People v. Bradford

• Decision Date: 01 February 2019
• Docket Number: NO. 4-17-0148,4-17-0148
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ahquavious BRADFORD, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

2019 IL App (4th) 170148
123 N.E.3d 1285
429 Ill.Dec. 226

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Ahquavious BRADFORD, Defendant-Appellant.

NO. 4-17-0148

Appellate Court of Illinois, Fourth District.

Opinion Filed February 1, 2019
Modified upon denial of Rehearing February 22, 2019

James E. Chadd, Patricia Mysza, and Eric E. Castañeda, of State Appellate Defender’s Office, of Chicago, for appellant.

Jay Scott, State’s Attorney, of Decatur (Patrick Delfino, David J. Robinson, and Thomas R. Dodegge, of State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor’s Office, of counsel), for the People.

JUSTICE DeARMOND delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

429 Ill.Dec. 227

¶ 1 In June 2016, the State charged defendant, Ahquavious Bradford, with two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm. The State dismissed one of the counts, and in November 2016, the trial court conducted a jury trial. The jury found defendant guilty on a single count of aggravated discharge of a firearm, and the court sentenced him to 12 years of imprisonment with 2 years of mandatory supervised release.

429 Ill.Dec. 228

123 N.E.3d 1287

¶ 2 On appeal, defendant argues he was denied effective assistance of counsel because trial counsel failed to object to the conclusions of the State's firearm identification expert, which were unsupported by a proper foundation. We affirm.

¶ 3 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 4 In June 2016, Jasmine Adams's brother posted a picture on Facebook and asked if anyone could identify the person. Adams testified she recognized the man in the picture as defendant because they went to school together, and she had texted back and forth with him a "couple of times." Later that June day, she called defendant to let him know her brother was looking for him. Once Adams identified defendant as the man in the picture, she and her brother, along with some other people, drove around looking for defendant. Adams and her brother spotted defendant and pulled over. As they were getting out of the car and telling defendant to come to their car to talk, defendant said, "What's up? What's up, bro?" and then moved behind a tree and started shooting at them, firing five to seven shots. During the shooting, Iisha Dean, a resident of the community where the shooting occurred, was sitting in her car talking to some of her neighbors when she heard four or five gunshots and saw someone pointing a gun at a truck. Adams and her group drove off.

¶ 5 After the shooting, police officers stopped the car containing Adams, her brother, and other family members and friends. Upon stopping the car, officers found evidence of what appeared to be bullet holes on the driver's side and three bullets from inside the vehicle. They also found a gun under the passenger's seat, drugs, and a weight scale. The officers inquired into the shooting, and Adams said defendant shot at them. Police officers executed a search of the residence in which defendant was staying at the time. The officers found defendant hiding in the attic, lying facedown in the insulation. A handgun was found in the bedroom, the closet to which contained access to the attic. The handgun was located in the drawer of a dresser located in the same bedroom, within three to four steps from the entryway to the attic.

¶ 6 As a result of the stop, Adams was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, which was ultimately dismissed by the State in return for her testimony in this case. In addition, the State agreed to obtain an order quashing an outstanding warrant she had in an unrelated misdemeanor case.

¶ 7 Defendant was charged with two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm ( 720 ILCS 5/24-1.2(a)(2) (West 2014) ), one of which was dismissed by the State. The remaining count alleged defendant knowingly discharged a firearm in the direction of a vehicle, which he reasonably should have known to be occupied by a person. In November 2016, the case proceeded to a jury trial.

¶ 8 Carolyn Kersting, a 30-year veteran with the Illinois State Police, worked as a forensic scientist specializing in firearms identification since 2001. She was called to testify about the forensic examination of the firearm taken from defendant's residence, along with her examination of both test-fired bullets and those retrieved from Adams's vehicle by the police. She was tendered as an expert in firearms identification, and defendant's counsel neither questioned her thereon nor objected to her being so qualified. Kersting testified about the examination process in general and then explained what she did in this case, discussing both general class characteristics such as rifling and caliber and individual characteristics peculiar to a particular firearm "through the manufacturing process

123 N.E.3d 1288

429 Ill.Dec. 229

or through rust, corrosion, [or] use and abuse damage." She explained the use of a comparison microscope when analyzing bullets to look for individual characteristics in order to determine whether a particular bullet was fired from a particular firearm.

"We use a comparison microscope for making decisions on fired evidence and test shots. And that is two microscopes combined together by an optical bridge, that means we can look at two items at the same time and take a hairline and move them back and forth, and at this point we're looking at those individual characteristics to see if the pattern reproduces."

¶ 9 Kersting explained how she first fired test shots in order to examine them microscopically, looking for particular patterns reproduced from test to test. She then compared those to the bullets in evidence, looking for similar patterns. While it is not always possible to make a...