People v. Carrasquillo

• Citation: 448 Ill.Dec. 569,2020 IL App (1st) 180534,177 N.E.3d 327
• Decision Date: 31 March 2020
• Docket Number: No. 1-18-0534,1-18-0534
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ronnie CARRASQUILLO, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

2020 IL App (1st) 180534

177 N.E.3d 327

448 Ill.Dec. 569

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Ronnie CARRASQUILLO, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-18-0534

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, FOURTH DIVISION.

Opinion filed March 31, 2020

Michael E. Deutsch and Shubra Ohri, of People's Law Office, of Chicago, for appellant.

Kimberly M. Foxx, State's Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, Jon Walters, and Hareena Meghani-Wakely, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

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

¶ 1 After a bench trial before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Frank Wilson, defendant Ronnie Carrasquillo was convicted of the October 10, 1976, murder of Chicago Police Officer Terrence Loftus. On January 17, 1978, Judge Wilson sentenced defendant to an indeterminate sentence of 200 to 600 years with the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC).¹

¶ 2 This appeal concerns the denial by a different trial judge of (1) defendant's petition pursuant to section 2-1401 of the Code of Civil Procedure ( 735 ILCS 5/2-1401 (West 2018) ), after an evidentiary hearing and (2) defendant's motion for leave to file a successive postconviction petition.

¶ 3 In his section 2-1401 petition, defendant claims that his conviction and sentence are void because the judge who tried and sentenced him was corrupt. Defendant argues that the judge took a bribe in another case and then sought to deflect attention from the other case by rendering a harsh judgment and sentence in defendant's case. This type of theory is known as "compensatory bias." E.g. , People v. Gacho , 2016 IL App (1st) 133492, ¶ 21, 403 Ill.Dec. 417, 53 N.E.3d 1054 ; see also Bracy v. Gramley , 520 U.S. 899, 905, 117 S.Ct. 1793, 138 L.Ed.2d 97 (1997).²

¶ 4 In his motion for leave to file a successive postconviction petition, defendant claims that his sentence is a de facto life sentence imposed on an 18-year-old, first-time offender that violates both the Illinois Constitution's proportionate penalties clause ( Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 11 ) and the eighth amendment to the U.S. Constitution ( U.S. Const., amend. VIII ).

¶ 5 For the following reasons, we affirm the trial court's dismissal of his section 2-1401 petition but reverse the trial court's denial of his motion for leave to file his successive postconviction petition.

¶ 6 BACKGROUND

¶ 7 This court set forth the facts of this case in our order pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23 (eff. July 1, 1975), affirming defendant's murder conviction and sentence. We incorporate

that order by reference and repeat here only the facts needed to determine the issues before us. People v. Carrasquillo , No. 1-78-621 (1979) (unpublished order under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23 ).

¶ 8 In sum, the State's evidence at trial established that, in the early morning hours of October 10, 1976, Edward Roman, who was a member of the Imperial Gangsters street gang, was being chased by members of the rival Gaylords gang when Officer Terrence Loftus, who was passing by in plain clothes and an unmarked vehicle, stopped Roman. The stop occurred at the intersection of Fullerton Avenue and Central Park Avenue in Chicago. Members of the Imperial Gangsters, including defendant, left a nearby party and converged on the intersection where a gang fight ensued. At trial, defendant testified in his own defense and admitted that he was at the intersection, that he fired a gun between three and five times, and that he brought the gun to Francisco Gonzalez's home after the shooting. Witnesses testified that shots were fired from the south side of Fullerton Avenue and four cartridge casings³ were recovered from that area. A firearms examiner testified that all four cartridge casings were fired from the .32-caliber pistol later found in Gonzalez's apartment. However, other bullet fragments found near the scene were not suitable for comparison. The assistant medical examiner, who performed the autopsy on Officer Loftus, testified that he observed one entry wound

and one exit wound from one bullet, that Officer Loftus was shot in the head, and that these bullet wounds were the cause of death.⁴

¶ 9 On direct appeal, this court affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence, rejecting defendant's claims. Defendant claimed, first, that the State's evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had fired the shot that killed Officer Loftus. We rejected this claim, finding that "a review of the evidence at trial * * * establishe[d] that defendant was the only one to fire shots at the time Officer Loftus was struck and killed." Carrasquillo , No. 1-78-621, slip order at 7. Further, we observed that, although bullet fragments found on the scene could not be traced directly to the .32-caliber gun that defendant fired, they were "consistent with the type of bullet" fired from a .32-caliber gun. Carrasquillo , No. 1-78-621, slip order at 7. In addition, Francisco Gonzalez testified that defendant told him that he thought he had shot a police officer. Carrasquillo , No. 1-78-621, slip order at 4.

¶ 10 Second, defendant claimed that there was insufficient evidence of intent to sustain a conviction for murder and that his conviction should be for involuntary manslaughter instead. Defendant relied on his own testimony that he was aiming up, at the second floor of the YMCA building located at the intersection, and on other testimony that there was a bullet hole in the second floor window of the YMCA and a bullet fragment found on the second floor. However, Officer Louis Bergmann, who arrived at the scene prior to the shooting, testified that he heard someone shout "Gangster Love" before four or five shots were fired in rapid succession from the south side of Fullerton Avenue and Officer Loftus crumpled to the ground. Carrasquillo , No. 1-78-621, slip order at 1. As noted above, the four shell casings recovered from the south side of Fullerton Avenue matched the gun that defendant fired. David Gonzalez,⁵ who was at both the party and the intersection, testified that he observed defendant run to a parked vehicle, point the gun with both hands, and shoot the gun four times toward the crowd at the intersection. Carrasquillo , No. 1-78-621, slip order at 2. David Gonzalez testified that defendant was pointing the gun level, rather than pointing it up. Carrasquillo , No. 1-78-621, slip order at 2. Thus, we rejected defendant's claim that the evidence could sustain only a conviction for involuntary manslaughter.

¶ 11 Third, defendant claimed that his sentence was excessive in light of the fact that he had no prior record and was 18 years old at the time of the offense.⁶ Rejecting this claim, we found: "Although defendant had not been convicted of any previous crime, his own testimony was that fights involving knives and guns were a frequent occurrence, and he had been involved in two such fights in the two weeks prior to the occurrence." Carrasquillo , No. 1-78-621, slip order at 9. In addition, we found that defendant was a member of a street gang. In conclusion, we found "that the sentence imposed of 200 to 600 years clearly suggests to the parole board that the trial judge did not believe defendant should be paroled after the minimum period of incarceration." Carrasquillo , No. 1-78-621, slip order at 9. We rejected all three claims and affirmed his conviction and sentence.

¶ 12 In 1987, defendant filed his first postconviction petition, which advanced to an evidentiary hearing. This first petition, which claimed ineffective assistance of counsel, was denied after the hearing, and we affirmed the denial on appeal. People v. Carrasquillo , No. 1-88-2139, 174 Ill.Dec. 306, 598 N.E.2d 503 (1990) (unpublished order under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23 ).

¶ 13 On June 24, 2015, defendant filed a section 2-1401 petition, and on August 11, 2017, he filed a motion for leave to file a successive postconviction petition. As we noted above, his 2-1401 petition claimed that his conviction and sentence were void because his original trial judge was corrupt, and his motion claimed that his sentence violated both the proportionate penalties clause and the eighth amendment. On January 7, 2016, the trial court⁷ denied the State's motion to dismiss defendant's section 2-1401 petition and granted defendant's requests for discovery. On September 5, 2017, and October 31, 2017, an evidentiary hearing was held concerning the section 2-1401 petition. On January 24, 2018, the trial court denied defendant's section 2-1401 petition in a 47-page memorandum order, in which it made findings of fact.

¶ 14 The trial court found that the evidence at the hearing established that Judge Wilson accepted a bribe to acquit Harry Aleman, a defendant in a prior murder case and an alleged hit-man for " ‘the Syndicate.’ " People v. Carrasquillo , No. 76-CR-05807, slip op. at 11 (Cir. Ct. Cook County Jan. 24, 2018). We provide here a summary of those factual findings: In 1976, Aleman was indicted for the 1972 murder of Billy Logan, a Teamsters union steward and truck dispatcher. Robert Cooley, an attorney, approached Judge Wilson to offer a $10,000 bribe in exchange for an acquittal. After Wilson agreed, the Aleman case was transferred to Wilson, and Wilson found Aleman not guilty on May 24, 1977, after a bench trial. The acquittal drew a swift reaction in the press, with "every major newspaper in Chicago" running articles about "how the mob ‘hit man’ beat the charge." Carrasquillo , No. 76-CR-05807, slip op. at 17. In 1980, Wilson retired and later moved to Arizona. In 1986, almost a decade after the verdict in the case at bar, Cooley began cooperating with federal investigators in what came to be known as " ‘Operation Greylord,’ " an investigation of corrupt judges in Cook County. Carrasquillo , No. 76-CR-05807, slip op. at 18. Working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cooley wore a wire while meeting...