People v. Adams
| Decision Date | 20 January 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. 111168.,111168. |
| Citation | 2012 IL 111168,962 N.E.2d 410,356 Ill.Dec. 725 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellant, v. Romney ADAMS, Appellee. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Lisa Madigan, Attorney General, Springfield, and James W. Glasgow, State's Attorney, Joliet (Michael A. Scodro, Solicitor General, and Michael M. Glick and David A. Simpson, Assistant Attorney General, Chicago, and Patrick Delfino, Terry A. Mertel and Thomas D. Arado, of the Office of the State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor, Ottawa, of counsel), for the People.
Michael J. Pelletier, State Appellate Defender, Peter A. Carusona, Deputy Defender, and Bryon S. Kohut, Assistant Appellate Defender, of the Office of the State Appellate Defender, Chicago, for appellee.
[356 Ill.Dec. 727] ¶ 1 The primary issue in this appeal is whether a prosecutor may properly argue to a jury that a police officer's testimony should be believed because he would not risk “his credibility, his job, and his freedom” by lying, when no evidence that those consequences would occur was introduced at trial. The appellate court held that such argument was improper and, under the facts of this case, constituted plain error. 403 Ill.App.3d 995, 343 Ill.Dec. 470, 934 N.E.2d 1073. We agree with the appellate court that the prosecutor's argument was improper but disagree with the court's conclusion that the argument amounted to plain error.
¶ 3 The defendant, Romney Adams, was indicted in the circuit court of Will County for unlawful possession of a controlled substance. At defendant's jury trial, Sergeant Joe Boers of the Will County sheriff's police testified for the State. Boers told the jury that on the evening of March 3, 2006, he was on patrol in his police car with Officer Hillary Buck of the New Lenox police department and Deputy Kevin Schumacher of the Will County Forest Preserve police when he observed a tan Oldsmobile sitting in a liquor store parking lot. Boers entered the car's license plate number into a police computer and learned that the registered owner was defendant and that his driver's license had been suspended.
¶ 4 Boers testified that he followed the Oldsmobile into the parking lot of a grocery store across the street, switched on his emergency lights and initiated a traffic stop. Boers approached defendant, who was the only occupant of the vehicle, confirmed his identification, and had him exit the car. Boers then handcuffed defendant and placed him under arrest for driving with a suspended license.
¶ 5 Boers told the jury that while conducting a search of defendant incident to the arrest, he found a small plastic sandwich bag containing a white powdery substance in defendant's left front pocket. Boers ran a preliminary field test on the substance, which indicated the presence of cocaine. Boers stated that, after returning to the police station, he turned the plastic bag and its contents over to a crime scene investigator. Boers testified that he never saw the plastic bag, or any other item, on the ground during the stop of defendant.
¶ 6 Cynthia Koulis, a forensic scientist with the Illinois State Police, also testified for the State. Koulis stated that the white powder in the bag recovered by Boers was 0.8 grams of cocaine.
¶ 7 Defendant testified on his own behalf. Defendant told the jury that he went to the liquor store to buy a lottery ticket and then drove across the street to buy some ice and water. After he got out of his car, a police car pulled up, and officers Boers, Buck and Schumacher approached him. Defendant stated that, when Boers asked defendant for his driver's license, he pulled out two traffic citations from his shirt pocket and began to explain that he had been told that he could drive on the citations. According to defendant, Boers then stated that “you can't drive on a citation in the State of Illinois” and placed defendant under arrest. Boers walked defendant to the rear of the police car and told him to place his hands behind his back, but did not handcuff him. Defendant stated that Boers and Officer Buck then began to search him.
¶ 8 Defendant testified as to what happened next:
“[Boers said] what is this, and I looked toward him and she [Buck] looked toward him too. I said, what? He moved his foot, looked down on the ground. There was a piece of plastic laying there with a white substance in it. It wasn't sealed or tied up or nothing. It was just a piece of plastic. So I said, I don't know. He said, you're not going to say I dropped it. I said, you know I didn't drop it.
[Defense counsel:] Why did you say that?
[Defendant:] Because my hands was behind my back.
[Defense counsel:] Had you seen this piece of plastic before?
[Defendant:] No. I never seen it before.”
¶ 9 Later, on cross-examination, defendant provided additional description of the item on the ground:
“It didn't look like a bag to me. It looked like a flat piece of paper with something white.
* * *
It wasn't knotted up or tied up or nothing. It was laying flat on the ground.
[Prosecutor:] Okay.
[Defendant:] I don't know how it could have been in anyone's pocket.”
Defendant testified that he never saw an officer drop or place anything on the ground and that the first time he saw the piece of paper or plastic was when Boers pointed to it with his foot.
¶ 10 Defendant stated that after the officers finished searching him, he was placed in the back of the police car. Boers sat in the front seat. According to defendant, Boers asked defendant whether he knew any drug dealers or had “any information on any killings or guns,” and told defendant that if he could not provide him with information he “would be looking at up to a couple years in prison.” Defendant told Boers that he did not know anything.
¶ 11 Defendant further testified that, after being taken to the Will County jail, a booking officer “tried to trick [him] into signing papers saying [he] had over 30 grams of heroin in [his] possession.” According to defendant, he refused to sign the papers.
¶ 12 Deputy Schumacher testified in rebuttal for the State. Schumacher corroborated the main points of Boers' testimony, telling the jury that he saw Boers pull the bag of cocaine out of defendant's pocket and that Boers never dropped or retrieved anything from the ground.
¶ 13 The jury found defendant guilty. The trial court denied defendant's posttrial motion and sentenced defendant to five years' imprisonment.
¶ 14 On appeal, defendant contended for the first time that the prosecutor engaged in misconduct when he argued to the jury that Boers and Schumacher would not risk their credibility, reputations, jobs, and freedom by lying on the witness stand, when no evidence that such repercussions would occur was introduced at trial. After acknowledging a split of authority among the appellate districts on the issue, the appellate court concluded that the prosecutor's statements were improper. The court then went on to hold that, because the evidence in this case was closely balanced, the prosecutor's statements amounted to plain error. 403 Ill.App.3d 995, 343 Ill.Dec. 470, 934 N.E.2d 1073. This appeal followed. Ill. S.Ct. R. 315 (eff. Feb. 26, 2010).
¶ 16 During closing argument, the prosecutor made the following statements to the jury:
“What also doesn't make sense is that [Sergeant] Boers would plant these drugs on the defendant. We are talking about 0.8 grams of cocaine. If you believe what the defendant is saying, then you also have to believe that [Sergeant] Boers is risking his credibility, his job, and his freedom over 0.8 grams of cocaine.
And not only is [Sergeant] Boers doing that, but [Deputy] Schumacher is doing that as well. He's also risking his life—his job and his freedom and his reputation over 0.8 grams of cocaine.”
The prosecutor also argued during rebuttal that believing defendant required the jury to believe that “these officers are risking their jobs for this, over 0.8 grams of cocaine.”
¶ 17 Noting that it is improper for a prosecutor to argue assumptions or facts not based upon evidence in the case (see, e.g., People v. Smith, 141 Ill.2d 40, 60, 152 Ill.Dec. 218, 565 N.E.2d 900 (1990)), defendant maintains that these statements were improper because there was no evidence presented at trial regarding potential consequences to the officers if they testified falsely or manipulated evidence. Defendant acknowledges that this claim was not preserved below but asks this court to review the matter for plain error.
¶ 18 In response, the State contends that the prosecutor's statements were not improper. The State observes that a prosecutor is free to “comment on the evidence and any fair, reasonable inferences it yields” ( People v. Nicholas, 218 Ill.2d 104, 121, 299 Ill.Dec. 637, 842 N.E.2d 674 (2005)), and maintains that the prosecutor's statements in this case “rested on reasonable, common-sense inferences.” Thus, according to the State, the appellate court erred in reversing defendant's conviction.
¶ 19 Whether a prosecutor may properly make the statements at issue here has divided our appellate court. Compare, e.g., People v. Fields, 258 Ill.App.3d 912, 920–21, 197 Ill.Dec. 300, 631 N.E.2d 303 (1994) (improper), with People v. Bennett, 304 Ill.App.3d 69, 71–72, 237 Ill.Dec. 815, 710 N.E.2d 445 (1999) (proper). However, the weight of authority in other jurisdictions, particularly in the federal courts, holds that such comments are improper. See, e.g., United States v. Pungitore, 910 F.2d 1084, 1125 (3d Cir.1990); United States v. Gallardo–Trapero, 185 F.3d 307, 319 (5th Cir.1999); United States v. Martinez, 981 F.2d 867, 871 (6th Cir.1992); United States v. Swiatek, 819 F.2d 721, 731 (7th Cir.1987); United States v. McMath, 559 F.3d 657, 668 (7th Cir.2009); United States v. Weatherspoon, 410 F.3d 1142, 1146 (9th Cir.2005); United States v. Boyd, 54 F.3d 868, 870 (D.C.Cir.1995); see...
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