People v. Kidd
| Decision Date | 16 April 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 66609,66609 |
| Parties | , 169 Ill.Dec. 258 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Leonard KIDD, Appellant. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Randolph N. Stone, Public Defender, Chicago (Richard E. Cunningham, of counsel), for appellant.
Cecil A. Partee, State's Atty., Chicago (Renee Goldfarb and David R. Butzen, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel), for the people.
Defendant, Leonard Kidd, was convicted of 10 counts of murder and one count of arson following a jury trial in the circuit court of Cook County. Prior to trial, defendant attempted to waive a jury for sentencing, but the trial judge refused to accept such waiver. Subsequently, before the same jury which convicted him, defendant was found eligible for the death penalty because he was at least 18 years old at the time of the murders, and because he was convicted of murdering two or more individuals (see Ill.Rev.Stat.1983, ch. 38, par. 9-1(b)(3)). At the second stage of the sentencing hearing, the jury found no mitigating factors sufficient to preclude imposition of the death penalty. The trial court thereafter sentenced defendant to death. The sentence was stayed (134 Ill.2d R. 609(a)) pending direct appeal to this court .
On appeal, defendant raises 17 issues, including nine issues pertaining to his sentencing hearing. The State, however, concedes that defendant did not receive a fair death penalty hearing, and that the cause should be remanded for a new hearing. The remaining eight issues relating to defendant's trial are: (1) whether defendant's confession introduced at trial was taken in violation of his fifth amendment right to counsel; (2) whether the introduction of defendant's "dream" statement denied defendant a fair trial; (3) whether the prosecutor's repeated characterization of the defense as a "smoke screen" was prejudicial error; (4) whether a corpus delicti of arson was proven beyond a reasonable doubt; (5) whether the prosecutor's comments on the defendant's failure to call witnesses deprived him of a fair trial; (6) whether the State's repeated arguments of facts not in evidence deprived the defendant a fair trial; (7) whether the prosecutor used an inadmissible lay opinion of guilt to deny the defendant a fair trial; and (8) whether the trial court erred in refusing to accept defendant's pretrial waiver of sentencing jury.
On October 28, 1980, fire caused extensive damage to a two-story, frame, residential building, located at 1512 E. 65th Place in Chicago. While all three apartments on the first floor were vacant, two apartments on the second floor were occupied. Emma Burt resided with her four children in the apartment located on the west side of the building, and Brenda Boyd lived in the apartment located on the east side with her five children. At the time of the fire, Emma Burt's sister, Gertrude Burt, and her five children were present in Emma's apartment. As a result of the fire, 10 children died.
On September 14, 1984, nearly four years after the fire, defendant was interrogated regarding the fire by Chicago Police Sergeant Joseph Murphy, Detectives Richard Kobel and John Robertson, and Assistant State's Attorney James Linn in the State's Attorney's office adjacent to the county jail. At the time, defendant had been held in continuous custody in the jail since his arrest on January 12, 1984, on unrelated murder and arson charges. (See People v. Kidd (1989), 129 Ill.2d 432, 136 Ill.Dec. 18, 544 N.E.2d 704.) At the time of the interrogation, defendant was represented by Assistant Public Defenders Paul Stralka and James Stopka on the unrelated matter. In response to questioning, defendant allegedly made incriminating statements regarding his involvement in the fire. Subsequently, defendant was charged by indictment with 32 counts of murder, two counts of aggravated arson, and one count of arson.
At trial, the following testimony was offered. Gertrude Burt testified that during the evening of October 28, 1980, defendant arrived at her sister Emma Burt's apartment to visit Renee Armstrong. Renee was Gertrude's 14-year-old daughter, and defendant's girlfriend. At the time, defendant and Gertrude were alone and defendant asked Gertrude if she smelled anything burning. Gertrude replied "no," and defendant told her that he smelled something burning. According to Gertrude, when she told defendant that she planned to leave that evening to visit defendant's brother, defendant stated not to go because "he felt that something was going to happen." Gertrude testified that she then decided to remain at the apartment.
Gertrude stated that defendant then awakened Renee, who was sleeping in the front of the apartment, and he and Renee asked Gertrude if they could go to McDonald's. Gertrude said "no" because it was too late. At this point, defendant again said that he smelled something burning. Defendant, Renee and Gertrude proceeded down the front stairs to the first floor to the vacant apartment, the "Clay" apartment, located in the rear of the east side of the building. The door to the "Clay" apartment was closed, so defendant "kicked open" the door. Gertrude and Renee followed defendant to a rear bedroom where they found books, paper and an old dresser aflame. After extinguishing this small fire with a tub of water, defendant told Renee and Gertrude to wait there, as he was going to go to the next apartment located to the west of the "Clay" apartment. gertrude testified that defendant "knocked a hole" in the wall dividing the two apartments and proceeded into the adjoining apartment. After "some time," defendant returned to the "Clay" apartment, took a blanket from a rollaway bed, and placed it over the hole in the wall. The three returned upstairs to Emma's apartment, and Renee again asked Gertrude's permission to go to McDonald's. Gertrude acceded to Renee's request this time, and Renee and defendant departed.
Approximately 10 to 15 minutes later, Renee returned to Emma's apartment from McDonald's, but defendant was not with her. Approximately two to three minutes later, defendant entered the apartment and began to eat his food. A short time later, defendant again stated that he smelled something burning. Gertrude replied that she still did not smell anything burning. Defendant then walked to the bathroom in the rear of Emma's apartment, and knocked a hole in a makeshift wall to check the back porch which was not accessible from Emma's apartment. Gertrude stated that she did not see any fire or smoke at this time. Both defendant and Gertrude then entered the kitchen, and defendant opened a cabinet located below the kitchen sink. Smoke came up through the floor. Defendant stated that he was going to go downstairs to investigate. Renee accompanied defendant downstairs, but Gertrude remained at the top of the stairs. Gertrude testified that defendant then yelled upstairs to call the fire department because the building was on fire.
Gertrude stated that she immediately ran to Brenda Boyd's apartment to alert her about the fire, and then back to Emma's apartment to alert the children. Gertrude stated that she managed to save one child by throwing her out the window, and that she was saved by a neighbor.
On cross-examination, Gertrude denied any knowledge of the electricity flickering on and off the night of the fire, or that two of Brenda Boyd's sons had to reset the circuit breakers at the apartment building. In addition, Gertrude agreed that on September 14, 1984, Sergeant Murphy and another police officer came to her home, and Murphy told her that defendant had started the fire. Gertrude further testified that on September 14 she told the police for the first time of defendant's alleged statement on the night of the fire that she should not leave the apartment because "something might happen" and that defendant had kicked a hole in the wall of the "Clay" apartment and covered it with a blanket the night of the fire. Gertrude also admitted that she is "not good with minutes, times" because she could not read or write, but defendant had remained in the west, first-floor apartment for approximately two to three minutes while she and Renee waited in the "Clay" apartment. Lastly, Gertrude admitted that following the fire, defendant lived with her and Renee after his release from the hospital.
Renee Armstrong also testified, and her testimony essentially corroborated Gertrude's regarding the events leading up to the discovery of the fire. Like Gertrude Renee stated that she did not smell any smoke initially. In addition, Renee stated that when the three of them--defendant, Gertrude and herself--first went downstairs to investigate, defendant went straight to the "Clay" apartment, bypassing the other two vacant apartments on the first floor. Defendant twisted the door knob on the "Clay" apartment, but it was locked, so defendant kicked open the door. Renee testified that all of the apartments on the first floor were locked. According to Renee, after defendant entered the western apartment adjacent to the "Clay" apartment, he remained in there for three to five minutes, and at one point she heard defendant's voice from the front of the apartment saying that there was no fire in there. Renee stated that she was able to see through the hole in the wall of the "Clay" apartment and that there was no one else in the west apartment besides defendant.
Renee further testified that when she and defendant returned from their 10 to 15 minute trip to McDonald's, as they entered the apartment building, defendant said that he again smelled something burning. Renee stated that she did not smell any smoke, so she went up to Emma's apartment to eat her food. Two minutes later defendant entered Emma's apartment, and told Gertrude that he...
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