People v. Hickey, No. 80106

• Court: Supreme Court of Illinois
• Writing for the Court: McMORROW
• Citation: 227 Ill. Dec. 428,178 Ill.2d 256,687 N.E.2d 910
• Decision Date: 18 September 1997
• Docket Number: No. 80106
• Parties: , 227 Ill.Dec. 428 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Arthur Dale HICKEY, Appellant.

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687 N.E.2d 910 178 Ill.2d 256, 227 Ill.Dec. 428 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee,
v.
Arthur Dale HICKEY, Appellant. No. 80106. Supreme Court of Illinois. Sept. 18, 1997.
Rehearing Denied Dec. 1, 1997.

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[178 Ill.2d 260] [227 Ill.Dec. 431] Charles M. Schiedel, State Appellate Defender, Supreme Court Unit, Springfield, for Arthur Dale Hickey.

Jim Ryan, Attorney General, Criminal Appeals Div., Chicago, State's Attorney of Will County, Joliet, Steven R. Splitt, Assistant Attorney General, Chicago, for the People of the State of Illinois.

Justice McMORROW delivered the opinion of the court:

Following a jury trial in the circuit court of Will [178 Ill.2d 261] County, the defendant, Arthur Dale Hickey, was convicted of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm, aggravated criminal sexual assault and home invasion. At a separate sentencing hearing, the same jury found defendant eligible for the death penalty. The jury also found that there were no mitigating circumstances sufficient to preclude imposition of that sentence. Defendant was sentenced to death for the murder and to concurrent 60-year terms of imprisonment for the remaining offenses. Defendant's death sentence has been stayed pending direct review by this court. Ill. Const.1970, art. VI, § 4(b); 134 Ill.2d Rs. 603, 609(a). For the reasons which follow, we affirm defendant's convictions and sentences.

Background

The defendant's convictions stem from the murder of Jeff Stephens and the sexual assault and attempted murder of his wife, Heather. At trial, Heather testified that in November 1991, she and her husband lived in a two-story farmhouse on Route 102 in the small town of Ritchie, Illinois. On the morning of November 25, 1991, between 5 and 5:30 a.m., Jeff got up to go to work. Heather remained in bed, awake. November 25 was a Monday, the day of the week that garbage was collected at the Stephens' home. Jeff went downstairs from the second-floor bedroom to take the garbage out to the end of the driveway for pickup. Shortly after Jeff had gone downstairs, Heather heard yelling and then a gunshot from outside the house, from an area near the driveway. Heather got up and looked out her bedroom window. However, she was unable to see what was happening because a portion of the house obstructed her view.

Heather went to put on her bathrobe, which hung on the back of the bedroom door. Before she had finished putting on her robe, a man wearing a ski mask and holding[178 Ill.2d 262] a gun appeared in the bedroom doorway. The man forced Heather onto the bed, where he tied her wrists to separate bedposts. The man then left the bedroom and Heather heard the sound of something being dragged into the house.

The man returned to the bedroom, removed his ski mask and all of his clothing except his shirt, and attempted to sexually assault Heather. No lights were on in the bedroom. A small nightlight in the hallway outside the bedroom shone down on the stairs. Also, because it was not yet dawn

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[227 Ill.Dec. 432] and the blinds to the windows were shut, no light entered the bedroom from outside the home.

Heather testified that the man had trouble as he attempted to engage in sexual intercourse. The man left the room and came back with a lotion which he put inside Heather. He then sexually assaulted Heather while kneeling on the bed. The man's face was two to three feet away from Heather, but because she was frightened, Heather tried not to look at him. Heather was nearsighted and wore glasses, but she was not wearing her glasses during the attack.

When the man finished assaulting Heather, he put his clothes on and asked her "where the money was." He also asked her for the keys to the Stephens' red Plymouth Laser, which was parked outside in the driveway. Heather told the man that there was money on the bedroom dresser and that the keys to the Laser were in the pocket of Jeff's pants. The man took between thirty and forty dollars off the dresser and left. Heather then heard the Laser's car alarm go off. The man returned to the bedroom and asked Heather how to turn off the alarm. Heather told him how to do so. After shutting off the alarm, the man came back into the bedroom and told Heather to turn her head. The man then shot Heather in the side of her face.

[178 Ill.2d 263] Heather was unconscious for a short while. When she awoke, she saw that the ropes which had been used to tie her to the bed were gone. After hearing a car back out of the driveway, Heather went downstairs. She found Jeff lying at the foot of the stairs, unconscious. Jeff had been shot in the head. Heather tried to use the telephone but discovered that the line was dead. Heather then went to a neighbor's house to summon help. Shortly thereafter, the police and paramedics arrived.

Heather initially told police that her assailant was in his 20s, was between 5 feet and 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighed 130 pounds, had medium length, stringy blond hair, and had no facial hair. She also told police that she could identify her attacker if she saw him again. While Heather was at the hospital being treated for her injuries, she helped a police artist make a sketch of a subject based upon her description. Heather viewed photo lineups and mug books on many occasions during the 16-month period following the attack. Some of the photo lineups included photographs of defendant. However, Heather was never able to identify anyone as her assailant.

Testimony at trial established that in November 1991, defendant was 40 years old, was 5 feet 6 inches tall, had dark hair with some gray in it, and had a mustache. Further testimony established that in March 1992, defendant weighed between 180 and 190 pounds. On the witness stand, Heather testified that she felt she was no longer capable of identifying her assailant. She stated that she was not certain that her assailant had blond hair, and said that she could not recall if her assailant had any facial hair. She was certain, however, that the man who attacked her was taller than she was (she is 5 feet 3 inches tall). Heather explained that she no longer had confidence in her ability to identify her [178 Ill.2d 264] assailant because of the amount of time that had passed since she was attacked; the number of photo lineups she had been shown without obtaining any positive results; the darkness of her bedroom at the time of the attack; and the traumatic nature of the attack. When asked to identify defendant, Heather stated that she had not seen him before and that, to her knowledge, he had never been in her home.

The Stephens' Plymouth Laser was discovered in the parking lot of a Super Value grocery store in Wilmington, Illinois, at 7:51 a.m. on November 25, 1991. Wilmington is located approximately three miles north of Ritchie. Daniel Simenson, an evidence technician for the Will County sheriff's department, examined the Laser for evidence. He found a small section of purple and yellow nylon rope inside the car. He was unable to find any fingerprints on the car other than those belonging to Jeff or Heather Stephens.

Will County Deputy Sheriff Robert Persicketti examined the Stephens' home for evidence on November 25, 1991. He photographed and videotaped the home and a portion of the surrounding area. Inside the

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[227 Ill.Dec. 433] home he recovered several items, including a tooth and a bullet found in a bathroom, a .25-caliber shell casing found in Heather's bedroom, a pair of wire cutters, also found in Heather's bedroom, and a two-foot long section of nylon rope found in a hallway. He retrieved a hair from Heather's bed and secured the bedsheets. A United Parcel Service door tag with a bloody shoeprint on it was also found at the scene. Outside the home, in the area of the driveway, Persicketti found drag marks in the snow, a set of keys, a "Kool" brand cigarette butt, and another .25-caliber shell casing. Persicketti also observed that the telephone lines to the house had been cut. Persicketti attempted to recover fingerprints from various items in the home, including doors, the wire [178 Ill.2d 265] cutters, and jars and containers from the Stephens' bathroom. However, he was unable to recover any fingerprints which were suitable for analysis. Persicketti also photographed a shoeprint which was found in the snow beside the Laser in the grocery store parking lot in Wilmington.

David Turngren, a forensic scientist at the Illinois State Police forensic science lab in Joliet, testified that he recovered approximately 200 hairs and hair fragments from a sheet taken off the Stephens' bed. Two pubic hairs recovered from the bedsheet did not match either of the victims' hairs. Of these two hairs, one was consistent with defendant's pubic hair standard. This meant only that defendant could not be excluded as the donor of that hair. Analysis of the other pubic hair was inconclusive. Turngren stated that an assistant State's Attorney withdrew a request that DNA analysis be performed on the hair that was consistent with defendant's standard.

Robert Hunton, a firearms expert, testified that the bullets which had killed Jeff and wounded Heather were fired from the same .25-caliber gun. The fired shell casings found in the Stephens' driveway and in Heather's bedroom were also fired by a single weapon.

Defendant's stepson, Mike Adermann, testified that he lived with defendant in Ritchie in November 1991. Adermann stated that defendant called him at home at about 6 a.m. on November 25, 1991, and asked to be picked up at the Shell gas station in Wilmington. The Shell station was located across the street from the grocery store parking lot where the Stephens' Plymouth Laser was discovered. Adermann stated that he picked up defendant at the gas station and then drove back to Ritchie. When the two returned to Ritchie they noticed police cars along Route 102. Defendant behaved...