People v. Collins
| Decision Date | 27 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | 1-18-0768 |
| Citation | 2021 IL App (1st) 180768,201 N.E.3d 25,460 Ill.Dec. 367 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Leeric COLLINS, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
James E. Chadd, Douglas R. Hoff, and Andrew Thomas Moore, of State Appellate Defender's Office, of Chicago, for appellant.
Kimberly M. Foxx, State's Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, Hareena Meghani-Wakely, and Tasha-Marie Kelly, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.
¶ 1 Following a jury trial, defendant Leeric Collins was convicted of two counts of armed robbery and sentenced to concurrent prison terms of 35 years. On appeal, he contends that the State (1) failed to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of one of the offenses, (2) elicited inadmissible hearsay, (3) made improper argument, and (4) failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he used a firearm in his offenses so they were robbery rather than armed robbery and he should be resentenced. Relatedly, he contends that the trial court erred by not properly instructing the jury on the statutory definition of a firearm. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.
¶ 3 A jury found defendant guilty in October 2017, and the trial court sentenced him on February 15, 2018. This court granted him leave to file a late notice of appeal on April 30, 2018. Accordingly, this court has jurisdiction pursuant to article VI, section 6, of the Illinois Constitution ( Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, § 6 ) and Illinois Supreme Court Rule 603 (eff. Feb. 6, 2013) and Rule 606 (eff. Mar. 12, 2021) governing appeals from a final judgment of conviction in a criminal case.
¶ 5 Defendant was charged in relevant part with multiple counts of armed robbery with a firearm. In case No. 15-CR-15767, he allegedly robbed Mussie Abreha on or about September 5, 2015. In case No. 15-CR-17608, on September 7, 2015, he allegedly robbed Mohamed Maaref of currency and a cell phone and also allegedly committed aggravated battery by striking Maaref on the head with a firearm knowing him to be a cab driver. In case No. 15-CR-17609, he allegedly robbed Fahad Baig (or Baij) of a debit card, currency, and a wallet on or about September 5, 2015.
¶ 6 The court joined the three cases for trial on the State's allegations that all three victims were cab drivers robbed at gunpoint by a passenger in the early morning (from 12:35 a.m. for Abreha to 5:41 a.m. for Baig) within a three-day period, with two robberies (of Maaref and Baig) at essentially the same location. The case went to trial on the charges of armed robbery of Abreha, Baig, and Maaref, with other charges nol-prossed.
¶ 7 At trial, Wanda Stryck testified that she was an employee of the Carriage Cab Company, which installed cameras in its cabs, and part of her job was to download the images and video from those cameras. Unless triggered to take additional photographs by incidents such as a U-turn, sudden stop, or impact, the cameras would capture images inside and outside the cab about every seven seconds, including the cab number, date and time, and location data. The drivers could not turn the cameras on or off nor tamper with them in any way. In particular, the cabs driven by Abreha and Maaref had such cameras, and Stryck processed a police request for the video from the cabs of Abreha and Maaref on September 5, 2015, by providing those videos on disks and also providing the police still images from those videos. The videos and still images were in the same condition as when Stryck downloaded them, and they were shown at trial.
¶ 8 On cross-examination, Stryck acknowledged that no passenger in the video or images from Abreha's cab is seen holding an object that resembles a gun. On redirect examination, she reiterated that there would be gaps in the video and images because they were captured every seven seconds rather than continuously. On recross examination, she admitted that not all the gaps were as long as seven seconds but could not recall if some were as short as two seconds. Continuous video would be triggered by the cab driving in reverse at a high rate of speed.
¶ 9 The videos and still images from Abreha's and Maaref's cabs show the taxi number, date and time, and location data in latitude and longitude, and the video from both cabs shows views of the driver, passenger, and exterior of the cab. Defendant's face is clearly visible as the passenger in both videos. Only the video from Maaref's cab shows defendant with a gun, a small semiautomatic pistol pointed toward Maaref. The image is not in color, but the gun is two-toned, a darker dull (that is, not shiny) metallic on top and a lighter color by the handgrip. Maaref flinches, raises his hands, and quickly passes a dark bag back to defendant. There is intermittent audio in the video from Maaref's cab, and a male voice says near the end of the video "You come back over this way, you gonna [sic ] die, alright?" and another male voice immediately replies "OK."
¶ 10 Abreha testified that he was working as a cab driver shortly after midnight on September 5, 2015, when defendant hailed his cab in the vicinity of Sedgwick and Schiller Streets in Chicago. Defendant directed him toward a destination, last telling him to turn from Division Street onto Cleveland Avenue. After a couple of blocks, the street dead-ended and defendant told Abreha to stop, then demanded his money. Abreha turned around and saw that defendant had a small metallic gun, silver but not particularly shiny. Abreha was very afraid, assured defendant that he would give him the money, and then did so. He believed he handed defendant $70 or $80. Defendant then fled on foot southward, in the direction of Chicago Avenue. Abreha drove to a more heavily trafficked area and called the police, who he provided a description of the robber.
¶ 11 A few days later, on September 9, Abreha went to the police station and viewed a photographic array, from which he identified defendant's image as depicting the robber. Abreha was aware of the cameras in his cab but had no control over them. Some days after the incident, the cab company showed Abreha the video from his cab from the night in question. When shown the video again at trial, Abreha pointed out himself and defendant. He acknowledged that the video did not show defendant holding a gun but maintained that he did so. Abreha identified a photograph of fellow cab driver Maaref and also identified Maaref in still images from one of the cab cameras.
¶ 12 On cross-examination, Abreha testified that he never saw defendant before that night. He could not recall how much time passed between when defendant fled and calling the police, but it may have been less than 10 minutes. He saw only the video from his own cab at the cab company after the incident. He denied telling police that the gun was black. On redirect examination, he testified that there was no divider between the front and rear seats of his cab.
¶ 13 Baig testified that he was working as a cab driver on the night of September 4 and 5, 2015, and was about to end his shift after 5 a.m. when he picked up one last fare, a man who hailed him near Chicago Avenue and La Salle Street in Chicago. The man was alone and waving money, and Baig stopped for him "[s]keptically." At trial, Baig identified defendant as that man. Defendant provided Baig a destination, the intersection of Chicago Avenue and Drake Avenue. After some "small talk" at the beginning of the ride, defendant asked questions like "are your cameras working, do you have a carry and conceal license, do you have change for a hundred dollar bill." Baig told defendant that the cameras were working, he had no concealed carry license, and could not make change for $100, though in fact he had "plenty of money." When Baig turned from Chicago Avenue onto Drake Avenue as directed, he found that Drake Avenue was a dead end. Baig stopped the cab and asked for the fare, but defendant pulled out a gun and demanded everything Baig had or "I'll shoot you, I'll kill you." He pointed his two-toned (that is, black and silver) semiautomatic pistol at Baig, who put his hands up, begged defendant not to kill him, and gave him over $300. Defendant exited the cab but continued pointing the gun at Baig and demanded that he exit the cab and open the trunk. Defendant searched the trunk, expressing his belief that Baig did not give him all his money and repeating his threat to shoot Baig. He also demanded Baig's wallet, which he had left in the cab when he gave defendant the money, and Baig complied. The wallet contained various cards including a debit card, and defendant demanded the access code; Baig gave him a false code. When a car approached, defendant hid the gun and told Baig to go back into the cab. Defendant left on foot, and Baig drove away, looking for defendant on Chicago Avenue as he called the police.
¶ 14 At some point during the robbery, defendant ripped the visible cameras from their connections. The cab video was not downloaded, as Baig's cab was owned by his father and he did not tell his parents of the robbery lest they tell him to stop being a cab driver, nor did he ask the cab company to download the video as someone there would have told his father. He could not retrieve the video himself, and by the time he decided he wanted the video, he was told it was unrecoverable. Baig did not know either Abreha or Maaref and did not drive for the Carriage Cab Company. Baig was able to describe defendant's gun as he was a gun owner "so I know what a real gun is," and he was clear that it was a semiautomatic rather than a revolver. When asked to describe a revolver, he said that it has a barrel but explained that "I'm bad at explaining those type of things." The cab ride had lasted about 10 minutes, and Baig had ample opportunity to...
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