People v. Cannon

• Decision Date: 20 November 1997
• Docket Number: No. 1-94-4409,1-94-4409
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois
• Parties: , 227 Ill.Dec. 1000 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Darryl CANNON, Defendant-Appellant.

Page 693

688 N.E.2d 693

293 Ill.App.3d 634, 227 Ill.Dec. 1000

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Darryl CANNON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-94-4409.

Appellate Court of Illinois First District, Fourth Division.

Nov. 20, 1997.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 24, 1997.

Michael J. Pelletier, Deputy Defender; Frank W. Ralph, Asst. Appellate Defender, Office of the State Appellate Defender, Chicago, for defendant-appellant.

Richard A. Devine, State's Attorney (Renee Goldfarb, Theodore Burtzos, Christine Cook, Asst. State's Attorneys, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellee.

Presiding Justice WOLFSON delivered the opinion of the court:

In this murder case Darryl Cannon is asking for the opportunity to prove his confession was the product of torture by police officers from Area 2 Headquarters in Chicago.

Cannon was tried in 1984 for his involvement in the October 26, 1983, murder of Darren Ross. He had moved to suppress his confession, but the motion was denied. On appeal from that conviction the denial of Cannon's motion to suppress was affirmed, but his case was remanded to the trial court for a hearing on the prosecutor's use of After holding a Batson hearing, the trial court ordered a new trial. Again, Cannon moved to suppress his confession. Among other things, he said he could prove other suspects had been tortured by Area 2 police officers to obtain confessions. Two trial court judges refused to revisit the question of whether Cannon's confession was voluntarily made.

[227 Ill.Dec. 1001] peremptory challenges to exclude black jurors. See People v. Cannon, 150 Ill.App.3d 1009, 104 Ill.Dec. 82, 502 N.E.2d 345 (1986).

On retrial in 1994, Cannon again was found guilty of murder. He was sentenced to natural life in prison. He raises several issues in this appeal, but we decide only one at this time: he should have been given a second opportunity to suppress his confession. For that reason, we vacate the defendant's conviction and sentence, and we remand this cause to the trial court for a new hearing on the voluntariness of Cannon's confession.

BACKGROUND

For an understanding of how we have reached this point, we step back 14 years, to October 26, 1983. At about 1 p.m. Darren Ross and Kenneth Steele, two drug dealers, encountered Tyrone and A.D. McChristian at the corner of 79th Street and Essex Avenue in Chicago. According to Steele, Tyrone approached Ross and whispered something in his ear. Then A.D. drove off in his blue and white 1975 Buick. Ross walked away, leaving Steele behind.

Later that day, at about 3:45 p.m., Ross's body was found near the Altgeld Gardens housing project. Ross had been shot in the head and his body dumped in an isolated grassy area behind the housing project.

In the course of the investigation of Ross' murder, the police spoke with Steele, who told the police about the encounter with the McChristians. Later, the police found a 1975 Buick, which was registered to an alias known to be used by A.D. McChristian. The car had bloodstains that matched Ross' blood type.

A few days later the police located Tyrone McChristian, who implicated Cannon. The police obtained a warrant for Cannon's arrest. Cannon was arrested at his home at about 7 a.m. on November 2, 1983. After his arrest, Cannon made statements admitting that he had been driving McChristian's car when A.D. McChristian shot Ross.

In a pretrial motion before his first trial, Cannon moved to suppress his post-arrest statements and admissions to police, claiming that his statements had been the product of police torture. Cannon claimed that one of the arresting police officers placed a shotgun in his mouth while asking him questions. When Cannon refused to answer, the officer pulled the trigger. Though the gun was unloaded, the officer showed Cannon that he had shotgun shells in his hand and repeatedly made motions as if he were loading the gun. Cannon also claimed one of the officers struck him in the knee with a flashlight and another officer applied an electric cattle prod to his exposed genitalia. See Cannon, 150 Ill.App.3d at 1014, 104 Ill.Dec. 82, 502 N.E.2d 345.

A suppression hearing was held before the first trial, which was presided over by Judge Thomas Maloney. The motion to suppress was denied based on the trial judge's finding that the State's evidence (the police officers' denials) outweighed Cannon's uncorroborated claims of torture. It was noted that Cannon had never complained to anyone at the police station about the torture and there was no physical evidence of injury. Judge Maloney also noted that Cannon was not credible because Cannon testified that the cattle prod had been in the police car's glove compartment and the judge did not believe that cattle prods were small enough to fit into the glove compartment of a car.

Cannon went to trial on April 6, 1984. He was found guilty of murder. In an appeal from that judgment, the trial court's decision to deny the motion to suppress was upheld. The case was remanded, however, for a Batson hearing. Later, based on the trial court's finding that a Batson violation had occurred, a new trial was ordered.

In a pretrial motion before the second trial, Cannon asked that his motion to suppress be reconsidered in light of "new evidence" to support his claim that his admissions had been coerced. This "new evidence" The request for a new suppression hearing was heard first by Judge Mannion. After Judge Mannion denied the request, he granted the defense motion for his recusal. He had been a detective at Area 2. The case was transferred to Judge Morrissey and a new suppression motion was filed. Judge Morrissey heard argument on the motion, but refused to hold a new suppression hearing to receive the evidence being offered. He ruled there was nothing "new" being offered.

[227 Ill.Dec. 1002] included: (1) a police log indicating that Cannon's arresting officers signed out a shotgun on the day of his arrest, proving that these police officers perjured themselves at the suppression hearing when they denied they had a shotgun in their possession at the time of Cannon's arrest; (2) testimony by Sgt. Byrne and Detective Dignan at a 1987 deposition in a related civil action; (3) photos taken by the Office of Professional Standards (OPS) of a site where Cannon claimed he had been tortured; (4) testimony of approximately 16 arrestees who filed charges with OPS claiming they had been tortured by some of the same police officers at Area 2; and (5) evidence that cattle prods small enough to fit in the glove compartment of a car existed in 1983. None of this evidence, he said, was available at his first trial.

Judge Morrisey also granted the State's pretrial motion in limine to bar any reference to or allegations of mistreatment of prisoners by detectives assigned to Area 2. The judge ruled that evidence was inadmissible because it was an attempt by Cannon to show the detectives' character and propensity to commit wrongdoing by proof of other crimes or bad acts.

The case proceeded to trial on October 24, 1994. Cannon testified he had been driving A.D.'s car when A.D. shot Ross. He denied, however, that he provided the gun to A.D. and denied knowing that A.D. intended to shoot Ross. Cannon admitted that he gave a written statement to Officer McWeeny and an assistant State's Attorney (ASA) after he was arrested. In this statement, Cannon said he gave A.D. the gun A.D. used to shoot Ross. Cannon also said in the statement he had been aware that A.D. was going to shoot Ross. Cannon testified he told the ASA these things because Officers Dignan, Byrne, and Grunhard tortured him and threatened more torture if he did not implicate himself.

Cannon testified that the three officers took him to an isolated area on the south side of Chicago. At this remote location, Dignan terrorized Cannon by pretending to load a shotgun, placing the gun in Cannon's mouth, and pulling the trigger. This happened several times. Next, Byrne stood on the car bumper and tried to lift Cannon by the handcuffs while Cannon's hands were cuffed behind his back. Finally, Byrne used a cattle prod on Cannon's exposed genitalia and, later, touched the cattle prod to Cannon's mouth.

Cannon was not allowed to present testimony of 28 other arrestees who claimed to have been similarly tortured at Area 2, 16 of them by some of the same officers involved in this case. After the defense rested its case at trial, Cannon's counsel made an offer of proof, stating that the defense, if allowed, would have presented evidence of systematic torture at Area 2, including: (1) testimony of Alphonso Pinex, who would have said that he had been beaten by McWeeny and Dignan on February 9, 1982; (2) testimony of Lee Holmes that he was "bagged" (suffocated by having a plastic bag placed over his head) and beaten by Byrne and Dignan on September 10, 1982; (3) the court reported testimony of Leonard Hinton that he was beaten and shocked in the testicles by these officers 23 days after Cannon's arrest; (4) the testimony of Alonzo Smith that he was "bagged" and beaten by Byrne and Dignan on January 21, 1983; (5) the testimony of Ronny Bullock that he was "harassed" by Byrne on September 2, 1983; (6) the testimony of Reginald Mahaffey that he was "bagged," beaten with a flashlight, and kicked by Byrne and Grunhard; (7) the testimony of David Bates that he was "bagged" and beaten by Byrne, Dignan, and Grunhard on October 28, 1983; (8) the testimony of Gregory Banks that he was "bagged" and beaten and had a gun held in his mouth by Byrne, Dignan, and Grunhard on October 29, 1983; (9) the testimony of Lovert Jones that he was "bagged," beaten and kicked by Byrne on January 28, 1984; (10) the testimony of Stanley Howard that he After the jury was instructed, Cannon again was found guilty of murder on an accountability theory. He was sentenced to natural life in prison.

[227 Ill.Dec. 1003] was "bagged" and beaten by Byrne on ...