People v. James

• Decision Date: 05 October 1987
• Docket Number: No. 64402,64402
• Citation: 514 N.E.2d 998,118 Ill.2d 214,113 Ill.Dec. 86
• Parties: , 113 Ill.Dec. 86 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellant, v. Matthew JAMES, Appellee.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 998

514 N.E.2d 998

118 Ill.2d 214, 113 Ill.Dec. 86

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellant, v. Matthew JAMES, Appellee.

No. 64402.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 5, 1987.

Paul P. Biebel, Jr., Public Defender of Cook County, Chicago, for appellee; Donald S. Honchell, Asst. Public Defender, of counsel.

Neil F. Hartigan, Atty. Gen., Mark L. Rotert, Asst. Atty. Gen., Chicago, for appellant; Richard M. Daley, State's Atty., Chicago, Thomas V. Gainer, Jr., Peter D. Fischer, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel.

Justice RYAN delivered the opinion of the court:

The defendant, Matthew James, and a codefendant, Edward Meeks, were charged by indictment in the circuit court of Cook County with the offenses of murder (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 38, pars. 9-1(a)(1), (a)(2), (a)(3)), rape (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 38, par. 11-1), robbery (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 38, par. 18-1) and home invasion (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 38, par. 12-11(a)(1)). Prior to trial, both defendants moved to suppress statements made following their arrests. Meeks' motion was granted, and charges against him were subsequently dropped. James' motion was denied, and he proceeded to trial. He was found guilty by a jury of all charges. The trial judge did not impose a sentence for rape, finding that offense was subsumed in the murder conviction.

The appellate court, with one justice dissenting, reversed the decision of the trial court and remanded for a new trial on the ground that James' confession was the fruit of his illegal arrest and therefore should have been suppressed. (149 Ill.App.3d 214, 102 Ill.Dec. 581, 500 N.E.2d 474.) We granted the State's petition for leave to appeal. 107 Ill.2d R. 315. On the morning of June 26, 1982, the body of Josephine Hayes was discovered by Juan Ortiz, the maintenance man at her apartment building. When the police arrived at the scene, they observed that entry to the apartment had apparently been gained via a broken kitchen window. The body was sprawled across a sofa with hands and legs tied. Ms. Hayes had been strangled to death. She was wearing a white blouse but was nude from the waist down, and her face was covered with rags. A purse and its scattered contents were on the bed, and various papers were strewn about the apartment.

Ortiz told the police that Josephine Hayes had moved into the apartment the previous week. She had been assisted by three men in a red Ford truck. One of the men was known to Mr. Ortiz, but only by the nickname "Gigolo." Ortiz testified that Gigolo was at Ms. Hayes' apartment on Monday, June 21, and again on Wednesday, June 23. Ortiz last saw the victim on Friday evening, June 25. On that occasion, the victim indicated that she was expecting to receive about $50,000 in the very near future.

The police eventually determined that the man known as "Gigolo" was Eddie Meeks. Meeks was located and brought in for questioning. He at first denied involvement, but was kept in custody overnight awaiting a polygraph examination. The next afternoon he was questioned again, and was also asked to turn over the gym shoes he was wearing in order to compare them to a shoeprint which had been found at the scene. At that point, Meeks gave a confession which also implicated the defendant, Matthew James.

Meeks stated that James was one of the men who had helped Josephine Hayes move into her apartment. On the evening of June 25, James proposed robbing Ms. Hayes because they believed she had a large sum of money in the apartment. According to Meeks, the two men went to the rear of the building and jumped the fence. Next to the back door was a window which had previously been cracked and taped. James tapped on the window until another crack developed, enabling him to remove the glass. The men then entered the apartment.

Meeks was going through a purse in the front room when he heard screams. He went into the bedroom and saw James with his hand on the victim's throat. She was nude from the waist down. The men then tied her hands and feet and left the apartment.

Based upon these statements by Meeks, the police located the defendant and brought him into custody. The defendant initially denied any knowledge of the crimes but, after being informed that Meeks had implicated him, admitted involvement and ultimately signed a written confession.

Both Meeks and the defendant moved to suppress their statements as fruits of illegal arrests. The trial court ruled that Meeks' arrest was without probable cause and suppressed his confession. With regard to James' motion, however, the court stated, "I believe the police clearly did have probable cause prior to making the arrest, notwithstanding the fact that I suppressed the fruits of the Meeks arrest * * *." James was convicted following a trial during which his confession was admitted into evidence.

The appellate court reversed the defendant's conviction on the ground that his confession was the product of his unlawful arrest. The court determined that the sole basis for James' arrest was Meeks' statement and that Meeks' uncorroborated statements were insufficient to establish probable cause to arrest James.

In this court the defendant puts forth two related, but distinct, claims. He first contends, as the appellate court held, that his arrest was unlawful as without probable cause, and that his statements should be suppressed as the fruit of that illegal arrest. Alternatively, he asserts that even if his own arrest was lawful, his statements were nonetheless the fruits of Meeks' unlawful arrest, and should be suppressed on that ground. We will consider each of these arguments in turn.

In declaring that James' arrest was without probable cause, the appellate court relied upon Wong Sun v. United States (1963), 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441, to support its holding that Meeks' uncorroborated incriminating statements were insufficient to provide probable cause. Thus, we begin our analysis with a discussion of Wong Sun.

The facts of Wong Sun defy succinct summation. Stated as briefly as possible, Federal narcotics agents arrested a man named Hom Way and found heroin in his possession. Hom Way told the agents that he had purchased the heroin from someone named "Blackie" Toy, who operated a laundry on Leavenworth Street. Based solely upon this information, the agents went to "Oye's Laundry" on Leavenworth. The laundry was in fact operated by James Wah Toy, but nothing in the record identified him to the police as the "Blackie" Toy to whom Hom Way had referred.

Toy denied having sold heroin, and a search of his residence failed to turn up any narcotics. However, Toy directed the agents to another person, Johnny Yee, who, Toy claimed, was a heroin dealer, and with whom Toy admitted having used heroin the previous evening. The agents went to Yee's residence and questioned him. He turned over a quantity of heroin and told the agents that he had received the heroin from Toy and yet another individual, Wong Sun.

Toy and Wong Sun were eventually convicted of concealment of illegally imported heroin. At their trial, the court admitted into evidence the incriminating statements made by Toy following his arrest.

The Supreme Court reversed Toy's conviction on the ground that his post-arrest statements should have been suppressed as the fruit of his unlawful arrest. In explaining its conclusion that the agents lacked probable cause to arrest Toy, the Court stated:

"The narcotics agents had no basis in experience for confidence in the reliability of Hom Way's information; he had never before given information. And yet they acted upon his imprecise suggestion that a person described only as 'Blackie Toy,' the proprietor of a laundry somewhere on Leavenworth Street, had sold one ounce of heroin. We have held that identification of the suspect by a reliable informant may constitute probable cause for arrest where the information given is sufficiently accurate to lead the officers directly to the suspect. [Citation.] That rule does not, however, fit this case. For aught that the record discloses, Hom Way's accusation merely invited the officers to roam the length of Leavenworth Street (some 30 blocks) in search of one 'Blackie Toy's' laundry--and whether by chance or other means (the record does not say) they came upon petitioner Toy's laundry, which bore not his name over the door, but the unrevealing label 'Oye's.' Not the slightest intimation appears on the record, or was made on oral argument, to suggest that the agents had information giving them reason to equate 'Blackie' Toy and James Wah Toy--e.g., that they had the criminal record of a Toy, or that they had consulted some other kind of official record or list, or had some information of some kind which had narrowed the scope of their search to this particular Toy." Wong Sun v. United States (1963), 371 U.S. 471, 480-81, 83 S.Ct. 407, 413-14, 9 L.Ed.2d 441, 451.

The appellate court appears to have interpreted Wong Sun as establishing a firm principle that uncorroborated statements by an arrestee can never constitute probable cause for the arrest of a co-offender. In our view, this is not an accurate statement of the law. (See, e.g., People v. Atkinson (1974), 21 Ill.App.3d 258, 315 N.E.2d 152.) We hold that, under the circumstances, Meeks' statements were sufficient to establish probable cause to arrest James, and we thus reverse the decision of the appellate court. We hold this view for a variety of reasons.

First, the appellate court's extrapolation of such a broad rule from Wong Sun ignores the fact-bound nature of the holding in that case itself, as evidenced by the language quoted above. Hom Way's statements were deemed inadequate in part because Hom Way was not shown to be reliable, but also because the information he provided regarding Toy was vague and nonspecific. Here, setting aside the assertion that Meeks was not shown to be reliable, the information he provided about the offense...