People v. Aljohani

• Decision Date: 28 January 2021
• Docket Number: No. 1-19-0692,1-19-0692
• Citation: 177 N.E.3d 1125,448 Ill.Dec. 774,2021 IL App (1st) 190692
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Abdullah ALJOHANI, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

2021 IL App (1st) 190692
177 N.E.3d 1125
448 Ill.Dec. 774

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Abdullah ALJOHANI, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-19-0692

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, FOURTH DIVISION.

Filed January 28, 2021

Stephen F. Hall, of Chicago, for appellant.

Kimberly M. Foxx, State's Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, Iris G. Ferosie, and Shawn M. Concannon, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

PRESIDING JUSTICE GORDON delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

448 Ill.Dec. 780

¶ 1 After a bench trial in Cook County circuit court, defendant Abdullah Aljohani, age 27, was convicted of the first degree murder of his roommate, Talal Aljohani, who was found stabbed to death in their apartment on March 15, 2015. Although they shared the same last name, the victim and defendant were not related. Defendant was sentenced to 23 years with the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC).

¶ 2 On this direct appeal, defendant claims (1) that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence, on the ground that the police officers’ warrantless entry into the apartment immediately after the murder was not justified by the community caretaking exception, (2) that the trial court erred by admitting evidence of defendant's flight as circumstantial evidence of his guilt, and (3) that the State's evidence was insufficient either to prove defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or to justify denying defendant's motion for a directed finding.

¶ 3 For the following reasons, we do not find these claims persuasive and affirm.

¶ 4 BACKGROUND

¶ 5 In brief, the State's evidence at trial established that defendant's downstairs

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448 Ill.Dec. 781

neighbor heard sounds of wrestling and screaming coming from the apartment above. When the neighbor knocked on defendant's apartment door, defendant answered and stated that there had been an argument but everything was okay. Shortly thereafter, officers found the victim stabbed to death inside the apartment, with a broken and bloody knife nearby. The parties stipulated that a forensic chemist would testify that DNA from blood on the knife blade matched the victim and DNA found on the knife handle matched defendant's DNA.

¶ 6 I. Pretrial Proceedings

¶ 7 At the suppression hearing on defendant's pretrial motion to suppress, defendant bore the burden of proof, and he argued that the officers' "entry" into his apartment was illegal without a warrant and anything "recovered pursuant to the illegal entry" should be suppressed.

¶ 8 The defense called Officer Banito Lugo of the Chicago Police Department as its sole witness. Lugo testified that, on March 15, 2015, at 4:15 a.m., he and his partner, Officer Anthony Richards, responded to a call concerning a battery in progress at defendant's apartment building. Khalid Ali, a neighbor and the person who had called the police, met them outside the building. Ali told the officers that he understood Arabic and that he had heard a loud verbal argument between two men in Arabic in the apartment above, which was followed by the sound of two people wrestling. Ali then heard a person asking "are you ok, get up," and he heard the wrestling stop. Ali further informed the officers that he went upstairs, where he spoke with defendant, and that defendant stated that the victim, whom defendant described as his brother, was in the bathroom.

¶ 9 Lugo testified that, after Ali let them into the building, they went upstairs and knocked on defendant's apartment door and talked to defendant. Defendant stated in English that everything was okay. The officers asked if they could speak with his "brother," and defendant replied that he was sleeping. The officers went back downstairs, where Ali was "adamant" that someone was seriously injured, so the officers went back upstairs and knocked again on defendant's door. This second time, the officers knocked for five minutes and received no response. Then they exited the building and returned to their squad vehicle, where they punched in a code to indicate that they had completed their assignment and everything was okay. Despite punching in the code, the officers did not depart. Instead, they drove around the building and into the alley behind the building because, as Officer Lugo explained, "[s]omething didn't feel right." After parking, they observed that the back gate was open. The officers then proceeded into the yard and found that the garage door was open and the side entrance to the back of the building was also open. The officers entered the side entrance and went back up to the second-floor apartment, where they observed that the back door to the apartment was "wide open."

¶ 10 Lugo testified that they knocked on the back door and announced their "office" but received no response. The officers entered the apartment, walking first into a hallway where they did not observe anything unusual. The officers then decided to look through the apartment room by room, until they arrived at the southeast bedroom, where they observed the victim lying on a mattress. Observing no wounds at first, the officers again announced their "office" and received no response. After determining that the victim was unresponsive

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448 Ill.Dec. 782

and not breathing, they called for an ambulance. Defendant was no longer present in the apartment. The officers were not asked any questions about any further search after the discovery of the body.

¶ 11 Prior to closing argument on the suppression motion, the trial court asked defense counsel what exactly defendant was seeking to suppress. Counsel responded that there was a subsequent search of the apartment and it was the items recovered during this subsequent search that defendant was seeking to suppress. The court then asked: "So the defense is seeking to suppress anything the State wants to put into evidence that was recovered from this apartment up on the second floor?" When both parties agreed, the court explained that it wanted to ensure that "we're on the same page with respect to what the defense is trying to do." When both parties said yes, the court stated: "I'll consider that a stipulation."

¶ 12 In closing, the State argued that "this falls squarely within the emergency aid doctrine." The State also argued forfeiture by wrongdoing and inevitable discovery. With respect to forfeiture, the State argued that defendant cannot be allowed to silence the only other person who would have been able to consent to the police's entry to help him. The defense argued that "there was nothing unusual" about defendant's behavior when he answered the door and the officers did not ask him at that time for consent to enter the apartment because they had no concerns. When the officers drove to the back of the building, they had no information about how long the gate or the door had been open.

¶ 13 After listening to the testimony and the arguments of counsel, the trial court found, "first[,] I believe Officer Lugo." The court observed that, when the police went back up to the second-floor apartment a second time and knocked for a solid five minutes at "4:15 in the morning," the fact that no one answered "clearly gave them pause," and "that's why" they went downstairs and drove to the back of the building. At the back of the building, they observed "a garage door open, the back gate open, this side door to the apartment building open," and the back door to the apartment open. The trial court found it "reasonable" that "they wanted to make sure that no one is in any distress." The trial court found that the officers "were not investigating a crime, they had no reason to believe a particular crime had taken place. They wanted to make sure that everyone was okay." This desire was further supported by the fact that the police knew that there had just been "some kind of physical altercation *** where somebody was heard to say are you okay, get up."

¶ 14 In conclusion, the trial court found that "the circumstances herein taking place without any warrant by the police falls squarely within the community caretaking function," and the motion to suppress was denied.

¶ 15 II. Trial

¶ 16 The bench trial proceeded immediately after the conclusion of the pretrial suppression hearing, and the parties stipulated that, if called to testify, Officer Lugo would provide the same testimony that he had provided during the pretrial suppression hearing. The trial court accepted the stipulation, "[s]ubject to an appreciation of whatever he testified to in the motion was admissible in the motion and might not be admissible at trial, [and] would be so considered by the Court."

¶ 17 The State's first witness at trial was Abduilhadi Aljohani, who testified that he

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was a police officer in Medina, Saudi Arabia. After identifying a photo of the victim as his brother, the witness testified that the victim grew up in Saudi Arabia...