People v. D.B.

• Decision Date: 14 August 1990
• Docket Number: No. 1-88-3321,1-88-3321
• Citation: 147 Ill.Dec. 533,202 Ill.App.3d 194,559 N.E.2d 873
• Parties: , 147 Ill.Dec. 533 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Petitioner-Appellant, v. D.B., a Minor, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 873

559 N.E.2d 873

202 Ill.App.3d 194, 147 Ill.Dec. 533

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Petitioner-Appellant, v. D.B., a Minor, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 1-88-3321.

Appellate Court of Illinois First District, Second Division.

Aug. 14, 1990.

Cecil A Partee, State's Atty., Chicago (Inge Fryklund, William D. Carroll, Eileen Rubin, of counsel), for petitioner-appellant.

Randolph N. Stone, Public Defender, Chicago (Ira Churgin, of counsel), for respondent-appellee.

Justice SCARIANO delivered the opinion of the court:

The State appeals from an order of the circuit court denying the State's petition to permit the prosecution of respondent D.B., a 14-year-old minor, for the offenses of murder, home invasion and residential burglary. This appeal presents two issues for our review: (1) whether the trial judge abused his discretion as delimited by section 5-4(3)(a) of the Juvenile Court Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1987, ch. 37, par. 805-4(3)(a)) when he declined to permit respondent to be tried as an adult offender; and (2) whether he precluded a meaningful review of his decision by failing to preserve his reasoning with sufficient particularity. We affirm.

On October 4, 1988, at about 1:30 p.m., respondent and two friends, Owen Parker (Owen), 15, and Patrick Brown (Patrick), 16, used a crowbar to break into the apartment of Allie Larkin, an elderly woman in her eighties, to rob her of her money. While they were searching her bedroom, Ms. Larkin returned inside from the front porch. The three boys lay in wait for her in the bathroom. As she passed by the door, Patrick hit her over the head with the crowbar, and she fell down. Respondent and Owen resumed their search. When she tried to get up, Patrick hit her again and held her down with his foot. Finally, holding the crowbar with both hands, he struck her harder over the head. Without having found any money, the three boys escaped out the bedroom window. Ms. Larkin died later that day.

The State brought charges against Patrick, Owen and the respondent for first degree murder, home invasion and residential burglary. Because of their age, Patrick and Owen were automatically transferred to adult criminal court pursuant to section 5-4(6)(a) of the Juvenile Court Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1987, ch. 37, par. 805-4(6)(a)), which provides that minors 15 years of age and older shall be criminally prosecuted for certain felonies, including first degree murder. Respondent, on the other hand, was charged as a juvenile on October 6, 1988, on a petition for adjudication of wardship. That same day, the State filed a motion to permit respondent's prosecution as an adult under the criminal laws, pursuant to section 5-4(3)(a) of the Juvenile Court Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1987, ch. 37, par. 805-4(3)(a)), which allows a judge to transfer a juvenile to adult court if in his discretion he finds that it is in the best interests of the minor and society to do so.

THE TRANSFER HEARING

At respondent's transfer hearing on October 28, 1988, the State presented the testimony of two witnesses, Detective Ron Armata of the Chicago Police Department, and Gregory Harris, a juvenile probation officer. The parties stipulated that Dr. Perruza, a certified pathologist, would testify that the primary cause of Ms. Larkin's death was blunt trauma to her head, and the secondary cause, asphyxia due to a foreign object in her throat. Respondent did not present evidence on his own behalf.

On October 5, 1988, respondent dictated a written confession in the presence of Detective Armata. According to respondent, Owen was his friend, and Patrick was Owen's cousin, whom respondent knew only "so-so." Having learned from Patrick that Ms. Larkin had large sums of money, which she kept in her home and carried on her person, the three of them planned to burglarize her apartment. Patrick talked them into the burglary, which they discussed on some five occasions before carrying it out. On one such occasion, about a week before the burglary, they gathered on Patrick's porch across the street. Patrick timed Ms. Larkin with a stopwatch and determined that she stayed on her porch for at least 17 minutes at a time.

On October 4, 1988, they put their plan into action. Patrick checked to make sure that Ms. Larkin was on her porch with her neighbor, then entered her apartment through her bedroom window with a crowbar, followed by respondent and Owen. Once inside, Patrick kept a lookout, while respondent and Owen began searching the drawers in the bedroom. Upon hearing a door open, they hid in the bathroom. Patrick stood by the door with the crowbar, respondent stood behind him, and Owen sat on the toilet seat. As Ms. Larkin walked past the door, Patrick hit her over the head with the crowbar, and she fell down. All respondent could see through the doorway was her feet.

Respondent and Owen resumed searching her bedroom for money. Meanwhile, Ms. Larkin tried to get up, and Patrick hit her again, holding her down with his foot. Respondent knew she was alive because he could hear her moaning. They continued their search for five or ten minutes, but found no money. When Ms. Larkin tried to get up once more, respondent saw Patrick hit her much harder than before, with both hands on the crowbar. At this point respondent jumped out the window. According to his confession, it was part of their plan that Patrick would watch over her and that they had "talked about hitting her [but] not to do all that to her."

Later that day, some friends sent by Owen informed respondent that Ms. Larkin had died, and he and Owen discussed confessing their crime to the police. Respondent called his mother and told her everything, and on the next day, she accompanied him to the police station, where he turned himself in.

Detective Armata testified further that while inspecting Ms. Larkin's first floor apartment at 6441 South St. Lawrence, Chicago, on the day after the murder, he observed a large amount of blood on the carpet and splattered on the walls about ten feet from the bathroom. The two bedrooms were in complete disarray. The bedroom window through which the youths had entered was not visible from the front porch and was located about three feet above a four-foot high chain link fence.

According to a report prepared by Chicago police officer White, on the day of the murder he discovered Ms. Larkin's body lying adjacent to the bathroom. At that time she was possibly still alive and bleeding profusely from the head, which was covered in a blood-soaked sheet. Her ankles and her left wrist were tied with a belt.

The State's next witness, Gregory Harris, a juvenile probation officer, testified that he had conducted a social investigation of respondent and recommended retaining him under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. In preparing his report, he took into account his interviews with respondent's teacher, assistant school principal and mother, respondent's delinquent background and a police report concerning the events of October 4, 1988.

Ms. Parker, respondent's teacher at McCosh Elementary School, informed Harris that respondent was often truant, having missed six days of school in September and two days in October, including the day of the murder, October 4, 1988. She also said that she had a "bad feeling" about respondent because he was hanging around a group of bad friends, among whom was co-defendant Owen. However, he was neither violent nor ever a problem to other students. The assistant principal of McCosh Elementary School told Harris that in his opinion respondent was "slick and sneaky."

Respondent's mother stated that she never had any problems with respondent at home: she was able to control him, and he was always jovial and very respectful to her and got along well with other members of the family. The main problem she had with him was his truancy, but there was little she could do about it because she worked during the day. When notified by the school on October 4, 1988, that he was missing, she had had no idea where he was.

During his interview with Harris, respondent cried and was concerned about his mother and his future. He talked about school and how wrong he had been for missing days. Harris noted that his behavior reminded him generally of the behavior of a young man.

Respondent's delinquent background included one court referral for possession of a stolen motor vehicle which the State had dismissed with leave to reinstate and one station adjustment for possession of marijuana.

Harris also considered a police report compiled by a youth officer, but, contrary to normal practice, did not review the general case report or the detectives' report, both of which were offered to him a week earlier by the State. During his questioning, the State confronted him with the gruesome details of the murder and brought to his attention other aggravating circumstances, including facts that the burglary had been planned for a month, that the victim, an elderly woman, was found with a blood-soaked sheet covering her head and with her hands and feet bound, that the victim's telephones had been ripped out of the wall, that a lead pipe and crowbar were recovered from the apartment, that co-defendants Patrick and Owen had made self-incriminating statements and that both had been automatically transferred to adult criminal court. Harris admitted knowing that respondent had made a confession taken by a court reporter and understood that according to the principle of accountability respondent could be found as guilty as the person who actually killed Ms. Larkin. Harris testified, however, that none of these factors would persuade him to alter his conclusion in his report that respondent "was in the wrong place at the wrong time" or to change his recommendation not to prosecute respondent under the criminal laws.

During cross examination by respondent's counsel, Harris said he was aware that if tried under the criminal laws respondent's...