People v. Anderson
| Docket Number | 1-20-0462 |
| Decision Date | 06 March 2023 |
| Citation | 2023 IL App (1st) 200462,218 N.E.3d 417,467 Ill.Dec. 82 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. George ANDERSON, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Russell Ainsworth, David B. Owens, and Debra Loevy, of The Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School, of Chicago, for appellant.
Elisabeth Gavin, Myles P. O'Rourke, Andrew N. Levine, and Ariel Y. Hodges, Assistant Special State's Attorneys, of O'Rourke & Moody, of Chicago, for the People.
Michael A. Scodro, Elaine Liu, Clare Myers, and Sara Norval, of Mayer Brown LLP, of Chicago, for amicus curiae Persons Concerned About the Illinois Criminal Justice System.
¶ 1 Defendant-appellant George Anderson submitted a claim to the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission (TIRC) under the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission Act (TIRC Act) ( 775 ILCS 40/1 et seq. (West 2018)), alleging that his convictions in two underlying cases resulted from his torture by Chicago police in August 1991, over the course of 30 hours in police custody. He alleged that the two inculpatory statements he signed were coerced, and he sought suppression of those statements and new trials.
¶ 2 The TIRC found sufficient evidence of torture to refer the matter to the circuit court for judicial review. The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing over the course of four years, at which it heard testimony from numerous witnesses and considered voluminous "pattern and practice" evidence of prior allegations against the detectives who interrogated defendant. In its posthearing decision, the trial court credited the accused detectives, determined that none of the pattern and practice evidence was relevant, and found that defendant fabricated his claims of police torture. The court thus denied defendant any relief.
¶ 3 We conclude the trial court erred because it did not apply the proper initial inquiry, i.e. , whether defendant showed that newly discovered evidence would likely have altered the result of a suppression hearing. Given the voluminous evidence of past police abuse, defendant met that initial burden. Moreover, we find that the State could not meet its corresponding burden to prove that the statements were, in fact, voluntary. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for new trials, at which defendant's inculpatory statements will be excluded.
¶ 6 This appeal concerns two separate cases, case No. 91 CR 22152 (the Miles case) and case No. 91 CR 22460 (the Miggins case), which arose from separate shootings in 1991.
¶ 7 In June 1991, 14-year-old Kathryn Miles was killed, and three others were wounded in a shooting. Defendant (along with codefendant Jerome Johnson) was charged in the Miles case with counts of first degree murder and other offenses.
¶ 8 In August 1991, 11-year-old Jeremiah Miggins was killed by a stray bullet during a shootout between rival gang members. Two men, Anthony Wilson and Steven Crosby, suffered gunshot wounds in that incident. Defendant, Johnson, and Michael Sutton were charged with murder, attempted murder, and aggravated battery with a firearm in the Miggins case.1
¶ 10 On August, 21, 1991, defendant was arrested by Chicago police and brought to the Area 3 station, where he was interrogated regarding the Miggins shooting. At 7:45 a.m. on August 22, 1991, defendant signed a statement in the presence of Detective Michael Kill and an assistant state's attorney, Joseph Brent. In that statement, defendant admitted that he drove Johnson to and from the scene of the shooting.
¶ 11 Other detectives interrogated defendant regarding the Miles shooting. In the evening of August 22 (after being in police custody for over 30 hours), defendant signed a separate statement regarding Miles's shooting that was handwritten by another assistant state's attorney, Brian Grossman.
¶ 13 Defendant moved to suppress his written statements in both the Miles and Miggins cases, on the ground that he was tortured by police. On January 24, 1994, the trial court (Hon. Joseph Urso) held a suppression hearing.
¶ 15 Defendant testified that on the afternoon of August 21, 1991, he and Sutton were pulled over by police. In the late evening, he was taken to 39th Place and California Avenue, where he was brought to a room and handcuffed by his left hand to a wall. Kill attempted to question him and "ignored" his request for an attorney. Kill left after defendant refused to answer his questions. About an hour later, Kill and another officer returned and asked if he was "ready to talk." Defendant again requested an attorney. Kill then "kicked the handcuffs that was on my left hand to the wall," which was painful. Defendant also testified that the other officer (whom he did not name) used his hands to hit defendant twice in the face. Kill came back alone after 45 minutes and asked if he was "ready to talk." Defendant repeated that he wanted an attorney, and Kill left again.
¶ 16 Kill returned with a state's attorney, later identified as Brent. Defendant said he wanted an attorney, but Brent "didn't say anything." Defendant refused to answer their questions and was again left handcuffed to the wall. When Kill and Brent returned and urged defendant to "tell them what happened" in the Miggins shooting, defendant still did not talk, so he was left alone again. When they returned yet again, defendant answered their questions. At that point, Kill and Brent told him they would speak to Johnson and return.
¶ 17 Kill later took defendant to another room, where Brent questioned him and wrote out a statement. Defendant was shown the statement, but he could not read it because Kill was "moving the pages" too quickly. Kill told defendant where to sign the document, but the statement was not read to him before he signed it. Defendant had not slept or eaten from his arrest to when he signed the Miggins statement.
¶ 18 After he signed the Miggins statement, he was taken to a new room with lockers, where he was left handcuffed to the radiator. Around two hours later, two different detectives (later identified as James O'Brien and Joseph Stehlik) asked him about a separate incident. Defendant said he wanted an attorney, but they did not respond. When defendant refused to answer questions, he was taken back to the locker room, where they handcuffed his hands above his head.2 He was left in that room for about two hours.
¶ 19 When O'Brien and Stelick returned and asked him about the Miles shooting, defendant said he did not know what they were talking about. O'Brien slapped defendant in the face. Stehlik brought out a "rubber hose or pipe." O'Brien placed a book on defendant's left side, then used the pipe to hit him through the book five or six times. They left him "hanging" there.
¶ 20 About an hour later, he was taken to another room, where he was cuffed to a radiator. The room became very cold. O'Brien and Stehlik returned a number of times, but defendant declined to speak with them.
¶ 21 Stehlik later returned to the room with an assistant state's attorney (later identified as Grossman). When defendant he said he wanted a lawyer, Grossman did not respond, and defendant was left alone in the room. Defendant recalled that Stehlik and Grossman repeatedly asked if he was ready to talk but left him in the room (still handcuffed) when he declined.
¶ 22 Eventually, Stehlik brought defendant to a room where Grossman was waiting with "a paper written out sitting on the desk." Stehlik asked him to sign the paper. Defendant was not given a chance to review the statement, and he was not told its contents. At Stehlik's direction, defendant signed the document and initialed it on several pages. He did so because he "was tired of being in that freezing room." Defendant had not eaten or slept.
¶ 23 On cross-examination with respect to the Miggins statement, defendant answered negatively when asked if Detective Kenneth Boudreau struck him. He acknowledged he signed and initialed the statement at several points, including where it stated that he had not been threatened. He maintained that he did not know that was included in the statement.
¶ 24 On cross-examination regarding the Miles statement, defendant recalled O'Brien put the book on defendant's side "and hit me with the rubber thing on my left side, but he hit the book." Defendant was taken to the room with air conditioning and left there for about "seven hours." He maintained that he never told Grossman anything about the Miles shooting and that the statement "was already written" when Grossman presented it to him.
¶ 26 Detective Kill testified that he and his partner, Detective John Halloran, investigated the Miggins shooting. At approximately 10 p.m. on August 21, 1991, Kill and Halloran interviewed defendant.
Kill said that he unhandcuffed defendant from a ring on the wall and that, to his knowledge, defendant was not handcuffed after that point.
¶ 27 Kill read defendant Miranda warnings (see Miranda v. Arizona , 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) ), and defendant said he understood them and wished to answer questions. After a 30-minute conversation, Kill and Halloran left the room. Kill returned at about 2:15 a.m. with Brent, who gave Miranda warnings. After a conversation of 25 to 30 minutes, Kill left with Brent and defendant still in the room.
¶ 28 At about 7:45 a.m., Kill brought defendant to a room with a desk. At that time, the prior conversation "was reduced to writing" by Brent, and defendant signed the statement and initialed corrections.
¶ 29 Kill denied that Boudreau was present for either the 2:15 a.m. or 7:45 a.m. conversations. Kill denied he or any...
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