People v. Goodwin
| Decision Date | 21 September 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 1-15-2045,1-15-2045 |
| Citation | 2018 IL App (1st) 152045,126 N.E.3d 1268,430 Ill.Dec. 741 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph GOODWIN, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Michael J. Pelletier, Patricia Mysza, and Sean Collins-Stapleton, of State Appellate Defender’s Office, of Chicago, for appellant.
Kimberly M. Foxx, State’s Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg and Brian K. Hodes, Assistant State’s Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.
¶ 1 Defendant, Joseph Goodwin, was charged with threatening a public official, intimidation, and unlawful restraint after he yelled obscenities at an assistant state's attorney and followed her down the hall of the courthouse to her office. After a jury trial, defendant was convicted of threatening a public official and unlawful restraint. He was ultimately sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment. Defendant appeals, arguing that (1) the State failed to prove him guilty of threatening a public official beyond a reasonable doubt because there was no evidence that he threatened the victim, (2) in the alternative, he was deprived of a fair trial due to ineffective assistance of counsel, (3) the threatening a public official statute is unconstitutional, and (4) the State failed to prove him guilty of unlawful restraint beyond a reasonable doubt. For the reasons that follow, we find that the State failed to prove defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of threatening a public official and reverse his conviction. We also remand this matter to the circuit court to impose a sentence for defendant's unlawful restraint conviction.
¶ 3 A grand jury charged defendant with the following respectively-numbered counts: (I) threatening a public official ( 720 ILCS 5/12-9(a)(1) (West 2014) ), (II) intimidation (id. § 12-6(a)(2) ), and (III) unlawful restraint (id. § 10-3(a) ). The indictment named Assistant State's Attorney Nora Gill as the public official at issue. The charges arose from an incident that occurred on the fourth floor of the Richard J. Daley Center (Daley Center) on March 19, 2014. Defendant's jury trial began on February 17, 2015, and ended on February 19, 2015, with the jury finding defendant guilty on counts I and III, and not guilty on count II.
¶ 4 After opening statements, the State called Gill to testify. Gill stated that she had been an assistant state's attorney for eight years and that, on March 19, 2014, she was assigned to traffic court in courtroom 402 of the Daley Center. On that date, Gill was four and a half months' pregnant. Gill testified that typically there are two assistant state's attorneys assigned to a courtroom, but on that date, her partner was on vacation and law clerk Allison Kudzy was assisting her. Gill described the court call on March 19, 2014, as "very, very heavy," and said the courtroom was "packed." Gill stated that the court call was supposed to start at 9 a.m., but that Judge Dan Gallagher did not get to courtroom 402 until about 9:40 or 9:45 a.m. Gill stated that while she was waiting for the judge to take the bench, she spoke to some of the present defense attorneys. Specifically, she spoke with attorney Patrick Boyle, who represented Alfredo Montes. Gill testified that around 9:30 a.m., Boyle told her that he needed to get to federal court. Boyle asked Gill to let the judge know that he had been there and that Montes was represented and to request another date. Gill stated that the judge took the bench and Montes's case was called first. Montes then approached the bench from the gallery and Gill informed the judge that Montes had an attorney who had to be in federal court at 10 a.m., and had asked that Gill put his name in the record and ask for a short date. In response, the judge "yelled" at Gill " ‘[H]ow dare you let attorneys leave, I wanted this case called.’ " Gill stated that the judge gave the case a very short date and "threw some papers and stormed off the bench and yelled at me to get my shit together."
¶ 5 Gill testified that Montes was standing next to her at that point and looked confused. She thought Montes might think the judge was yelling at him, so she told Montes to come to her office down the hall to call his attorney and let him know what happened. Gill stated that she and Montes then turned towards the back of the courtroom and walked down the aisle towards the double doors, only one of which opened. Gill further stated that a man, whom she identified as defendant, was standing by the door that did not open and "approached me and he was like laughing and kind of pointing his finger, oh, you made the judge mad; ha, ha, you made the judge mad." Gill testified that she responded, "between the two of us you are here on bond, so why don't you find a seat." As a result, defendant "got really loud and really angry, and he started putting his finger in my face and said, come back here and say that to my face, get back here and say that to my face." Gill further stated that she then went to walk out the door with Montes still to her right, and that defendant "sort of edged * * * Montes out and squeezed through the door with me at the exact same time, so he was like right in my face." Gill testified that the small satellite office to which she took Montes was 40 feet from courtroom 402. Gill stated that the satellite office had a phone, a desk, a computer, and a couple of chairs.
¶ 6 Gill testified that on the way to the office, Gill indicated that defendant was about six to eight inches from her face. Gill stated that she felt scared and had not had a defendant do that to her in the previous four and a half years she had been assigned to traffic court. Gill testified that she did not say anything in response to defendant's yelling. Gill testified that when she attempted to enter her office, she reached for the door handle and defendant "turned like right in front of the door, like right in front of me so I [could not] get into the door." Gill stated that she could not get into her office at this point because defendant's body was blocking the door. When asked what happened next, Gill responded:
¶ 7 Gill testified that she and Montes then went into the office. Inside the office was Gill's coworker, Assistant State's Attorney Debra Chessick. Gill stated that once in the office, she sat down in a chair that was not visible from the door because she did not want defendant to be able to see her. Gill testified that Chessick was on the phone and she asked her to hang up so that she could call Montes's attorney. While Gill made the phone call, defendant was "[r]ight outside the glass door." Gill could see defendant's hair and could hear him talking, but could not hear what he was saying. After Gill spoke to Montes's attorney, Montes asked if he should stay or leave. Gill told him it was okay for him to go. Montes then opened the door to leave and shut the door behind him. Gill stated that when the door opened, she could hear defendant say "come out here and talk to me, come out here and talk to me you bitch." Gill stated that a law clerk named Bobby then came into the office, and a couple minutes later, law clerk Kudzy came in. Gill testified that defendant was standing outside the door to the office for three or four minutes and "[i]t felt like a really long time." Gill stated that at that point, she felt "really scared that [defendant] was going to do something." Gill further stated that she did not feel free to leave the office. Specifically, she stated, Gill explained that she did not try to leave the office because "[defendant] was right in the door and he was screaming; come out here, come out here you bitch, fuck you bitch." Additionally, Gill stated that she tried to call her supervisor to tell her what had happened but she was "choked up" so Chessick took the phone and explained what happened. Gill stated that when law clerk Bobby came into the office, he stayed. Law clerk Kudzy, however, asked Gill if she was okay, and when Gill replied that she was not, Kudzy stated that she was going to get the sheriff who was assigned to courtroom 402. Shortly thereafter, the sheriff came to the office, and defendant left.
¶ 8 On cross examination, Gill stated that after the incident was over she had a "brief" conversation with Leann Goshen, an investigator from the sheriff's department, within one or two hours of the incident. When asked if she ever told Goshen that defendant had said "fuck you, bitch" to her, Gill stated that she told Goshen that defendant was screaming in her face, but that she did not recall if Goshen asked for the specific words defendant used. Gill admitted that defendant never verbally threatened her with bodily harm. Gill also stated that while defendant was standing outside her office, he was on the phone. She clarified that she did not see him on the phone, but that she "heard conversation where it seemed like he was talking on the phone." Gill denied that defendant was continuously asking for her name and denied that she ever...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- People v. Smith
- People v. Crawford
- People v. Ashley
- People v. Smith