People v. Howard

Decision Date19 December 1991
Docket NumberNo. 65473,65473
Citation147 Ill.2d 103,167 Ill.Dec. 914,588 N.E.2d 1044
Parties, 167 Ill.Dec. 914 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Stanley HOWARD, Appellant.
CourtIllinois Supreme Court

Page 1044

588 N.E.2d 1044
147 Ill.2d 103, 167 Ill.Dec. 914
The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee,
v.
Stanley HOWARD, Appellant.
No. 65473.
Supreme Court of Illinois.
Dec. 19, 1991.
Rehearing Denied March 30, 1992.

Page 1048

[147 Ill.2d 117] [167 Ill.Dec. 918] Randolph N. Stone, Public Defender, Chicago, (Kyle Wesendorf and Rita A. Fry, of counsel), Chicago, for appellant.

Neil F. Hartigan, Atty. Gen., Springfield, Cecil A. Partee, State's Atty., Chicago, (Terence M. Madsen, Asst. Atty. Gen., Chicago, and Renee Goldfarb and James S. Veldman, Asst. State's Attys. of counsel), for the people.

Chief Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the court:

Following a jury trial in the circuit court of Cook County, the defendant, Stanley Howard, was convicted of murder and attempted armed robbery. At a separate sentencing hearing, the same jury found the defendant eligible for the death penalty on the ground that the murder was committed in the course of an attempted armed robbery, a statutory aggravating circumstance (Ill.Rev.Stat.1983, ch. 38, par. 9-1(b)(6)). The jury concluded that there were no mitigating circumstances sufficient to preclude imposition of the death penalty, and the trial judge therefore sentenced the defendant to death. The judge also sentenced the defendant to 15 years' imprisonment on the attempted armed robbery conviction. [147 Ill.2d 118] The defendant's death sentence has been stayed pending direct review by this court. (Ill. Const.1970, art. VI, § 4(b); 134 Ill.2d Rules 603, 609(a).) For the reasons set out below, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.

The facts surrounding the defendant's commission of the present offenses may be stated briefly. Around 4 a.m. on May 20, 1984, Oliver Ridgell was shot as he sat in a car parked on 92nd Street, between Loomis

Page 1049

[167 Ill.Dec. 919] and Ada Streets, in Chicago. Ridgell died several hours later as a result of the gunshot wound. A passenger in the car, Tecora Mullen, was unharmed, and she testified in behalf of the prosecution at the defendant's trial. Mullen, who had known Ridgell for about 15 years, lived around the corner from where Ridgell parked. Mullen testified that it was raining lightly at the time of the shooting but that the windows on the driver's side of the car were unobscured. Mullen said that while she and Ridgell were sitting in the car talking, she saw a man approach the car from the opposite side of the street. At a police lineup conducted in November 1984, and later, at the defendant's trial in April 1987, Mullen identified the defendant as the offender.

According to Mullen, the defendant came up to the driver's side of the car and knocked on the driver's window. In response, Ridgell lowered the left rear window several inches, using the electric window opener. According to Mullen, the defendant then "asked for a light, or a match," to which Ridgell responded, "No, man, go ahead." The defendant stepped back five or six feet from the car, stamped his foot, and said, "All right, then, godammit." The defendant drew a gun from his jacket pocket, pointed the weapon at Ridgell, and fired. According to the autoptic and forensic evidence introduced at trial, the bullet shattered the left rear window of the car and struck Ridgell in the back.

[147 Ill.2d 119] Mullen dropped to the floor of the car after the shot was fired, and she was therefore unable to see in what direction the defendant fled following the incident. Mullen briefly left the car to summon help but, fearing that the gunman might still be in the vicinity, she quickly returned to the vehicle. With Ridgell still sitting in the driver's seat, Mullen then drove several blocks until she was able to stop a passing police car. Mullen reported the shooting to the officer, and paramedics were called to the scene. Ridgell died around 7:30 that morning. Mullen was later questioned by the police, and she provided officers with a description of the gunman.

A nearby resident also testified as an occurrence witness. Marilyn McDuffy lived in the building in front of which Ridgell had parked the car. McDuffy testified that she heard a commotion in the street around 4 a.m. on May 20, 1984. She then looked out a window and saw a woman running around a car shouting that someone had been shot. McDuffy did not witness the shooting and did not see anyone else in the street, but she believed she heard someone leave the scene on foot.

Investigating officers subsequently found a shell casing from a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol at the scene of the shooting. The murder weapon was never recovered. The defendant remained at large until November 1, 1984, when he was arrested by Chicago police officers on an unrelated warrant. Following the arrest, investigating officers discovered that the defendant matched the description provided by Tecora Mullen; in a lineup conducted on November 2, Mullen identified the defendant as the person who had shot and killed Ridgell. The defendant was questioned about the present offenses on November 3. After waiving his Miranda rights, the defendant initially denied having any information about the Ridgell murder. When the defendant learned that he had been identified as the gunman, he admitted his responsibility[147 Ill.2d 120] for the shooting. The defendant told officers that he had been walking around with a gun "looking for someone to rob." After providing an oral confession to the crimes, the defendant directed several police officers to the crime scene and reenacted his commission of the offenses.

The defendant later agreed to make a formal statement in the presence of a court stenographer, and the statement was introduced into evidence at trial. In the statement, the defendant said that he was at his girlfriend's house during the evening of May 19, 1984, until 11 o'clock. At that time the defendant went to the house of a friend, Byron, to "pick up a gun." Asked why he needed a gun, the defendant explained, "So I could try to get me some money." The defendant said that he left Byron's house around midnight and "wandered around for a little while * * * [t]rying

Page 1050

[167 Ill.Dec. 920] to find me a victim to stick up." Around 4:30 or 5 o'clock that morning the defendant saw two people sitting in a parked car near 92nd and Loomis Streets. The defendant walked up to the car and asked the driver for a cigarette; the driver replied that he did not have any. The defendant then said that he had his own cigarettes and asked the driver for a light. As the defendant reached into his pocket, he saw the driver reaching into his own pocket "like he was going for a gun." The defendant said that he backed away from the car, fired two or three shots at the driver, and then ran to his girlfriend's house, located one-half block away. The defendant said that he later returned the borrowed gun to his friend. In the statement, the defendant replied affirmatively to the assistant State's Attorney's question whether he intended to rob the occupants of the car when he approached the car.

Defense counsel presented evidence contradicting several facts related in the defendant's oral and signed statements. The defendant's girlfriend, Terry Jones, testified[147 Ill.2d 121] that she was living in a distant part of the city at the time of the offenses. Jones also stated that her mother, with whom she resided, did not permit the defendant to stay overnight. Byron Hopkins, the person identified in the defendant's statements as the source of the murder weapon, failed to respond to a defense subpoena to testify. His testimony was therefore introduced into evidence by way of stipulation. According to the stipulation, Hopkins, if called to testify, would have denied that he supplied the defendant with a weapon and would have stated that he did not own a 9-millimeter gun of the type used by the defendant.

Following the close of evidence, the jury found the defendant guilty of murder and of attempted armed robbery, and judgment was entered on the verdicts. A separate sentencing hearing was then conducted before the same jury to determine whether the defendant would receive the death penalty for the murder conviction. In the first stage of the sentencing hearing, the prosecution presented evidence that the defendant, born in November 1962, was 21 years old at the time of his commission of the murder charged here and thus was of a death-eligible age (see Ill.Rev.Stat.1983, ch. 38, par. 9-1(b)). The prosecution also introduced into evidence the verdict forms reflecting the defendant's convictions for murder and attempted armed robbery. Following deliberations, the jury found the defendant eligible for the death penalty on the basis of his commission of murder during the course of attempted armed robbery (see Ill.Rev.Stat.1983, ch. 38, par. 9-1(b)(6)), the sole statutory aggravating circumstance alleged by the prosecution in the present case.

During the second stage of the sentencing hearing, the State presented detailed evidence of the defendant's extensive criminal history, comprising nearly a dozen separate occurrences. For the most part, this information[147 Ill.2d 122] was introduced through the testimony of the victims of the defendant's prior offenses. The evidence is summarized below in chronological order.

On March 9, 1981, the defendant was convicted of theft and was sentenced to serve two days in jail and one year's conditional discharge. According to the certified copy of conviction for the offense, that charge was brought against Don Sanders, also known as Stanley Howard.

During the evening of March 13, 1983, the defendant accosted a woman and her young son outside their home. Armed with a pistol, the defendant forced the woman and the child into their car and then drove off. As they were driving, the defendant demanded the woman's jewelry and threatened to rape her. The woman directed the defendant to her mother's house, where she said she could...

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