People v. Gill
| Decision Date | 03 April 2018 |
| Docket Number | Appeal No. 3–15–0594 |
| Citation | 103 N.E.3d 459,2018 IL App (3d) 150594 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Steve W. GILL, Defendant–Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Michael J. Pelletier, Peter A. Carusona, and Mark D. Fisher, of State Appellate Defender’s Office, of Ottawa, for appellant.
Stewart J. Umholtz, State’s Attorney, of Pekin (Patrick Delfino, Lawrence M. Bauer, and Mark A. Austill, of State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor’s Office, of counsel), for the People.
¶ 1 Defendant, Steve W. Gill, appeals following his conviction for aggravated arson. He argues on appeal that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Defendant also argues that the circuit court erred in failing to suppress certain pieces of evidence at trial. Further, defendant urges that he was denied a fair trial. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.
¶ 3 The State charged defendant by indictment on September 25, 2014, with aggravated arson ( 720 ILCS 5/20–1.1(a)(1) (West 2012) ) and residential arson (id. § 20–1(b) ). The indictment alleged that defendant knowingly damaged the house of Timothy Rayner by fire on June 19, 2012, when he knew or should have known that one or more persons were present within the house.
¶ 4 Defense counsel filed a motion to quash the seizure of defendant's clothing from the Pekin hospital and suppress the clothing as evidence, arguing that the seizure did not meet any exceptions to the warrant requirement. In a separate motion, defendant sought to quash the seizure of his truck from a parking lot in North Pekin on the same grounds. Defendant also filed motions arguing that the seized evidence should be excluded on the grounds that the seizures were executed by East Peoria law enforcement officials, who were without authority to execute those actions in those particular locations.
¶ 5 The circuit court held a suppression hearing on March 13, 2015. At the hearing, Detective David Catton of the East Peoria Police Department testified that he came on duty at 8 a.m. on June 19, 2012. Catton soon thereafter received a phone call from Sergeant Brian Despines, informing him that there had been a house fire at approximately 3:30 that morning. Despines notified Catton that defendant was a suspect, and that he had been transported to the hospital from the Denny's restaurant in North Pekin. Catton first went to Denny's, then, at approximately 10 a.m., to the scene of the fire. He testified that the inside of the burned house smelled of gasoline. He also noticed that a Jeep parked in the driveway of the house smelled of gasoline. Inside the Jeep, Catton noticed a gas can and white rags "similar to the rags that I found in the truck at Denny's."
¶ 6 Catton testified that he went to the Pekin hospital at approximately 2:15 p.m. on June 19, 2012, to speak with defendant. At the hospital, Catton was accompanied by Assistant Chief John Knapp of the East Peoria Fire Department, East Peoria arson investigator Eric Duckworth, and State Fire Marshal's arson investigator Shane Arndt.
¶ 7 Upon arriving at the hospital, Catton and the other investigators met with Jeffrey Lickiss, who was the nurse attending to defendant. Lickiss told Catton that upon intake defendant had smelled of gasoline. Lickiss escorted the investigators to what Catton described as a common area on the seventh floor of the hospital. Lickiss retrieved defendant's clothing for them. Catton initially testified that Lickiss retrieved the clothing from "behind the counter on that floor." Catton also testified: "[T]he nurse got the clothing that was behind the counter of [defendant]." Later, Catton agreed to defense counsel's assertion that Lickiss had retrieved the clothing "from behind the counter."
¶ 8 Catton testified that Lickiss had retrieved the clothing at the investigators' request, but he did not remember which specific investigator asked for the clothing. The clothing was then laid out upon the floor so that Arndt's canine could perform a free air sniff. After Arndt told Catton that the canine had alerted, Arndt took the clothing into custody.
¶ 9 After the canine free air sniff, Catton and Arndt went to speak with defendant. Catton testified that defendant's room was "right where we were standing" and the door was open. Lickiss indicated which room was defendant's room, and Catton, who was familiar with defendant, could see him through the open door. Catton described defendant's room as a single occupancy, agreeing when counsel referred to it as a "private room."
¶ 10 Lickiss testified that he first saw defendant on the day in question when other hospital personnel needed assistance removing his clothing and establishing IVs. Defendant was lying on a bed in a private room. When Lickiss first entered the room, he asked if defendant had been in an automobile accident, noting the odor of gasoline. Lickiss assisted in the removal of defendant's clothing, and temporarily placed them on the floor in the corner of the room.
¶ 11 A nurse told Lickiss that the police wanted to speak to him. Lickiss assumed that the nurse had told police of his observation of the odor of gasoline. Lickiss then left the room and went to the nurses' station, where he told a police officer that he had smelled gasoline. Lickiss then testified: The following colloquy ensued between defense counsel and Lickiss:
Lickiss testified that he did not seek defendant's consent to turn over the clothing because he was unintelligible and not in a state to give consent.
¶ 12 Lickiss further testified that all of the events in question occurred on the first floor of the hospital, in the emergency room (ER). He testified that he had been involved in two recent cases involving the securing of clothing, one of which occurred in the ER, and one of which occurred on the seventh floor. Lickiss recalled that the incident on the seventh floor involved an arson investigator. The ER incident, which Lickiss was testifying to, occurred around 5 a.m. Lickiss did not recall the clothing being laid out on the floor.
¶ 13 Arndt testified that he was an arson investigator for the Illinois State Fire Marshal's arson division. He was notified around 3:30 a.m. on June 19, 2012, of a fire in East Peoria. The course of his investigation led him to the Pekin hospital around 2:30 p.m. He went to the hospital with Catton, Knapp, and Duckworth. Upon arrival, Arndt went to "a nurse's station next to a room." He did not recall which floor they were on, but did remember later that he "went down" to retrieve his canine. He noted that it was "just a hospital room," and not the ER. He described the nurses' station as a large counter with several rooms adjacent to it.
¶ 14 From the nurses' station, Arndt observed defendant lying on a bed, alone in the room. Arndt did not enter the room at that time. Someone—though not Arndt himself—then requested the clothing. Arndt retrieved his canine. Arndt recalled that the clothing was brought to the front of the nurses' station in a single plastic bag; he could smell gasoline when the clothing was first removed from the bag. The canine performed a free air sniff of the clothing. This occurred on the floor in front of the nurses' station. Arndt testified that the canine alerted to the front pocket and leg area of a pair of jeans, but not anywhere else that he recalled. Arndt removed all the clothing from the hospital, with the exception of a pair of boots.
¶ 15 The circuit court denied defendant's motion to suppress. In so ruling, the court commented:
¶ 16 At a later court date, the circuit court entertained the parties' arguments relating to the jurisdiction of authorities to seize defendant's clothing from the hospital in Pekin and his truck from North Pekin. The court agreed that East Peoria does not adjoin either of those towns, as it is separated from both by the village of Creve Coeur. Nevertheless, the court found that officers retain authority or jurisdiction to investigate offenses and conduct seizures in nonadjoining municipalities.
¶ 17 On May 28, 2015, the circuit court conducted a hearing on defendant's motion to suppress the seizure of his truck. At that hearing, defendant testified that on June 19, 2012, he was at a Denny's restaurant between 4 and 5 a.m. He had driven his 1994 Dodge truck to the restaurant and parked it in the lot. Defendant testified that at some point while eating his breakfast, he "became unconscious." The next thing he remembered was waking up in a private room at the Pekin hospital. Defendant testified that he was released from the hospital around 6 p.m., at which point his brother drove him back to Denny's to retrieve his truck. When he arrived, his truck was no longer in the parking lot.
¶ 18 The State did not call any witnesses at the hearing, arguing...
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...524, 860 N.E.2d 178 (2006) ). That determination is fact-specific. See People v. Gill , 2018 IL App (3d) 150594, ¶ 96, 422 Ill.Dec. 327, 103 N.E.3d 459 ("[t]he question of whether a defendant has a reasonable expectation of privacy depends on the totality of the circumstances," which "will ......
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...to the denial of the suppression motion in a posttrial motion. People v. Gill , 2018 IL App (3d) 150594, ¶ 76, 422 Ill.Dec. 327, 103 N.E.3d 459 ; People v. Brannon , 2013 IL App (2d) 111084, ¶ 22, 371 Ill.Dec. 792, 990 N.E.2d 1170. Indeed, the court in Brooks left that possibility open. Bro......
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