People v. Jones

• Decision Date: 02 July 1987
• Docket Number: No. 83-1903,83-1903
• Parties: , 110 Ill.Dec. 895 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Melvin JONES, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 1215

511 N.E.2d 1215

157 Ill.App.3d 1006, 110 Ill.Dec. 895

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Melvin JONES, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 83-1903.

Appellate Court of Illinois First District, Fifth Division.

July 2, 1987.

Steven Clark, Deputy Defender, and Barbara Kamm, Asst. Appellate Defender, Chicago, for defendant-appellant.

Richard M. Daley, State's Atty., and Michael E. Shabat, David A. Cuomo and Bernard J. Murray, Asst. State's Attys., Chicago, of counsel, for plaintiff-appellee.

Justice PINCHAM delivered the opinion of the court:

Following a bench trial, defendant, Melvin Jones, was found guilty of the murder of Geoffrey Mayfield which occurred in Chicago in January 1982. Defendant was adjudged an habitual criminal and was sentenced to imprisonment for natural life. Defendant contends on appeal that the trial court erred: (1) in denying the defendant's motion to quash his December 10, 1982 arrest; (2) in admitting at the hearing on Geoffrey Mayfield's body was found at the rear of his Chicago residence on January 28, 1982. An autopsy revealed that Mayfield died as a result of numerous bullet wounds to the head.

[110 Ill.Dec. 896] defendant's motion to quash his arrest the testimony of a police officer that a polygraph test was taken by Deneen Murray, who allegedly implicated defendant in an October 19, 1982 triple murder; and (3) in improperly admitting into evidence at trial a police officer's incriminating hearsay conversation with Geoffrey Mayfield, the deceased. The defendant further contends that (4) the evidence failed to establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; (5) the trial court erred in refusing to grant him a new trial on the ground of newly discovered[157 Ill.App.3d 1008] evidence; (6) he did not waive his right against self-incrimination when he was questioned by police officers on December 10, 1982; (7) the Habitual Criminal Act is unconstitutional; and (8) he was denied the effective assistance of counsel. The facts out of which these contentions arose follow:

The defendant was arrested by Chicago police officers Robert Flood and Dennis McGuire on February 5, 1982 as a suspect in the January 1982 Mayfield murder. The defendant was not then charged with the Mayfield murder. He was charged, however, with the unlawful use of a weapon, arising out of the alleged discovery of a gun in his possession when Flood and McGuire arrested him. Because of his inability to make bond on the weapons charge, the defendant was held in custody for eight months, from February 5, 1982, the date of his arrest, to September 2, 1982, when he was found not guilty and discharged from custody.

On October 19, 1982, three people were shot and killed in an apartment on the south side of Chicago. Officers Flood and McGuire arrested the defendant on December 10, 1982 as a suspect in this triple murder. The defendant was not charged with the triple murder.

McGuire and Flood contend that the defendant orally confessed to the January 1982 Mayfield murder during their interrogation of him while he was in custody as a suspect in the October 19, 1982 triple murder. The alleged confession was not reduced to writing and the defendant denied that he confessed. The defendant was charged with the January 1982 Mayfield murder.

The defendant filed a pretrial motion to quash his December 10, 1982 arrest and suppress evidence. At the hearing on the motion, Officer Flood testified as a State's witness that the defendant was released from custody on September 2, 1982 on a weapons charge which arose out of his arrest of the defendant as a suspect in the January 1982 Geoffrey Mayfield murder. Flood testified that during his investigation of the October 19, 1982 triple murder, a female by the name of Deneen Murray told him that she, the defendant, and two other named males entered the apartment in which the murders later occurred, that she sat in the kitchen with one of the males while the other male and the defendant conversed with one of the occupants of the apartment in an adjoining room. The defendant left the apartment. He returned a few minutes later carrying a duffel bag and reentered the room adjoining the kitchen. A few moments later she heard gunshots. Murray and the male in the kitchen with her dived to the floor. When the shooting stopped she and the male in the kitchen left the apartment and returned to the car in which she had arrived with the defendant and the two named males. A few moments later the defendant and one of the named males came down the apartment stairs. Murray saw a gun in the opened duffel bag carried by the defendant. The duffel bag was put in the trunk of the car and they drove to her aunt's house several blocks away. They let her out of the car and told her not to tell anyone what had happened or she and her family would be killed. Flood further testified that Deneen Murray escorted and directed him to the apartment in which the three people had been shot to death and that Murray later took a polygraph examination. Flood additionally testified on direct-examination at the hearing on defendant's motion to quash his arrest:

"Q And that apartment that she [Deneen Murray] led you to, was that the same apartment that these three people were found shot to death on October 19, 1982?

A Yes, sir.

Q Now, after Deneen Murray led you to this apartment did you have occasion to take Deneen Murray to anywhere for the purpose of conducting a polygraph examination?

A Yes, sir.

Q And where did you take her to?

A To 1121 South State.

Q And did she in fact submit to a polygraph examination dealing with the story that she related to you?

A Yes, sir, she did.

Q What were the results of that polygraph examination?

[Defense counsel]: Objection.

THE COURT: Polygraph results are not admissible.

[assistant State's Attorney]: Not the results themselves but I think as far as corroborating what this officer was told in fact to justify his actions thereafter.

THE COURT: Indicate that she did take a polygraph.

[assistant State's Attorney]: Q After you completed this investigation, these interviews with Deneen Murray, did you have occasion to inform anyone else of the results of your interviews and your investigation?

THE WITNESS: A Yes, sir.

Q And who did you inform of the results?

A I informed Detectives Lotito, Bosco, Sergeant Holt, my supervisors, and generally the entire Area 2 Violent Crimes Unit.

Q Did you in fact tell them you were looking for anyone in connection with the shooting deaths * * * which occurred on October 19, 1982?

A Yes, sir.

Q And who did you tell them you were looking for?

A Melvin Jones also known as Foo Foo." (Emphasis added.)

Not one of the foregoing statements attributed to Deneen Murray by Officer Flood was recorded in any police report prepared by Flood or any other officer, nor was a polygraph test mentioned or referred to in any police report. There was no police report prepared on the conversations between Flood and Deneen Murray, nor was a police report prepared which stated that Flood had any conversation with Murray or that Murray accompanied Flood to the apartment in which the murders occurred, or that she pointed out the apartment to him.

As stated by our supreme court in People v. Nicholls (1970), 44 Ill.2d 533, 539, 256 N.E.2d 818:

"We have consistently held that the results of a polygraphic examination cannot properly be introduced as evidence either of guilt or innocence of an accused. [Citations.] If the results of such a test are inadmissible, then it necessarily follows that the mere fact that one was given is likewise inadmissible, for to admit such evidence would only tend to confuse and not enlighten." (Emphasis ours.)

In People v. Eickhoff (1984), 129 Ill.App.3d 99, 102-03, 84 Ill.Dec. 300, 471 N.E.2d 1066, this court definitively stated:

"[T]he language of Yarbrough [People v. Yarbrough (1982), 93 Ill.2d 421, 67 Ill.Dec. 257, 444 N.E.2d 493] precludes reference in a criminal trial to the fact that a polygraph examination was offered to, or refused by, a defendant, as well as whether he passed or failed it.

This view finds additional support in the tenor of several Illinois appellate decisions. In People v. Rutledge (1977), 45 Ill.App.3d 779 , 359 N.E.2d 1233, the court considered the rule of People v. Nicholls (1970), 45 Ill.2d 533, 256 N.E.2d 818, and People v. Zazzetta (1963), 27 Ill.2d 302, 189 N.E.2d 260, prohibiting the questioning of a defendant as to whether he had been offered a polygraph examination, as equally applicable to the questioning of a defense witness. People v. York (1975), 29 Ill.App.3d 113, 329 N.E.2d 845, held that the In People v. Thomas (1984), 123 Ill.App.3d 857, 867, 79 Ill.Dec. 278, 463 N.E.2d 832, the court concluded that the use of polygraph evidence in a criminal trial necessarily interfered with the integrity of the judicial fact finding process and required reversal regardless of the weight of the other evidence which supported the guilty finding.

[110 Ill.Dec. 898] trial court erred in permitting testimony that the complaining witnesses in an aggravated incest case had submitted to polygraph examinations[157 Ill.App.3d 1011] since, though the results of the tests were not admitted, the obvious implication was that had the results been negative, the case would not have been prosecuted." (Emphasis added.)

In the case at bar the State contends that Deneen Murray furnished Flood the information upon which Flood arrested the defendant. The defendant contends that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence on the hearing of defendant's motion to quash his arrest Flood's testimony that Deneen Murray took a polygraph examination on the veracity of her information. In People v. Haymer, (1987), 154 Ill.App.3d 760, 107 Ill.Dec. 323, 506 N.E.2d 1378, the arresting officer relied on the results of a polygraph examination in arresting the defendant. The trial court sustained the...