People v. Gibson

• Decision Date: 22 March 2018
• Docket Number: No. 1–16–2177,1–16–2177
• Citation: 105 N.E.3d 47,2018 IL App (1st) 162177
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. James GIBSON, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

2018 IL App (1st) 162177

105 N.E.3d 47

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

v.James GIBSON, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 1–16–2177

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, FOURTH DIVISION.

Filed March 22, 2018

Rehearing denied April 24, 2018

Joel A. Brodsky, of Law Offices of Joel A. Brodsky, and Ramon A. Moore, of Law Offices of Ramon A. Moore, both of Chicago, for appellant.

Robert A. Milan, Special State’s Attorney, of Chicago (Myles P. O’Rourke and Brian J. Stefanich, Assistant Special State’s Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

JUSTICE ELLIS delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Defendant James Gibson was convicted after a bench trial, and sentenced to life in prison, for the 1989 murders of Lloyd Benjamin and Hunter Wash. By the trial judge's own admission, the key piece of evidence in the State's case was an incriminating admission defendant made to Area 3 detectives under the command of Jon Burge, in which defendant placed himself at the scene of the murders. Though defendant would later claim that he was coerced into giving a false statement after two days of physical abuse at the hands of the police, defendant made no serious attempt to suppress that statement pre-trial, because his lawyer stated on the record that he deemed the statement "exculpatory"—favorable, not hurtful, to defendant's case—merely because defendant had not outright confessed to the murder in the statement, admitting only to being present at the scene. Counsel's interpretation would prove quite ironic later, given that the trial court found that statement to be anything but exculpatory—finding it, in fact, to be the lynchpin of the prosecution's case, "of extreme importance" to its finding of guilt.

¶ 2 In 2013, defendant filed a claim before the Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission (TIRC), alleging that his statement was the product of physical abuse by Area 3 detectives. He alleged, in particular, that several officers repeatedly punched and kicked him in the chest, and burned his arm with a heated clothing iron. TIRC found credible evidence that defendant was struck in the chest as he claimed—although it doubted his allegation that he was burned—and referred his claim to the circuit court for an evidentiary hearing. The circuit court, at the post-TIRC hearing, denied his claim after finding that defendant's testimony was not credible.

¶ 3 Defendant raises a multitude of issues on appeal. We reverse and remand for further proceedings based on one of them. At the hearing, two of the accused officers, former Sergeant John Byrne and former Detective John Paladino, invoked their fifth-amendment rights against self-incrimination. Believing that defendant's allegations were rebutted by several other detectives who testified, the circuit court declined to draw an adverse inference against Byrne or Paladino.

¶ 4 While an adverse inference is permissive rather than mandatory, we think it can be error not to draw one when there is no credible reason for refusing to do so. And here, certain of defendant's allegations against Paladino were not rebutted by any of the detectives' testimony, or by any other evidence in the record. Those allegations were also corroborated—not proven, but corroborated—by defendant's immediate complaint to the Chicago Police Department's Office of Professional Standards and by contemporaneous documentation of his injuries, which, a forensic pathologist testified, were consistent with his allegations that Paladino and other officers repeatedly punched and kicked him in the chest.

¶ 5 A law-enforcement officer's refusal to answer these allegations under oath is not to be taken lightly. The circuit court needed some defensible reason to refuse to draw an adverse inference. It did not have one. And that error, for reasons we will explain, could have changed the outcome of the hearing.

¶ 6 In light of that conclusion, we do not reach the other issues defendant has raised. But in the course of addressing the issue we find dispositive, we do address a question of law presented by several disputed evidentiary rulings, since that question will necessarily recur at any evidentiary hearing on a claim referred by TIRC. The question is: Do the Illinois Rules of Evidence apply at these hearings? We hold that they are "postconviction hearings," within the meaning of Rule 1101, and that the Rules of Evidence therefore do not apply. See Ill. R. Evid. 1101(b)(3) (amended Apr. 8, 2013).

¶ 7 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 8 The victims, Benjamin and Wash, were shot and killed on December 22, 1989, while leaving a garage on the southwest side of Chicago. Benjamin, an insurance agent, was on his route collecting weekly premium payments. Benjamin's cash, and other personal effects, were found with his body, but the police suspected (attempted) robbery as the shooter's motive. Wash, a neighborhood mechanic who owned the garage, was a client of Benjamin's.

¶ 9 A. Investigation

¶ 10 On December 27, 1989, acting on an anonymous tip, detectives from the Area 3 Violent Crimes Unit detained defendant. The commanding officer of the unit at that time was Jon Burge. Over the next three days, several of Burge's subordinates interrogated defendant. According to the police reports (which the circuit court admitted into evidence at the post-TIRC hearing), those detectives included Anthony Maslanka, John Paladino, William Moser, Louis Caesar, John O'Mara, Phillip Collins, and John McCann. The supervising detective on the case was Sergeant John Byrne.

¶ 11 Defendant did not confess to the murders. But on December 30, 1989, after three days in police custody, he did admit that he was at Wash's garage when the murders were committed. He told the detectives that Eric Johnson (aka Keith Smith) handed a gun to a neighborhood drug addict named Fernando Webb, who shot Benjamin and Wash as they exited the garage.

¶ 12 The detectives confronted Johnson and Webb, who were also being questioned at Area 3, with defendant's statement. Johnson admitted that he was present at the crime scene, but he said that defendant shot Benjamin and Wash, while Webb acted as defendant's lookout. Webb, who had initially denied any knowledge of the murders, said that he passed by the garage, on his way home from getting his heroin fix, and saw an unidentified black male standing near the door.

¶ 13 Assistant State's Attorney (ASA) Lynda Peters interviewed the three suspects and concluded that further corroboration was required before any charges could be filed. Defendant was released from Area 3 and returned home on the evening of December 30, 1989.

¶ 14 The next day, on December 31, 1989, Johnson confessed to acting as a lookout while, he now claimed, defendant shot the victims. Webb, for the first time, also named defendant as the shooter. Johnson's sisters implicated defendant in an alleged plan to rob Benjamin. Defendant was arrested, without a warrant, later that day. He did not make any further statements after his arrest. Defendant and Johnson were both charged with the murders.

¶ 15 B. Defendant's Trial

¶ 16 Defendant's trial counsel filed a boilerplate motion to suppress, alleging that defendant was arrested without probable cause. Defendant filed a pro se supplemental motion to suppress. When the judge at defendant's trial asked defense counsel to clarify what specific evidence fell within the purview of the pretrial motions, counsel acknowledged that defendant "might" have made a statement to the police, but it was an "exculpatory-type statement[ ]," and "not [an] inculpatory statement[ ]," so it was not subject to suppression. The State likewise argued that neither counsel's motion nor defendant's pro se motion sought to suppress his statement placing himself at Wash's garage, and counsel did not contest the State's position.

¶ 17 Johnson, meanwhile, moved to suppress his confession on the ground that it was coerced through physical abuse. At his suppression hearing, Johnson testified that after his December 29, 1989, arrest, detectives hit him in the face, chest, ribs, arms, and stomach; kicked him; used racial slurs; and failed to Mirandize him. He ultimately signed a written statement that he did not write or review because he "was tired of getting beat," and the detectives told him he could go home if he signed the statement. Because Johnson could not identify by name the detectives who abused him, the State called Detectives Moser, Paladino, Maslanka, Collins, McCann, Caesar, Jerome Rusnak, and Victor Breska; polygraph examiner Robert Tovar; and ASAs Peters and Richard Correa—all of whom, in sum, denied having any knowledge of the alleged abuse. Based on those denials, and Johnson's failure to corroborate his claims with medical records or photographs, the trial judge denied his motion.

¶ 18 Defendant and Johnson were tried separately. At defendant's bench trial, the State's case rested on the testimony of Johnson's sisters, Carla Smith and Janice Johnson; Webb; and Detective Moser, who testified to defendant's incriminating admission. The murder weapon was never recovered, and there was no physical evidence linking defendant to the shootings. Because Johnson did not testify, his statement implicating defendant as the shooter was not introduced. Defendant did not take the stand.

¶ 19 One of Johnson's sisters, Carla, testified that on December 20, 1989, she was at home with Johnson and defendant. Defendant said that he was "starving," that his "car needed fixing," and that he "would have to stick up the insurance man" to get money. Defendant added that "if [Benjamin] panicked" during the stick-up, he "would have to shoot him." And on December 21, 1989, Carla heard defendant ask her brothers for some .32 caliber bullets—the same caliber as the bullets recovered from the victims. On cross-examination, Carla testified that the police told her they would release Johnson if she made a statement, and that she did not read the written statement that she signed.

¶ 20...