People v. Deroo
| Decision Date | 20 May 2020 |
| Docket Number | Appeal No. 3-17-0163 |
| Citation | 2020 IL App (3d) 170163,157 N.E.3d 1036,441 Ill.Dec. 679 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ryan James DEROO, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
¶ 1 After a jury trial, defendant, Ryan James Deroo, was found guilty of one count of aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol (aggravated DUI) ( 625 ILCS 5/11-501(a)(2), (d)(2)(D) (West 2016)), one count of aggravated driving with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 or greater (aggravated DUI BAC) (id. § 11-501(a)(1), (d)(2)(D)), and one count of aggravated driving while license revoked (aggravated DWLR) (id. § 6-303(d)). Following a sentencing hearing, defendant was sentenced to concurrent terms of nine years in prison for aggravated DUI and three years in prison for aggravated DWLR.1 Defendant appeals his convictions, arguing that (1) the trial court erred in granting a directed finding for the State on defendant's motion to suppress evidence at the conclusion of defendant's case-in-chief, (2) defendant was not proven guilty of the offenses beyond a reasonable doubt, and (3) the trial court erred in admitting the blood test results at defendant's trial. We affirm the trial court's judgment.
¶ 3 On March 13, 2016, at about 6 or 7 p.m., defendant was allegedly operating a motor vehicle on Turkey Hollow Road in Rock Island County, Illinois. While going around a curve, defendant lost control of the vehicle, went off the road, hit a farm access road, flipped his vehicle over several times, and crashed. It was not foggy or rainy at the time, although it was dark. An oncoming motorist, Carrie Olson, saw the accident occur and reported that the driver of the vehicle appeared to be going too fast around the curve. Olson turned her vehicle to point her headlights at the crashed vehicle, and Olson's sister-in-law, who was with her at the time, called 911. The driver of the vehicle—a male subject—was lying over the front driver's side door and was hanging partially out the window. Olson maintained a constant view of the crashed vehicle until emergency personnel arrived but did not approach the vehicle. While they were waiting for the ambulance, Olson's sister-in-law went over to the crashed vehicle to see if the person hanging out of the window was still alive. The ambulance arrived, and one of the paramedics and some of the other first responders removed defendant from the driver's door area. That paramedic recognized defendant from a prior incident and knew defendant's grandmother, who was the owner of the vehicle. Neither the paramedic nor the witness to the accident (Olson) saw anyone else in defendant's vehicle. Defendant was taken to the hospital for treatment. He suffered a facial fracture and cuts to his face.
¶ 4 In the emergency room at the hospital, defendant's blood was drawn for the purpose of medical treatment. The blood test results showed that defendant's blood alcohol level was elevated and was over the legal limit. The treating physician told an officer who had reported to the hospital about defendant's blood alcohol level. When that officer, Rock Island County Sheriff's Deputy Claire Woodthorp, asked defendant questions about the accident, defendant would look away and would either not answer the question or would state that he did not remember. When Woodthorp asked defendant if he knew why he was at the hospital, defendant stated that it was because he had totaled his car. Woodthorp asked defendant if he would consent to a police blood draw, but defendant laughed and refused. Woodthorp contacted her supervisor about getting a search warrant for defendant's blood, but her supervisor was told by the search warrant judge to just subpoena the hospital records. Four of the people who came into contact with defendant that night—the paramedic, the doctor, the nurse, and Deputy Woodthorp—were all of the opinion that defendant was under the influence of alcohol. Defendant was later transferred to another hospital for additional treatment.
¶ 5 The vehicle involved in the crash belonged to defendant's grandmother, Kathleen McChesney, who defendant was living with at the time of the accident. During the afternoon of the crash, McChesney saw defendant drinking what she believed was alcohol out in the garage with two or three of his friends. In addition, during the evening of that same day, McChesney saw defendant leave the residence in McChesney's vehicle. Defendant was seated in the driver's seat at the time and was the only person in the vehicle.
¶ 6 On March 22, 2016, a three-count information, which was later amended, was filed charging defendant with the three offenses listed above. During the pretrial proceedings, defendant filed a motion to suppress the hospital blood test results. A hearing was held on the motion to suppress in September 2016. The only witness to testify at the hearing was Deputy Woodthorp, who was called to testify by defendant. In addition to some of the information provided above, Woodthorp testified that she initially reported to the accident scene, but by the time she got there, defendant had already been removed from the vehicle and taken to the hospital. Woodthorp talked to Deputy Herbert, the first police officer to arrive at the accident scene, and was told that defendant had been driving the vehicle, that defendant was partially hanging out of the driver's side window of the vehicle when Herbert arrived, that defendant was the only person in the vehicle, that defendant was mumbling his words, that defendant's facial area smelled very strongly of alcohol, and that an oncoming motorist had seen the accident happen. After talking to that motorist about what she had observed, Woodthorp went to the hospital.
¶ 7 At the hospital, Woodthorp spoke to defendant in the emergency room for 15 or 20 minutes as medical personnel treated defendant. Woodthorp noticed that defendant's speech was very slow and slurred and that defendant's facial area smelled very strongly of alcohol. For the most part, defendant was uncooperative and either refused to answer or ignored Woodthorp's questions, except for telling Woodthorp that he was at the hospital because he had totaled his car and that Woodthorp should let defendant's grandmother know that defendant was in the hospital.
¶ 8 Woodthorp issued defendant a DUI citation and a warning to motorist form at the hospital, and defendant refused to submit to a police blood draw. Although Woodthorp only met with defendant for 15 or 20 minutes, she was at the hospital for about two hours and was seated at a desk in a hallway down from where defendant was located and was writing her police report. Woodthorp never placed defendant under arrest, handcuffed defendant, or drew her weapon, and, according to Woodthorp, defendant was free to leave (other than whatever rules the hospital had about defendant leaving). Eventually, a doctor at the hospital told Woodthorp that defendant's blood alcohol results were over the legal limit. Woodthorp stated on the witness stand that she did not approach the doctor and ask the doctor for that information but also commented that the staff at the hospital would provide the police with blood alcohol results. Woodthorp stated further that defendant's blood was drawn for the purpose of medical treatment, that she did not direct or order the hospital staff to draw defendant's blood, that no one else from the sheriff's department directed or ordered the hospital staff to draw defendant's blood, and that she took no part in the hospital staff doing so.
¶ 9 After Woodthorp's testimony was completed at the hearing on the motion to suppress, the defendant rested. The State moved for a directed finding. When the attorneys had finished making their arguments on the matter, the trial court granted the State's motion for a directed finding and denied defendant's motion to suppress. As part of its ruling, the trial court found that defendant was not under arrest when he was at the hospital, that Deputy Woodthorp had probable cause to arrest defendant if she wanted to do so, and that Illinois statute provided a procedure pursuant to which the State could obtain medical blood draws and evidence from treating physicians and nurses regarding the condition of patients involved in DUI prosecutions.
¶ 10 In December 2016, defendant's case proceeded to a jury trial. The trial took two days to complete. During its case-in-chief, the State called numerous witnesses to testify, including Carrie Olson, the oncoming motorist who saw the accident occur; Deputy Woodthorp; Bruce Retherford, the paramedic at the scene who recognized defendant; Jennifer Wilkinson, one of defendant's treating nurses at the hospital; Dr. Douglas Gaither, defendant's treating physician at the hospital; and John Wetstein, an expert witness who converted defendant's blood serum alcohol result to its whole blood equivalent. Much of the evidence that was presented at the trial has already been set forth above.2
¶ 11 In addition to that evidence, the other evidence presented at the trial relevant to the issues raised in this appeal can be summarized as follows. Deputy Woodthorp identified defendant in court as the person that she had talked to at the hospital about the crash. Bruce Retherford, the paramedic who was at the scene of the crash, identified defendant in court as the person who was hanging out of the front driver's side window of the vehicle after the crash occurred. While treating defendant and transporting defendant to the hospital, the only substances that Retherford had placed into defendant's body were intravenous (IV) fluids that contained saline and would not have affected defendant's ethanol level.
¶ 12 Jennifer Wilkinson, one of the nurses who treated defendant in the emergency room, testified that defendant was rude, disrespectful,...
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