People v. Haynes

• Decision Date: 06 July 2000
• Docket Number: No. 85181., No. 85180
• Citation: 737 N.E.2d 169,192 Ill.2d 437,249 Ill.Dec. 779
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Jonathan HAYNES, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

737 N.E.2d 169

192 Ill.2d 437

249 Ill.Dec. 779

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Jonathan HAYNES, Appellant.

Nos. 85180, 85181.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

July 6, 2000.

Alan M. Freedman, Carol R. Heise and Kathy Kelly, all of Chicago, for appellant.

James E. Ryan, Attorney General, of Springfield, and Richard A. Devine, State's Attorney, of Chicago (William L. Browers, Assistant Attorney General, of Chicago, and Renee Goldfarb and Jon J. Walters, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

Justice McMORROW delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant, Jonathan Haynes, was charged with three counts of murder and one count of burglary arising out of the August 6, 1993, shooting death of Dr. Martin Sullivan in Wilmette, Illinois. Following a bench trial in the circuit court of Cook County, defendant was found guilty of all charges. Defendant waived his right to a jury for the sentencing phase of the proceedings, and the circuit court found defendant eligible for the death penalty on the basis of two eligibility factors: (1) murder in the course of a felony (720 ILCS 5/9-1(b)(6) (West 1992)), and (2) murder committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner pursuant to a preconceived plan (720 ILCS 5/9-1(b)(11) (West 1992)). The court then determined that no factors in mitigation were presented to preclude imposition of the death penalty and sentenced defendant to death. On direct appeal, this court affirmed defendant's convictions for intentional murder and burglary, and vacated defendant's convictions for knowing and felony murder. This court also affirmed defendant's death sentence. People v. Haynes, 174 Ill.2d 204, 220 Ill.Dec. 406, 673 N.E.2d 318 (1996).

During the pendency of defendant's direct appeal, defendant filed a pro se petition pursuant to the Post-Conviction Hearing Act (725 ILCS 5/122-1 et seq. (West 1994)), alleging that his constitutional rights had been violated during his fitness hearing, trial and sentencing. After obtaining counsel for the post-conviction proceedings, defendant additionally filed a motion to vacate his convictions and sentence pursuant to section 2-1401 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2-1401 (West 1996)), wherein defendant argued that new evidence, outside the record, indicated that he was unfit to stand trial. After this court's disposition of defendant's direct appeal, defendant, by counsel, filed an amended petition for post-conviction relief with supporting affidavits and exhibits. After hearing argument on the State's motion to dismiss all claims, the trial court, without conducting an evidentiary hearing, dismissed both defendant's post-conviction petition and the section 2-1401 motion to vacate. Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 651(a) (134 Ill.2d R. 651(a)), defendant appeals both dismissals, which were subsequently consolidated by this court. For the following reasons, we affirm the circuit court.

BACKGROUND

This court previously detailed the evidence presented at defendant's trial in our opinion on direct appeal. People v. Haynes, 174 Ill.2d 204, 220 Ill.Dec. 406, 673 N.E.2d 318 (1996). Therefore, we reiterate only those facts which are germane to the issues raised in this appeal. We set forth in some detail the facts relating to defendant's fitness hearing and the post-conviction proceedings.

Defendant was charged with the murder of Dr. Martin Sullivan, a plastic surgeon, on August 6, 1993. Defendant confessed to the killing after his arrest, stating that he marked Dr. Sullivan for death as part of an overall plan targeting people who promoted "fake Aryan beauty" through plastic surgery, bleached-blonde hair, and blue-tinted contact lenses. Defendant also confessed to the police that he had previously murdered Frank Ringi, a San Francisco hair colorist, and had been stalking Lake Forest executive Charles Stroupe, the president of the largest manufacturer of blue-tinted contact lenses. In his statement to police, defendant related that he targeted Dr. Sullivan based upon the doctor's large advertisement in the Yellow Pages, and made an appointment with him under an assumed name. Defendant shot the doctor at close range in his office to ensure that he had killed the right man.

In March 1994, a hearing was held to determine defendant's fitness to stand trial. Defendant, who was represented by counsel during this hearing, waived his right to a jury, and the proceedings were conducted before the trial judge. The parties did not dispute that defendant understood the nature and purpose of the proceedings against him. The parties disagreed, however, over whether defendant had the capacity to assist in his defense. Expert testimony was adduced by both the State and defendant, and, after hearing the evidence, the trial court concluded that defendant was fit to stand trial.

The State's first witness during the fitness hearing was Wilmette police officer Matthew McConnell, who testified that he met with defendant on three occasions after defendant's arrest in connection with retrieving blood, hair, fingerprint, palm print, and handwriting samples from him. McConnell stated that during his interactions with defendant, defendant established appropriate eye contact, read the court orders requiring the taking of samples and indicated that he understood the orders, had no difficulty in following the officer's instructions, and cooperated fully with the sampling. Officer McConnell testified that defendant did not appear nervous, did not make unusual movements or twitches, did not wring his hands, did not give irrational responses, and did not delay in responding during conversations with the officers. McConnell also stated that on one occasion he observed defendant confer with his counsel.

Dr. Mathew Markos, a licensed forensic psychiatrist and the acting clinical director of the Psychiatric Institute of the Circuit Court of Cook County, also testified on behalf of the prosecution. Dr. Markos stated that he had previously performed thousands of evaluations to determine a defendant's fitness for trial, and testified that he had examined this defendant on four occasions, pursuant to court orders, between August 1993 and February 1994. Dr. Markos first examined defendant on August 27, 1993, and on that occasion defendant was calm, cooperative, articulate, coherent, and maintained good eye contact, especially when he was responding to the doctor's questions. At no time during this four-hour interview did defendant display any agitation, anxiety, depression, mania or disturbed behavior. Further, Dr. Markos estimated that defendant had high or superior intelligence.

Dr. Markos testified that during this examination, defendant did not display any "looseness of association," which Markos defined as a thought disorder in which the logical and sequential links between two or more different thoughts become loose or distorted, rendering speech difficult to understand or incomprehensible. Further, Dr. Markos stated that he did not observe any evidence that defendant suffered from perceptual disturbances, such as hallucinations, and when he asked defendant if he had ever previously experienced hallucinations, defendant replied in the negative.

Significantly, Dr. Markos testified that he was unable to detect any evidence of a delusional thinking process in defendant during any of the four examinations he conducted. Dr. Markos defined a delusion as a false belief or conviction which is not amenable to logic or reason, which is out of touch with reality, and which is not in keeping with a person's educational and cultural background. Dr. Markos related that he talked at length with defendant regarding defendant's "philosophy" of Aryan supremacy, and the doctor concluded that defendant's beliefs neither fit the definition of a delusion nor fell within a delusional psychotic process. Rather, Dr. Markos determined that defendant's philosophy was a "highly personalized idiosyncratic belief."

Using the criteria set forth in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Third Edition-Revised) (DSMIII-R) at the conclusion of the first examination Dr. Markos diagnosed defendant as having an Axis II personality disorder with schizoid, narcissistic, and paranoid traits. Dr. Markos explained that in psychiatric diagnosis, an Axis II diagnosis is reserved for personality disorders, whereas an Axis I diagnosis is reserved for mental illness. Dr. Markos testified that it was his opinion that defendant was schizoid because he was a loner, aloof, and had very limited social relationships; that defendant was narcissistic because defendant believed that he had a special role to save the white race; and that defendant was paranoid because he had a constant feeling that the white race was threatened and that fake Aryan beauty would bring about destruction of the race.

Dr. Markos further testified that, under the DSMIII-R criteria, defendant was not suffering from an Axis I schizophrenic disorder. Although Dr. Markos had initially considered the possibility that defendant could be afflicted with such a disorder, based upon defendant's strong family history of mental illness which included schizophrenia, the doctor explained that the DSMIII-R requires the presence of at least two symptoms, one of which must be a prominent delusion, for a diagnosis of schizophrenia. In Dr. Markos' opinion, defendant exhibited no delusions or delusional thinking, nor did he exhibit symptoms of delusional thinking, such as hallucinations, catatonia or incoherence.

Dr. Markos acknowledged that both Dr. Fauteck and Dr. Rabin, also of the Psychiatric Institute, had diagnosed defendant as schizophrenic, and Markos stated that he took these opinions into account in reaching his own diagnosis. Dr. Markos also acknowledged that other doctors at the Cook County jail had diagnosed defendant as suffering from delusional disorders. However, upon his review of defendant's...