People v. Jackson

• Decision Date: 26 March 1998
• Docket Number: No. 79243,79243
• Citation: 230 Ill.Dec. 901,695 N.E.2d 391,182 Ill.2d 30
• Parties: , 230 Ill.Dec. 901 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Lawrence JACKSON, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 391

695 N.E.2d 391

182 Ill.2d 30, 230 Ill.Dec. 901

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Lawrence JACKSON, Appellant.

No. 79243.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

March 26, 1998.

Rehearing Denied June 1, 1998.

As Modified June 3, 1998.

[230 Ill.Dec. 906] State Appellate Defender, Springfield, [182 Ill.2d 36] Steven Clark, Asst. Appellate Defender, Chicago, for Lawrence Jackson.

Richard A. Devine, State's Attorney, Chicago, Jim Ryan, Attorney General, Crim. Appeals Div., Chicago, Linda D. Woloshin, Assistant State's Attorney, Chicago, for the People.

Justice McMORROW delivered the opinion of the court:

On June 23, 1988, defendant was convicted in the circuit court of Cook County of four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, one count of aggravated battery of a child, five counts of home invasion, five counts of armed robbery, and one count of residential burglary. The State requested a death penalty hearing. The jury found defendant eligible for the death penalty on the basis of three statutory aggravating factors and, after considering aggravating and mitigating evidence, found that there were no mitigating factors sufficient to preclude imposition of the death sentence. The circuit court sentenced defendant to death on the murder conviction and ordered prison sentences for the nonmurder convictions. We affirmed defendant's conviction and death sentence on direct appeal. See People v. Jackson, 145 Ill.2d 43, 163 Ill.Dec. 859, 582 N.E.2d 125 (1991). Defendant petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, which the Court granted. The Court then vacated our judgment and remanded the cause to this court for further consideration in light of Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U.S. 719, 112 S.Ct. 2222, 119 L.Ed.2d 492 (1992). See Jackson v. Illinois, 506 U.S. 802, 113 S.Ct. 32, 121 L.Ed.2d 5 (1992). On September 26, 1992, this court affirmed defendant's convictions and nondeath sentences, and vacated defendant's death sentence. We remanded the cause to the circuit court for a new sentencing hearing in accordance with Morgan. On remand, the jury again found defendant eligible for the death penalty on the basis of three aggravating factors, and found no mitigating evidence sufficient to preclude imposition of the death penalty. The trial court entered a death sentence. That sentence is the basis of this appeal. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

The evidence presented at defendant's trial and first sentencing hearing is set forth fully in our opinion in defendant's direct appeal of his first death sentence. People v. Jackson, 145 Ill.2d 43, 163 Ill.Dec. 859, 582 N.E.2d 125 (1991). The eligibility phase of the second sentencing hearing began in September 1995. The first witness to testify was Urica Winder. She was 14 years old at the time of the second sentencing hearing. She testified that on September 24 and 25, 1986, she lived at 1850 West Washington Boulevard in Chicago with her mother (Vernita Winder), her two younger sisters (Dana, then four years old, and Shonita, or "Nicki," then 18 months old), her mother's boyfriend (Mark "Tiny" Brown), and her mother's friend (Shirley Martin). Urica was six years old at the time the crimes were committed. The apartment they shared had two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a washroom.

Urica testified that on the evening of September 24, there was a knock on the front door of the apartment. When she asked who it was, she heard someone say "Bobby." Upon opening the door, Urica saw two men: Bobby Driskel and defendant, both of whom Urica knew. They entered the apartment, and Urica went to bed in the children's bedroom. Shortly thereafter, her mother entered Urica soon saw defendant and Driskel enter the second bedroom. Shirley was standing near defendant and said to him, "I love you. Don't kill me." Defendant responded, "Well, I don't love you" and stabbed her in the chest. Driskel then approached Urica, holding a butcher knife in his right hand and a pen in his left hand. He told Urica, "I'm not going to mess with you." He then started stabbing Urica in the stomach with the knife. Urica testified that Driskel eventually stopped stabbing her, and "dug [her] guts out with the pen." When asked to elaborate, Urica said that "he took the pen and just started digging" in "the lower part of her stomach." Driskel then left the bedroom.

[230 Ill.Dec. 907] the children's bedroom and took Urica and Dana from that bedroom into her own. Shirley Martin was apparently also in the second bedroom.

Urica then saw only Shirley in the bedroom. In an attempt to flee, Urica ran out of the bedroom toward the front door and unlocked it. Before she could leave, she heard defendant call Driskel's name from the washroom, and Driskel grabbed Urica by the feet, dragged her back into her mother's bedroom, and started stabbing her again with the knife. Urica could not say how many times he stabbed her. While he was stabbing her for the second time, Urica "played dead," by rolling her eyes up and stopping breathing. Driskel then stopped stabbing her. She testified that he then began searching the dressers and shelves, and said "Damn, ain't no money." At some point Driskel and defendant left the apartment. Urica testified that she "played dead" until morning, when she got up off her mother's bedroom floor and went to get a drink of water. She then saw Shirley's bloody body lying on the bedroom floor, and Tiny's bloody body on the couch. Tiny's foot was cut off. She saw Shonita lying on the couch. Dana's bloody body was on the floor near the kitchen, and her mother's bloody body was lying behind the kitchen table.

At this point, according to the testimony of Urica and Tamico Winder, Tamico called the victims' apartment. Tamico is Urica's cousin and lived in the same building as the victims. Urica answered the phone, and Tamico asked to speak to her mother. Urica said she could not wake her mother up. Tamico then went to the apartment, where she first saw Urica. Urica told her that "Tiny's cousin Bobby" did it. Tamico entered the apartment and saw Vernita, Dana, Tiny, and Shonita. All but Shonita were dead. Urica had blood all over her, and had something red coming out of her stomach near her navel. Tamico then went to get help. An ambulance came and took Urica to the hospital, where, she said, she stayed "for a long time." The police visited her in the hospital and showed her some photographs. She identified photos of Driskel and defendant for the police.

The next testimony was presented via transcript from defendant's trial. The witness, Phillip Simms, testified that on September 25, 1986, Bobby Driskel, whom Simms knew, came to his apartment and offered to sell Simms a TV and a VCR. Simms said that he would need to see the TV and VCR. Driskel then went to a car parked in the alley, where Simms saw two other figures. Within five minutes, Driskel returned with a tall black male whom he identified as his uncle, O.C. Driskel was carrying the VCR and O.C. was carrying the TV. Simms agreed to pay $120 for both. Simms identified two exhibits as the TV and the VCR, as well as the remote control for the TV and a tape that had been inside the VCR.

Dennis Keane, a Chicago police department detective, testified that in the morning of September 25, 1986, he received an "assignment" of four dead persons at 1850 West Washington Boulevard and one additional victim on the way to Cook County Hospital. He and Detective Peterson went to the victims' apartment. There they found the dead bodies of Tiny, Dana, Vernita, and Shirley, as well as three bloody knives.

Later that day, Keane learned that Driskel, and then defendant, were in custody. Both Keane and Michael O'Donnell, then an assistant State's Attorney, testified that they met with defendant that evening. At that time, defendant had stains on his shorts and on his shirt which Keane believed were bloodstains. Defendant also had cuts on his hands and on his left forearm. Keane and O'Donnell asked defendant if he knew anything After defendant finished his statement, O'Donnell asked him to give a court-reported statement, and defendant agreed. A court reporter arrived at 11 p.m., and O'Donnell again asked defendant about the events of the previous evening. In the court-reported statement, which O'Donnell read to the jury, defendant said that Driskel is his brother-in-law, and that Roland is his uncle; that on September 24, Roland drove Driskel and defendant to 1850 West Washington, and that Driskel gave him directions; that they were planning "to kill Tiny," Driskel's cousin, to get money, a VCR, and a TV; and that they had two knives. From there, the version of events is essentially the same as O'Donnell first described: they knocked on the door, a woman answered, Driskel used the washroom, defendant asked him what he was going to do, and they both killed Tiny. Defendant forced open the bedroom door and, he said, "[o]ne of them ran out, and one was still in there. That's the one I stabbed." Defendant said that "the one [he] stabbed" was a "grown-up lady." He also stated that he and Bobby both stabbed "Tiny's girlfriend." When asked what happened to the children, defendant said "[o]ne of them ran out when I got through killing his [sic ] mother. He [sic ] said, 'mama, mama.' That's when Disco [Driskel] grabbed it and put his hand over the kid's mouth. I turned around. When I turned back around, the kid was laying on the floor dead." Defendant said that he and Driskel took a TV and VCR and put them in Roland's car; that he was bleeding because he accidentally stabbed himself; that they sold the goods to "some stud"; and that they went to the "cain spot." The court reporter then transcribed his notes. Defendant read the statement, made a few corrections with a pen, and signed the statement. O'Donnell and Keane also signed it. O'Donnell testified that defendant did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the...