People v. Abram

• Decision Date: 07 March 2016
• Docket Number: No. 1–13–2785.,1–13–2785.
• Citation: 401 Ill.Dec. 715,50 N.E.3d 1197
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Treble ABRAM, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

50 N.E.3d 1197

401 Ill.Dec. 715

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Treble ABRAM, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 1–13–2785.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District.

March 7, 2016.

Andréa E. Gambino, of Chicago, for appellant.

Anita M. Alvarez, State's Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, Miles J. Keleher, and Christopher R. Sullivan, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

OPINION

Presiding Justice LIU

delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 On July 28, 2009, two police officers patrolling the West Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago responded to a call that three males with rifles had been spotted in that area. Upon noticing defendant, Treble Abram, sitting alone inside a vehicle in an alley, the officers exited their squad car and started walking toward him. Defendant immediately drove his car, in reverse, out of the alley and sped away. A vehicle chase ensued for several minutes, and ended when defendant drove into the parking lot of a police station and was taken into custody. During the trial, various police officers involved in the chase testified that they saw items being tossed out the driver-side window of defendant's vehicle during the pursuit. The State also presented evidence demonstrating that substances containing cocaine were recovered from locations along the chase route and from the driver seat in defendant's vehicle.

¶ 2 The jury found defendant guilty of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver (720 ILCS 570/401(a)(2)(A)

(West 2012)), and the circuit court sentenced him to seven years' imprisonment. On appeal, defendant contends that: (1) the circuit court erred in denying his motion to suppress where the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to detain defendant when they saw him in the alley; (2) the court improperly denied his request to ask prospective jurors questions to reveal race—or drug use-related bias; (3) an audio recording of officers' statements during the car chase should have been excluded as hearsay; (4) a proper chain of custody was not maintained for the narcotics evidence; and (5) the State failed to establish defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. We affirm.

¶ 3 BACKGROUND

¶ 4 A. Defendant's Motion to Suppress

¶ 5 Prior to the trial, defendant brought a motion to quash his arrest and suppress any directly or indirectly obtained evidence. Defendant argued that, when the police officers initially approached him in the alley, he was not breaking any law and there was no probable cause to arrest him. Officer Szubski testified to the following during the hearing on the motion to suppress. On July 28, 2009, he and his partner responded to a call about individuals with rifles who had been seen near 61st Street and South Eberhart Avenue in Chicago. While patrolling the area, they saw defendant seated alone in a '95 Chevy Impala, in the east alley of South Eberhart Avenue. The vehicle was missing a front license plate and was obstructing the alley. The officers stopped their squad car and approached defendant on foot to conduct a field interview.

¶ 6 According to Officer Szubski, as they approached him, defendant started “making some movements” and then “threw his vehicle in reverse and fled from us.” The officers then pursued defendant, with lights and sirens on, for approximately 11 minutes.¹ During this time, defendant disobeyed traffic signals, drove “erratically,” and drove “down numerous alleys, side streets, through vacant lots, over sidewalks and major thoroughfares.” Officer Szubski admitted that he did not mention these infractions specifically in the incident report that he authored after the chase; he also agreed that at no time did he see a weapon in defendant's possession or any other occupant in the vehicle. The chase ended when defendant pulled into and stopped in the parking lot of the Third District police station, at which point he was taken into custody. Officer Szubski stated that, at several points during the car chase, he observed defendant move as if he was reaching under his seat and then throw something out through the driver-side window. Although he was not present when the discarded items were recovered by other officers, he later saw the items and testified that, based on his experience and training, he believed them to be crack cocaine. Officer Szubski issued defendant tickets for fleeing and eluding officers and missing a front license plate, but not for obstructing the alley.

¶ 7 The defense presented testimony from defendant's father, James Otis, and Kimberly Pritchett, the owner of the Chevy Impala. Mr. Otis testified that, on July 28, 2009, defendant was helping him work on a building at 6147 South Eberhart Avenue, and had parked the Impala on a concrete slab where a garage used to be. Mr. Otis admitted that he was not present when the officers approached his son and that defendant may have pulled off of the slab and into the alley at that time. Ms. Pritchett testified that she had lent her vehicle to defendant sometime prior to July 28, but that it had both a front and rear license plate when she saw it last. On cross examination, however, she admitted that there had been a problem with the front license plate and she could not be sure it was in place on July 28.

¶ 8 The circuit court denied the motion to suppress and granted the State's motion for a directed finding that probable cause had existed for defendant's arrest. Because the testimony presented established that defendant fled from the police and tossed items from his vehicle, the court concluded “[t]here [wa]s before [it] no possible other explanation as to how it happened.”

¶ 9 B. State's Motion to Introduce the Police Call–Out Tape

¶ 10 Prior to trial, the State filed a motion in limine seeking permission to introduce an Office of Emergency Management Communications (OEM) audio recording in which Officer Szubski “called out” details regarding the route defendant's vehicle traveled during the July 28 chase. The State argued that the recording was admissible under both the present sense impression and excited utterance exceptions to the rule against hearsay, explaining that the recording consisted of Officer Szubski's statements alerting his fellow officers to defendant's movements as the chase unfolded, and that the circumstances under which they were made would naturally produce spontaneous and unreflecting statements by the officer, thus eliminating the risk of fabrication.

¶ 11 During the hearing on the State's motion, defendant argued that: (1) the recorded statements were entirely duplicative of, and would only serve to improperly bolster, the officers' live testimony at trial, and (2) the sirens and other sound effects audible in the recording would confuse or distract the jury. He further contended that the recorded statements in the recording did not qualify as excited utterances because they were not made under the same sort of pressure or with the same urgency as the types of statements courts deemed admissible in the authority cited by the State, and, in some instances, were proven to be unreliable.² The circuit court granted the motion, concluding that the “ audio recording in real time of [a] police officer describing his observations as he is following [defendant],” was “pretty compelling stuff * * * qualifying both as an exception to the rule against hearsay under [the] present sense impression and as an excited utterance through a spontaneous declaration.”

¶ 12 C. Voir Dire

¶ 13 A jury was selected for defendant's trial from two venire panels. During its preliminary voir dire proceeding, the circuit court explained to the prospective jurors that “a defendant is presumed to be innocent of the charge against him” and that “[t]his presumption remains with him throughout every stage of the trial * * * and is not overcome unless from all the evidence you are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.” The court also explained that “the testimony of a police officer is not to be treated any differently than any other witness's” and that such testimony “is entitled to no greater or lesser weight than any other person's testimony simply because of that person's status as a police officer.”

¶ 14 Afterwards, the circuit court cautioned both panels as follows:

“It is essential that you not arrive at any decisions or conclusions of any kind until you have heard all the evidence, the arguments of the attorneys, and my instructions on the law * * *.”

¶ 15 After questioning the members of the venire individually, the circuit court invited the parties' attorneys to ask additional questions. Counsel for both sides questioned the first panel but declined to question the second. Neither side asked any questions relating to race—or drug use-related bias of any of the potential jurors.³ When a potential juror indicated that her son was murdered under what the court described as circumstances she believed “stem[med] from some aspect of drug trade on the south side,” the court suggested that she be dismissed for cause and the parties agreed.

¶ 16 D. Evidence Presented at Trial

¶ 17 1. Encounter in the alley

¶ 18 Officer Szubski's testimony at trial was generally consistent with the account he provided at the hearing on the motion to suppress; however, he provided a number of additional details regarding the events leading to defendant's arrest. He testified that, at approximately 7:30 p.m. on the date of the incident, he and his patrol partner drove to the intersection of 61st Street and South Eberhart Avenue in response to a call about three males with rifles in the area. They noticed defendant sitting in a black Chevy Impala with a missing front license plate in the nearby alley, facing southward. The car was obstructing the alley. The officers pulled into the alley facing northward, exited their squad car, and walked toward defendant to conduct a field interview. Officer Szubski testified that defendant th...