People v. Green

• Decision Date: 12 May 1976
• Docket Number: No. 75--128,75--128
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Robert GREEN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 224

347 N.E.2d 224

38 Ill.App.3d 289

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Robert GREEN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 75--128.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Third District.

May 12, 1976.

Verlin Meinz, State App. Defender Agency, Robert Agostinelli, Director, State App. Defender Agency, Ottawa, for defendant-appellant.

Thomas E. Cowgill, Asst. State's Atty., Martin Rudman, State's Atty., Will County, Joliet, for plaintiff-appellee.

ALLOY, Presiding Justice:

Defendant Robert Green appeals from a conviction in the Circuit Court of Will County of deviate sexual assault on which he was sentenced to a prison term of 4 to 12 years (Ill.Rev.Stat., 1975, ch. 38, § 11--3). The conviction resulted from a bench trial.

On appeal in this Court, defendant Green contends that the State's evidence, particularly the testimony of the complaining witness, was so improbable, incredible and lacking corroboration as to raise a reasonable doubt as to his guilt. At the trial before the Judge, defendant did not contest the allegation that he caused the victim to perform fellatio upon him and to submit to cunnilingus. He rather contends that she had consented to those acts.

The trial court concluded that consent is a defense to a charge of deviate sexual assault (unlike indecent liberties with a minor, Ill.Rev.Stat., 1975, ch. 38, § 11--4), since the crime is one of force as is rape (ch. 38, § 11--1), to which consent is a defense. The issue as presented to us, was whether the acts of deviate sexual conduct were committed by force, in which case they would constitute the crime of deviate sexual assault, or whether the acts were with the victim's consent, in which case the specific crime charged would not have been committed.

The trial court sitting as the trier of fact heard the testimony of defendant and of 12-year-old Darceia Greene (no relation to the defendant), who was the complaining witness, and resolved the conflicts and credibility in favor of the young girl in finding the defendant guilty.

Darceia testified that she had seen defendant twice before the incident but did not know his name and had not spoken to him. She said that she went to bed around 12:30 A.M. on August 6, 1974, after watching television with her younger brother and sister. The three children went to bed in the same room, with the younger two sharing a bed three or four feet from the one used by Darceia. The children's mother also slept upstairs in a room adjacent to the room in which the children slept.

The complaining witness said that she awoke at 3:30 A.M. to find a hand covering her mouth. She turned and saw defendant holding a hammer and screwdriver in his other hand, telling her to keep quiet. He proceeded to pull down the covers and then her pajama bottoms, after laying down the tools near her head. When she complained he threatened to hurt her.

Darceia testified that Green then ordered her onto the floor between the two beds and placed the tools on the floor by her head. He pulled down his own pants and sat astride her, facing her feet, and began to perform cunnilingus. After a few minutes, during which time he removed the tools to a place near her feet, he ordered her to perform fellatio on him.

Darceia said that she had been coached by her mother in the art of resisting unwanted sexual advances and she bit defendant's penis almost as soon as it was in her mouth. She also screamed, and her sister awoke and screamed. Defendant fled, bumped into Mrs. Greene in the hallway outside the room, and then ran downstairs and out of the house. Darceia estimated the entire incident lasted 10 to 15 minutes. She and her mother and her sister testified that the hammer was kept in a kitchen drawer but the screwdriver was not familiar to them.

Darceia's ten-year-old sister, Sharcene, awoke, to her sister's screams and saw a man pull up his pants and run from the room and noticed that her sister had no pajama bottoms on, and also saw the hammer and screwdriver on the floor near the head of the bed. The mother of Darceia said she had made sure the doors were locked before going to bed but said the window in the back door had a broken latch and couldn't be locked. She testified that after the screams and her run-in with defendant in the hall, she called police and investigated downstairs. She found a closet door under the stairs open and the contents of a purse, which had been in the closet, spilled on the floor. A kitchen drawer was open and a pair of men's sandals were on the dining room table.

There were no signs of forced entry, but one detective testified that many locks of the character involved could be opened with a skeleton key or a plastic credit card and that many burglaries in the past had been committed in this manner. He said that the lock on the front door of the Greene home could be sprung with a piece of plastic or wire. Apparently Darceia had been at a neighbor's home at a time when defendant was visiting in that area and, also, was seen by defendant when he was at his sister's house across the street from the Greene residence.

In defense, defendant testified that he was going to his sister's house around 2:30 in the morning on August 6 with a screwdriver in his pocket for self-protection. He said he heard someone call out to him and saw Darceia yelling at him from the house. He went over and chatted for a moment. She then invited him into the house and they sat in this dining room. She sat on his leg at his request and began fondling his penis. She told him she was 16 years old and no longer a virgin. He stated that with her consent he unbuttoned her pajama top and...