People v. Harmon

• Decision Date: 28 October 2013
• Docket Number: No. 2–12–0439.,2–12–0439.
• Parties: The PEOPLE of The State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Ryan T. HARMON, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

26 N.E.3d 344

The PEOPLE of The State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Ryan T. HARMON, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 2–12–0439.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District.

Oct. 28, 2013.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 24, 2013.

Alan D. Goldberg and Brian E. Koch, both of State Appellate Defender's Office, of Chicago, for appellant.

Joseph P. Bruscato, State's Attorney, of Rockford (Lawrence M. Bauer and Aline Dias, both of State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor's Office, of counsel), for the People.

OPINION

Justice SPENCE

delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Following a jury trial, defendant, Ryan T. Harmon, was convicted of three counts of aggravated kidnaping (720 ILCS 5/10–2(a)

(West 2006)) and one count of arson (720 ILCS 5/20–1(a) (West 2006)). Defendant later filed a petition under the Post–Conviction Hearing Act (Act) (725 ILCS 5/ 122–1 et seq. (West 2010)), which the trial court dismissed at the first stage of proceedings. On appeal, defendant challenges the trial court's summary dismissal of his postconviction petition. Defendant argues that the petition presented arguable claims that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and call Willie Gulley as a witness at trial and for failing to challenge expert fingerprint testimony, and that appellate counsel was ineffective for not raising these issues on direct appeal. Defendant further argues that the exclusive-jurisdiction provision of the Juvenile Court Act of 1987 (Juvenile Court Act) (705 ILCS 405/5–120 (West 2006) ) is unconstitutional. We affirm.

¶ 2 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 3 We previously summarized the evidence adduced at trial in our resolution of defendant's direct appeal (see People v. Harmon, 2011 IL App (2d) 091278–U, 2011 WL 10109566

), and we restate the pertinent facts here.

¶ 4 Witness testimony began on May 19, 2009. According to evidence presented by the State, then–16–year–old Michael Feehan left the Billiard Café in Rockford on June 2, 2006, at about 11:50 p.m. He got into his car, a 1992 maroon Buick, and put his wallet, cell phone, and pool cue on the passenger seat. Two black men, later identified as then–17–year–old defendant and Kenneth Chandler, approached; defendant went to the driver side window and Chandler went to the passenger-side window. Feehan had never seen the men before. Feehan rolled down his window, and defendant asked if he had a lighter. Feehan said that he did not smoke. Defendant then asked if he had any alcohol. Feehan said no, and he said that he would give them some money to buy a lighter at the gas station across the street. Feehan reached over to get his wallet, and when he turned to look back, defendant punched him in the left side of the face, knocking out some teeth.

¶ 5 The men dragged Feehan out of the car and hit and kicked him, telling him to get into the trunk. Feehan complied because they threatened to kill him otherwise. The men searched Feehan for his wallet, and after he told them that it was in the car, they closed the trunk. They drove off, with Feehan screaming from the trunk. Feehan heard them talking to people during some stops, and he also heard them talking to people using the speaker phone on his cell phone.

¶ 6 After several hours, the men popped the trunk and put Feehan's pool cue “over the bed of the trunk” so that he could not sit up or move. They told him that if he did not stop making noise they would kill him, but if he stopped, he would make it through. Feehan saw that defendant had duct tape with blood seeping through it on his left hand; defendant did not have that on his hand before he punched defendant. The men closed the trunk again. For the majority of the time that Feehan was in the trunk, the car was moving and Feehan was awake, though he fell asleep at some point.

¶ 7 The next morning, Feehan asked for food and water, and the men stopped and gave him food and water from McDonald's while he was still in the trunk. Later, he heard them driving on a gravel road that he felt they had already been on, but this time they stopped and popped the trunk and started tying him up with duct tape. They were near an abandoned house in a forested area. The men threw Feehan into an outhouse on the property and used branches to secure the door. They told Feehan that they were going to come back, and if he tried to escape and they found him, they would kill him.

¶ 8 After the men drove off, Feehan freed himself from the duct tape and got the door open. He ran to a house and found some people outside. They helped him call the police and his family. Feehan's father drove him to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with having multiple blunt contusions to his chest

and face, a large abrasion on his upper lip, and a fractured front incisor. Feehan identified defendant in a photo lineup and in court.

¶ 9 On June 4, 2006, the police located Feehan's Buick in a wooded area near an intersection. There were two sets of tire marks in a grassy area, showing that two vehicles had been there. The Buick's interior had smoke and heat damage, and a small area in the backseat was burned. A gas can was in the front seat, with a pair of gloves under it. A partially burnt piece of paper, Feehan's class schedule, was outside on the ground next to the passenger side of the car. An arson investigator testified that the fire originated in the backseat and was intentionally set. He opined that the fire died out from a lack of oxygen because all of the car's windows and doors were closed. Inside the trunk, the police located a half-eaten burger and a cup from McDonald's, as well as a bag from McDonald's containing a receipt. Pictures from McDonald's security video cameras from a time corresponding to that indicated on the receipt showed a man, identified as defendant, purchasing food. The pictures also showed gauze or duct tape on his left hand.

¶ 10 We summarize the testimony of Detective Brian Shimaitis in more detail, as it is relevant to an issue defendant raises on appeal. Shimaitis was accepted as an expert in fingerprint analysis and comparison. He testified that he could not obtain fingerprints from the Buick's interior due to the soot that was coating everything. He recovered one latent fingerprint from the outside of the driver's-side window, which he matched to Chandler, and one latent print from the back of the school schedule, which he matched to defendant's left thumb.

¶ 11 Shimaitis explained that a latent fingerprint is compared to a known fingerprint with three levels of analysis. The first level is the pattern type, which can be loops, whorls, and arches. The first level cannot be used to match a print, but it can be used to eliminate a print. If the pattern type in both prints is the same, the examiner looks at the flow of the ridge lines, checking how far apart they are spaced. Some prints have very thin, small ridge lines that are close together, while other prints have very wide ones that are far apart. If those are the same, the examiner looks at the “minutia” or details. Minutia include an ending ridge line, which comes to a stop; a bifurcation, where a line splits into two or more lines and continues; and a “dot” or “island,” which is “a small section of friction ridge skin which looks like a dot or island with [sic ] a couple cells long.” The spatial relationship of the minutia is also examined. If minutia are on one print but not the other, the prints did not come from the same person. Finally, the prints would be shown to a second fingerprint examiner, and if either examiner felt that there was an unexplainable difference between the two prints, it would not be considered a match. Shimaitis used this methodology in determining that the print from Feehan's class schedule matched defendant's print. Fingerprints are unique and permanent, and no two fingerprints from different people have ever been found to be the same.

¶ 12 Shimaitis identified an enlargement of the latent fingerprint from the schedule, which was admitted into evidence. In examining the prints, he used two loupes, which magnified the prints four times, and pointed metal probes to check the spatial relationships between points. He did not document the points of comparison. There must be at least 4 matching minutia points for an identification, and in this case he found over 12. Shimaitis agreed that fingerprint identification was not an infallible science.

¶ 13 Defendant provided the following testimony. He was helping his aunt move on “Thursday” and “Friday” (June 2 and 3, 2006), and he cut his hand on Friday while helping move a couch. Therefore, his hand was wrapped in gauze and tape. Also on Friday, Chandler, a friend of defendant's, called and told him that he had just come back from Texas. The following day, Chandler picked him up in a maroon Buick, and defendant was with him for about 1 ½ hours. During that time, they drove to Chandler's friend's house and later picked up a few friends they saw outside. They next drove to the house of a person named Savante Brown. Defendant left Brown's house with Chandler, and Chandler asked defendant to buy some food for him at McDonald's because he was feeling lazy. Defendant admitted being in the video from McDonald's. Defendant gave Chandler the food and asked to be dropped off at his aunt's house so he could keep helping her move. He got there at about 1:30 or 2 p.m. That night, defendant “rapped” with some friends and then went home.

¶ 14 Defendant testified that he was in the front passenger's seat of the Buick when he was with Chandler. He did not remember touching any papers in the car but might have. Defendant denied striking Feehan and throwing him in the trunk.

¶ 15 On cross-examination, defendant admitted that he was left-handed. He did not recall telling police officers on July 4, 2006, that he was homeless. Defendant believed that he told the officers that he knew about a warrant for his arrest and was planning on turning himself in. Defendant did not know if he...