony from Sergeant Rapacz regarding identifications made by other witnesses, Jack Spinks and his deceased wife Effie Sheppard. (Dkt. 21-17, p. 205.) The trial court ruled that, like the photo array, the sergeant could testify that others viewed the lineup as part of the course of investigation, but not the result of the viewing. Id. at 208-09. The jury was then told by Sergeant Rapacz that Spinks and Sheppard also viewed the lineup. Id. at 211.
Following the lineup, Detective Erickson spoke with Petitioner for a second time. Morris, 2015 IL App (1st) 140846-U, ¶ 34. The detective advised Petitioner that someone had identified him in the lineup as being involved in the armed robbery. (Dkt. 21-17, p. 228.) Petitioner, who still had not been provided information regarding the details of the victim, asked “if the old man was able to come [] and pick him out of the lineup.” Id. Detective Erickson explained that he then told Petitioner the armed robbery involved a shooting and that someone had been shot. Id. Petitioner hunched over, put his head down, and said, “it wasn't cold-blooded.” Id.
The State also presented an expert in latent fingerprint analysis, Frank Senese. Morris, 2015 IL App (1st) 140846-U, ¶ 43. Senese testified that he is a latent print group supervisor for the Illinois State police. Id. at ¶ 44. At the time of the investigation, he received several latent prints from the Calumet City Police Department. Id. He entered one of the prints recovered from
the exterior of the front-passenger side window of the victim's car into the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).[2] Id. The database matched the print to Petitioner. Id.
Senese followed up the AFIS match by requesting Petitioner's fingerprint card from the Bureau of Identification for the Illinois State Police so that he could conduct a comparison between Petitioner's fingerprints and three of the prints recovered from the exterior of the passenger-side window of the victim's car. (Dkt. 21-18, p. 94-97.) Following his comparison analysis, he notified the Calumet City Police Department that the fingerprints belonged to Petitioner. Id. at 97.
Following Petitioner's arrest, Senese re-compared the latent prints to another set of Petitioner's ink prints. Morris, 2015 IL App (1st) 140846-U, ¶ 45. His analysis resulted in the same conclusion: the three lifts from the exterior passenger window of the victim's car matched the prints for Petitioner's left pinky, ring, and middle fingers. Id. Specifically, he found 15 points of comparison on Petitioner's pinky finger, 44 points of comparison on his ring finger, and 25 points of comparison on his middle finger. (Dkt. 21-18, p. 100-11.) As for a smudge at the bottom of one of the prints, Senese acknowledged that he could not say whether it was left by Petitioner or whether it was a glove print. Morris, 2015 IL App (1st) 140846-U, ¶ 45.
Petitioner's Case
Before Petitioner called his first witness, the State renewed an earlier objection it had made regarding the identification testimony of Sheppard. (Dkt. 21-18, p. 172.) Sheppard had made an...
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