People v. Garcia

• Citation: 2022 IL App (1st) 210040
• Decision Date: 23 November 2022
• Docket Number: 1-21-0040
• Parties: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ADRIAN GARCIA, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

2022 IL App (1st) 210040

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
ADRIAN GARCIA, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-21-0040

Court of Appeals of Illinois, First District, Third Division

November 23, 2022

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County. No. 11 CR 07456, Honorable Stanley J. Sacks, Judge Presiding.

Attorneys for Appellant: James E. Chadd, Douglas R. Hoff, and Jonathan Yeasting, of State Appellate Defender's Office, of Chicago, for appellant.

Attorneys for Appellee: Kimberly M. Foxx, State's Attorney, of Chicago (Enrique Abraham, Brian K. Hodes, and Paul E. Wojcicki, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

BURKE JUSTICE delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion. Justice McBride concurred in the judgment and opinion. Justice Gordon dissented, with opinion.

OPINION

BURKE JUSTICE.

¶ 1 Defendant, Adrian Garcia, appeals from an order of the circuit court of Cook County dismissing his pro se petition for relief under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act (Act) (725 ILCS 5/122-1 et seq. (West 2018)). On appeal, defendant contends that the court erred in summarily dismissing his petition where he raised a sufficient claim that his trial counsel was arguably ineffective in failing to investigate and present an exculpatory witness. Defendant maintains that the witness provided an affidavit that presented a version of events that was different than the version presented by the State witnesses at trial. Defendant asserts that if counsel had investigated

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and presented the exculpatory witness, it is arguable that the result of his trial would have been different. In the alternative, defendant contends that the proposed testimony of the exculpatory witness supports a colorable claim of actual innocence. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.

¶ 2 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 3 A. Defendant's Jury Trial

¶ 4 A full recitation of the facts from defendant's jury trial can be found in this court's order from defendant's direct appeal. See People v. Garcia, 2020 IL App (1st) 170007-U. As relevant here, the record shows that defendant was charged along with two codefendants, Mario Ascensio and Mauricio Ortiz, with first degree murder and armed robbery following the beating death of Armando Corral on April 11, 2011. Corral was beaten to death and robbed of his wallet by the three men near the La Roka bar on the 3000 block of South St. Louis Avenue in Chicago.

¶ 5 At trial, Mayra Dominguez testified that in the early morning hours of April 11, she was working on her computer in her second-floor apartment on South St. Louis Avenue. Dominguez heard bottles breaking and "punching sounds" outside through the open window of her apartment. She looked out the window and observed three men beating up Corral. She saw Corral fall to the ground as the three men continued to beat him. Dominguez recognized two of the men: defendant and Ortiz. Dominguez had known defendant for more than 10 years, and he lived across the street from her. Dominguez observed defendant kick Corral in his head and jump on Corral's chest while holding onto a fence. Dominguez saw Ortiz kick Corral in his arms, legs, and head while the third assailant, who Dominguez did not recognize, kicked Corral's legs. Dominguez walked away from the window to call police. When she returned, she saw defendant kick Corral in the head and then

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reach into Corral's pockets and take his wallet. Dominguez later identified defendant in a police lineup as the person she observed jumping on Corral's chest.

¶ 6 David Silva testified that on the night of April 10, he went to the La Roka bar with two of his friends. There, he saw Ascensio and defendant, who he knew from the neighborhood. Silva later left the bar and went to a friend's house nearby where he continued to drink. Later that night, he heard a commotion outside and saw through a window Ascensio and another man standing over a third man who was lying on the sidewalk. Silva observed Ascensio throw a bottle at the man on the ground, but then Silva moved away from the window and did not see or hear anything else.

¶ 7 Ascensio testified on behalf of the State pursuant to a plea agreement. Ascensio testified that in exchange for his guilty plea to armed robbery and his testimony against defendant in this case, the State agreed to dismiss the first degree murder charge against him. Ascensio acknowledged that he was a participant in the robbery and beating of Corral. Ascensio was at the La Roka bar that night and saw Corral get into an altercation with another man. After the bar closed, Corral left, followed by defendant and Ortiz. Ascensio left after them and observed Ortiz punch Corral in the face a few houses away from the bar. After Ortiz punched Corral, Corral fell to the ground. Defendant and Ortiz then started kicking Corral. Defendant held onto a fence and jumped on Corral's chest. Ascensio threw a bottle at Corral and kicked him in the legs. Once the three men stopped beating Corral, defendant bent down and took Corral's wallet. They then walked back to the corner by La Roka and went through the contents of Corral's wallet. The three men ran when they heard sirens. Later, after the police arrived, Ascensio observed defendant standing in front of his house across the street from where the beating took place.

¶ 8 Officer Oscar Lopez testified that around 2 a.m. on April 11, he received a call that "five guys [were] beating up one guy." Lopez and his partner, Officer Violet Rey, arrived on the scene

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and observed Corral, who was bleeding and unresponsive, lying face down on the ground. Lopez and Rey approached defendant, who was standing on the sidewalk in front of his residence across the street from where the officers discovered Corral. Defendant told the officers that three men had beaten Corral with a bottle. Officer Lopez observed that defendant's hand was swollen, cut, and bleeding. When Officer Lopez asked defendant about his hand, defendant responded that he had intervened to help Corral while he was being attacked. Defendant later told police that Alejandro Rios was one of the attackers who defendant punched while defending Corral.

¶ 9 Officers investigated Rios and found that he had trouble walking and required the assistance of crutches. After officers spoke with Dominguez, they placed defendant under arrest. The police collected various pieces of physical evidence from the scene and defendant, including broken beer bottles with bloodstains on them, blood-stained T-shirts, and defendant's clothing, including his shoes. A forensic investigator also took blood swabs from the back of defendant's hands. Police also collected physical evidence from Ortiz and Ascensio.

¶ 10 A forensic scientist testified that Corral's blood was found on defendant's right shoe. Blood collected from defendant's left hand contained DNA from at least three people. However, the major profile did not match defendant or his codefendants, but Corral could not be excluded. An expert in the field of shoe impressions also testified that the shoe impressions on Corral's white shirt were consistent with the shoes recovered from defendant and not the shoes collected from his codefendants.

¶ 11 The jury found defendant guilty of first degree murder and armed robbery. The trial court subsequently sentenced defendant to a 33-year term of imprisonment for first degree murder and a consecutive 7-year sentence for armed robbery. Defendant appealed, contending that the court erred in allowing the State to introduce a prior consistent statement made by Dominguez. This

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court rejected defendant's claim, finding that he had failed to preserve the issue by raising it in the trial court and that the...