People v. Jackson
| Decision Date | 23 January 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 104723.,104723. |
| Citation | 232 Ill.2d 246,903 N.E.2d 388 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellant, v. Lewis JACKSON, Appellee. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Michael J. Pelletier, State Appellate Defender, Patricia Unsinn, Deputy Defender, and Kari K. Firebaugh, Assistant Appellate Defender, Office of the State Appellate Defender, Chicago, for appellee.
At issue is whether defendant, Lewis Jackson, was denied a fair trial by the admission of evidence that his deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) profile was contained in a state database. We agree with the State, petitioner herein, that he was not. Further, we reject defendant's claims on cross-appeal that the trial court erred in denying his motion to quash arrest and suppress statements and that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to prove him guilty of first degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt.
A jury in the circuit court of Cook County found defendant guilty of the first degree murder of his aunt, Doris Jackson, and additionally found that the murder resulted from exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior indicative of wanton cruelty and had been committed during the course of an armed robbery. The trial court sentenced defendant to an extended term of natural life in prison. Defendant appealed and the appellate court held, inter alia, that while the evidence presented at trial was very close, it was sufficient to establish defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that police had probable cause to arrest defendant, affirming the trial court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress. 372 Ill.App.3d 112, 120-21, 309 Ill.Dec. 832, 865 N.E.2d 195. However, the appellate court reversed defendant's conviction and remanded for a new trial, holding that the admission of an evidence technician's testimony regarding a DNA database was error, as it tended to suggest that defendant had committed other crimes, depriving him of a fair trial. 372 Ill.App.3d at 124, 309 Ill.Dec. 832, 865 N.E.2d 195.
The following compilation of facts was gleaned from the common law record, the transcript of the hearing on defendant's motion to quash arrest and suppress evidence and the trial transcript and is presented in, approximately, chronological order. Doris Jackson (the victim) lived in a building for senior citizens in Harvey, Illinois. The victim had lived in the building since she had suffered a stroke which left her paralyzed on her right side and impaired her ability to speak. Defendant, who had been kicked out of his mother's house, had been living with the victim for several weeks at the time of her murder. The lobby of the victim's building was only accessible with a key and the door to each apartment in the building locked automatically when it was closed. However, a person without a key could gain access to the lobby if someone inside let that person in. Each tenant was issued two keys to the front door of the building, two apartment door keys, one mailbox key and one storage room key. The victim and her ex-husband, defendant's uncle Lewis Jackson (Lewis), each possessed a front door and an apartment key.
On November 1, 1995, Lewis picked up the victim from her apartment, took her to cash her public aid check and to pay her bills, took her to lunch and dropped her off at her apartment. Generally, after paying her bills, the victim was left with about $100 cash, which she would keep in her bra. However, Lewis did not see the victim place any money in her bra that day. The following morning, November 2, 1995, at about 7 o'clock, the victim's daughter, Cassandra Jackson (Cassandra), telephoned the victim but received no answer. Cassandra was not concerned because the victim often went down to her building's recreation room to get coffee in the morning. That morning at around 7 or 7:30 a.m., the victim's across-the-hall neighbor Kenneth Jackson (Kenneth) saw the victim in the recreation room. Gwen Alexander, another resident of the building, met with the victim every morning, but did not see her on November 2, although she saw defendant in the elevator that morning. Around 9 or 10 a.m., the building's maintenance man, Willie Stewart, was vacuuming in the lobby when defendant entered the building, asked if the mail had arrived and opened the victim's mailbox. Though Stewart did not recall seeing defendant use keys, Stewart concluded that defendant would have had to use keys in order to gain access to the building and the mailbox.
That afternoon, at about 3 o'clock, Cassandra went to the victim's apartment building. Because Cassandra did not have a key to enter the lobby of the victim's building, she rang the victim's apartment but received no answer and left. At around 3:30 p.m., Kenneth saw defendant in the hallway outside the victim's apartment. Defendant walked away from the apartment toward the stairs. Kenneth did not see keys in defendant's hand and did not see blood on defendant's clothes. Between 3:30 and 4 p.m., Stewart and his friend John Simms were outside the building when a man Stewart identified as defendant, but whom Simms could not identify, came out of the building and asked them for a ride to a currency exchange. They refused defendant's request and offer of $20 and saw him use a key to reenter the building. Cassandra returned to the building at about 6 p.m. and, after ringing the victim's apartment and receiving no response, rang Stewart's apartment. Stewart used his keys to let Cassandra into the building and into the victim's apartment, where they found the victim dead in a puddle of blood on her bedroom floor. Cassandra noticed that a television was missing from the living room and another was missing from the bedroom. Stewart called the police.
At some time before 7 p.m., Detective John Rizzi of the Harvey police department arrived at the victim's apartment, and Illinois State Police crime scene investigator Jill Rizz, known as Lieutenant Jill Hill (Hill) at the time of trial, arrived shortly thereafter. Hill walked through each room of the apartment taking notes, measurements and photographs. From the bedroom, Hill collected two bloodstained pillowcases, two bloodstained bedsheets, a broken knife blade discovered under a pillow on the bed, a small metal rivet that was consistent with the handle of a knife, a bloodstained yellow jacket and a baseball hat. Hill observed blood on the floor of the bedroom which indicated movement after the victim's blood had been shed, and that the victim had suffered multiple stab wounds to her hands, arms and chest area. In photographing the bathroom, Hill observed the toilet seat up and blood on the inside of the toilet bowl above the water line. She also observed drops of blood on the toilet rim, floor, and sink and a streak of blood on the side of the bathtub, and collected a swab of blood from both the toilet rim and the side of the bathtub. She also collected a blood-soaked dollar bill from the bathroom floor. Hill observed that the pattern of dust on a table in the kitchen and on a dresser in the bedroom was consistent with Cassandra's assertion that two televisions had been removed from the apartment. There was no sign of forced entry to the victim's apartment. No keys or money, other than the blood-soaked dollar bill, were found in the apartment; however, a purse hanging on a doorknob in the apartment was not searched.
While at the apartment building, Rizzi spoke with Cassandra and asked if she could meet him at the police station. She agreed and told Rizzi that defendant had been staying with the victim. She also gave Rizzi the name and phone number of the victim's ex-husband, Lewis Jackson, whom Rizzi called and asked to come to the police department to talk with him. Rizzi spoke to several tenants of the apartment building, including Kenneth, whom he asked to meet him at the police department. Rizzi and Hill returned to the police station, where Rizzi spoke individually with Cassandra, Lewis, and Kenneth. Cassandra told Rizzi that defendant was a crack cocaine user, and that he and Doris sometimes argued over money. She then described her attempts to see her mother that day. Lewis described his outing with the victim the previous day, and stated he had the extra set of keys to the victim's apartment. Kenneth told Rizzi about his contacts with the victim and defendant that day.
Lewis, Cassandra, and her husband, Shannon Frazier, then returned to the victim's apartment. While they were cleaning the apartment, Cassandra and Frazier heard keys jingling and saw the door to the apartment crack open. Frazier went to the door and saw defendant walking away. Frazier called out to defendant and he came back to the apartment. Frazier did not notice any cuts on defendant's hands at that time. Lewis then told defendant that "somebody killed your Aunt Doris." Defendant's immediate response was, "I didn't do it." Lewis told defendant that the police wanted to talk to him and, around 1 a.m. on November 3, Frazier drove defendant to the police station. When they arrived, defendant went to the bathroom. He was then taken into an interview room with Rizzi. Frazier went into the bathroom after defendant and found a set of keys, which he recognized as the victim's, sitting in the wastebasket. He then called Cassandra, told her about the keys, and returned to the victim's apartment.
In the interview room, Rizzi advised defendant of his Miranda rights and noticed, as defendant was initialing a form regarding those rights, that defendant had cuts on the palms of both of his hands. After speaking with defendant for 10 minutes, Rizzi was called by the desk clerk and advised that Cassandra had telephoned to say...
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