People v. Chatman

• Court: Appellate Court of Illinois
• Writing for the Court: JUSTICE BRIDGES delivered the judgment of the court with opinion.
• Citation: People v. Chatman, 2022 IL App (4th) 210716, 203 N.E.3d 456, 461 Ill.Dec. 302 (Ill. App. 2022)
• Docket Number: 4-21-0716
• Decision Date: 17 November 2022
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Micheal D. CHATMAN, Defendant-Appellant.

2022 IL App (4th) 210716

203 N.E.3d 456

461 Ill.Dec. 302

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

v.Micheal D. CHATMAN, Defendant-Appellant.

NO. 4-21-0716

Appellate Court of Illinois, Fourth District.

Filed November 17, 2022

James E. Chadd, Douglas R. Hoff, and Christofer R. Bendik, of State Appellate Defender's Office, of Chicago, for appellant.

Julia Rietz, State's Attorney, of Urbana (Patrick Delfino, David J. Robinson, John M. Zimmerman, of State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor's Office, of counsel), for the People.

JUSTICE BRIDGES delivered the judgment of the court with opinion.

¶ 1 Defendant Micheal Chatman appeals his conviction for felony murder ( 720 ILCS 5/9-1(a)(3) (West 2018)) in the shooting death of Ricky Green. On appeal, defendant challenges the trial court's determination that Dominque (Dee) Collins was an unavailable witness for the purpose of the forfeiture by wrongdoing exception to hearsay and the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment ( U.S. Const., amend. VI ). Particularly, defendant challenges whether the State made a good-faith reasonable effort to obtain Collins's presence at trial. The defendant also challenges the trial court's decisions not to exclude lead detective Jeremiah Christian from the courtroom during the State's case-in-chief and to permit him to sit at the prosecutor's table with counsel. For the following reasons, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court of Champaign County.

¶ 2 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 3 Green died in the early morning hours of March 23, 2018, as the result of two gunshot wounds: one to his pelvis, which perforated his right femoral artery, and one to his left shoulder, which perforated his subclavian artery and vein. On January 31, 2020, defendant was charged with four counts of first degree murder ( 720 ILCS 5/9-1(a)(1)-(3) (West 2018)). Count I alleged intent to do great bodily harm, count II alleged intent to kill, count III alleged knowing such acts created a strong probability of death or great bodily harm, and count IV alleged felony murder based on robbery.

¶ 4 A. Motion to Admit Collins's Statement

¶ 5 During the course of the investigation into Green's death, Christian made contact with Collins, who he believed might have information about the shooting. Collins was related to the Chatman family through marriage, and defendant referred to him as his cousin. On December 30, 2019, Christian interviewed Collins, and that interview was recorded on Christian's body camera and by a camera in a police interview room. Collins cooperated and told Christian that between around 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. on the morning after Green was shot, defendant was at his brother Devonte McCormick's apartment on Elm Street in Urbana. He was barefoot and looked like he had been running, and his feet looked like he had been in a cornfield. Collins asked what had happened, and defendant told him that he, Green, and Scrilla (Michael Simmons) were in the back seat of a car together in the trailer park near Market Street. Defendant and Simmons planned on taking Green's gun. Something happened that caused them to run from the car. Defendant snatched Green's gun and tried to run away. Green chased the defendant, who was afraid Green was going to "beat his a***." Defendant turned and fired twice at Green while he was running. Collins stated that he had talked about the shooting with defendant on other occasions, and his story remained the same.

¶ 6 On October 15, 2020, the State filed a motion in limine to admit Collins's statements due to forfeiture by wrongdoing. Included with the motion were recordings of phone calls defendant made while he was in jail. The recordings showed defendant repeatedly attempting to determine who was working with the police. Defendant and his family narrowed in on Collins as providing a videotaped statement to the police. Although during defendant's numerous inmate conversations, often in times with incomprehensible argot, he is not heard giving specific orders to prevent Collins from testifying. Yet, after engaging in conversations with his father and McCormick, they both indicated that they would ensure Collins would not cooperate further with the police and not attend his court proceedings. Needless to say, those intimidating threats of violence made their way to Collins, causing him to leave the State.

¶ 7 Defendant's father told defendant he just needed to

"get the word to the motherf*** street, is this motherf*** did this, and then motherf*** be able to take care of s*** on our end." He went on to say, "Just let me handle this s*** on this end. All I gotta find out, really for real is, who the main motherf*** they depending on to get on that motherf*** stand."

¶ 8 On February 16, 2020, Collins sent an officer a text message that read, "Everybody think I told on Mikey idk [(I don't know)] how they getting this information I've been getting threats from a lot of people." Collins then fled to Iowa. Christian and another detective went to Iowa to speak with Collins on March 12, 2020, and recorded their conversation. Collins told the detectives he had been receiving messages threatening his life and the lives of those close to him. He received these threats on his phone and through social media. There were Facebook posts from defendant's aunt "Cookie" saying that Collins had given a recorded statement to police. There was also a post from an account named "Gtb Kilo," which Collins believed belonged to Simmons, in which Collins's picture was posted with the question, "Him?" to which Cookie responded, "Yep." Collins also received a phone call from his brother asking if he had been snitching and telling him that he had received word from defendant's father that he had been. Collins also knew defendant's father had gang affiliations and as an older member likely had the power to send people after him. As a result of these threats Collins fled to Iowa.

¶ 9 On October 9, 2020, Christian sent a text message to Collins's phone. He initially received no response, but then eventually was told he had the wrong number.

¶ 10 A hearing was held on the State's motion in limine on February 9, 2021. The court preliminarily found that defendant had caused Collins to be unavailable under the forfeiture by wrongdoing exception to the hearsay rule but reserved the issue of whether the State had made reasonable efforts to secure Collins's presence for the final pretrial hearing. Defendant's trial was initially to be held on May 10, 2021. A final pretrial hearing was held on May 6, 2021, in which Christian testified as to the efforts the State had made to procure Collins's presence, with the court ultimately finding that the State had made reasonable efforts to secure his presence. The trial was delayed until September 15, 2021. Another hearing was held on that date in which Christian again testified to the State's efforts to procure Collins's presence, and again the trial court found those efforts to be reasonable.

¶ 11 Christian testified on May 6, 2021, that, in an effort to locate Collins, a post was made on February 16, 2021, seeking assistance in locating Collins to I-Board, an intel-based software program which disseminates information to local agencies and officers. The posting was resubmitted on April 28 and May 5, 2021, to ensure the listing would remain visible. As of May 6, the posting had been viewed 119 times. Prior to the February 9, 2021, hearing, Christian and another detective traveled to Davenport, Iowa, to visit Collins. In attempting to relocate Collins he spoke with detectives in Davenport, asking if they had any contacts with Collins, and they indicated their most recent contact was from 2016. Within the last 30 days he had served defendant's mother with a subpoena and asked her if she had any contact with Collins, and she advised that she had not. Christian also listened to recent phone calls made by defendant from jail, in which he described how he and his attorney had been attempting to contact Collins using a text application called TextNow but were unsuccessful. The only other information Christian received was that Collins may have been in Indianapolis to attend a show but had no further details on which he could follow up.

¶ 12 On September 15, 2021, Christian testified that the I-Board posting had been viewed 250 times, but no authorities had located Collins. On August 21, 2021, he searched various databases to try and locate an address for Collins. He discovered an address at 101 East Green Street, Unit 32, in Champaign, which Collins had recently listed as his address. He went to the unit on August 24. No one answered the door, and no noise came from inside. That building was generally inhabited by university students and seemed to be undergoing maintenance. He also attempted to locate Collins at an address on Springfield Avenue which he had used from August 4, 2018, to November 30, 2018, but when he went there the house appeared to be vacant. He also tried to locate Collins at a home on Dale Drive where he had previously made contact with Collins's brother. When he went to that home, there were vehicles in the driveway, and he suspected people were home, but no one answered the door. On August 25, 2021, he once again traveled to Davenport to attempt to locate Collins. He went to the home where he had last spoken with Collins, but there were no vehicles and no one at home, and Christian had no reason to believe Collins still lived there. He also tried to locate Collins at two addresses in Kendall County but received no answer at the door. On cross-examination, defense counsel asked if Christian had put out a notice on any multistate boards or the Illinois Law Enforcement Agencies Data System (LEADS). Christian testified that he was unaware of any multistate system for issuing a BOLO (be on the lookout) notice for subpoena service and that LEADS could only be used for people who had warrants and missing persons.

¶ 13 B. Motion to Permit...