People v. Lasley

• Decision Date: 03 June 1987
• Docket Number: 84-0638,Nos. 84-0471,s. 84-0471
• Citation: 511 N.E.2d 661,158 Ill.App.3d 614
• Parties: , 110 Ill.Dec. 484 PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Willie LASLEY and Ivory Lloyd, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 661

511 N.E.2d 661

158 Ill.App.3d 614, 110 Ill.Dec. 484

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Willie LASLEY and Ivory Lloyd, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 84-0471, 84-0638.

Appellate Court of Illinois,

First District, Third Division.

June 3, 1987.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 12, 1987.

Daniel E. Radokovich, Chicago (James J. Doherty, Public Defender of Cook County, Alison J. Norwood, Asst. Public Defender, of counsel), for defendants-appellants.

Richard M. Daley, State's Atty., Chicago (Joan S. Cherry, Peter D. Fischer, Craig M. Antas, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellee.

Justice FREEMAN delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendants, Willie Lasley and Ivory Lloyd, were indicted on charges of murder, armed robbery, and armed violence resulting from the hold-up of a grocery store in which the owner was shot and killed. Their trials were held before the same judge with separate juries. Both defendants were found guilty of murder and armed robbery. Each was sentenced to 40 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for murder and 30 years for armed robbery to run concurrently. Defendants appeal their convictions.

The facts of the case pertinent to this appeal are as follows. On the morning of May 9, 1982, Craig Courts took a taxi to his job as a butcher at the United Life Grocery, located at 218 North Homan Avenue in Chicago. Prior to entering the store, Courts asked the cab driver to drive by so that he could see if his boss, Fathe Salem, was in. Courts then made a call from a nearby telephone booth. As he approached the store, he saw the defendants behind him. The defendants followed him into the store as he entered. Salem asked Courts to take care of a customer at the meat counter. Courts testified he then heard someone say "stick-up". He turned and saw Lloyd standing at the cash register facing Salem and holding a gun. As Salem reached for his own gun, Lloyd shot him as did Lasley, who had been standing by the entrance telling people the store was closed.

Courts further testified that after Salem fell to the floor, Lloyd searched his pockets while Lasley continued to stand by the door. Lloyd proceeded to take the contents of the cash register. He then informed Courts he would kill him unless he indicated where the victim kept additional money. Courts testified that he pointed to an upstairs area. Lloyd went upstairs and returned five to ten minutes later with a bag. He then took Courts by the hand and led him to the lottery machine in the store. When Courts informed Lloyd he did not know how to work the machine, Lloyd began to beat at it. When his efforts proved unsuccessful, Lasley demanded they leave. Lloyd ordered Courts to lay down in the area near the cash register, and the defendants then left the store.

Ms. Jesse Bennett was the customer Courts was waiting on when the incident occurred. She lay on the floor as instructed by the robbers and left the store immediately after they left. Courts proceeded to call his mother and asked her to phone the police. The police arrived within a short time and began their investigation. Officer O'Connor of the Chicago Police Department testified that, during his first interview with Courts, Courts denied knowing who the offenders were. He also told the officer that he took a taxi to work on the morning in question, and the driver left him off in front of the store. O'Connor did not believe Courts and, after interviewing the taxi driver, learned that he left Courts at a phone booth around the corner from the store and saw Courts walk over to the store after making a call. When O'Connor confronted Courts with this information, Courts told him that he lied because he was afraid and confused, which the officer indicated he believed.

Two days after the incident, Courts and Ms. Bennett were asked to come to the police station to observe a lineup and some photographs. After viewing the lineup, Courts identified Lasley as the person who stood by the door telling customers the grocery store was closed. Courts looked at several black and white photographs and identified Lloyd as the man who shot the victim. Ms. Bennett was unable to positively identify anyone in the lineup; however, she did identify Lasley as being the same size as someone she saw participate in the robbery and murder. When she saw the lineup photo, she identified him as the man in "the green suit" near the counter. Warrants were issues for the arrest of Lloyd and Lasley. On cross-examination, Ms. Bennett stated that an assistant State's Attorney had shown her the lineup photo earlier in the day and, at that time, it contained a red "X" above Lasley which Courts placed upon it during the trial.

On November 28, 1982, Officer Wallace of the Chicago Police Department responded to a call regarding a home invasion in progress at 1359 North Hudson in Chicago. He testified that, upon his arrival, he saw Lloyd coming out of a courtyard at 1361 North Hudson. Lloyd began to flee when he spotted the officers, and they later found him hiding on the roof of the building. When the police returned to the home of the woman who phoned in the complaint, they learned she was Lloyd's former girlfriend, LaFondraetta Lanier. Ms. Lanier testified that she called the police because she was afraid Lloyd would get into her apartment. When they arrived, she informed them Lloyd was wanted for murder and armed robbery.

At trial, Ms. Lanier further testified that the defendants had a conversation in her apartment two days before the victim was murdered in which they discussed a previous robbery and the need to help get someone out of jail. The following day she also heard them discuss the fact that they needed money for this purpose and that they knew someone who worked in a store where they could easily get the money. She stated that Lloyd was at her apartment on the day of the murder from approximately 6:00 a.m. until 7:00 a.m. and that, when he left, he informed her he was going to perform the job which they had been planning. Lanier indicated Lloyd was wearing green army fatigues when he left her apartment that morning. The first time she told anyone of the conversations between defendants, however, was not until after her relationship with Lloyd ended.

Although at trial Courts testified he still was standing after the first shots were fired in the grocery store, he admitted he told three detectives on the day of the incident that he did not see anything in the store after the first shot was fired because he immediately hit the ground. On cross-examination by Lasley's attorney, Courts also conceded he did not give Lasley's and Lloyd's names to the police nor tell anyone Lloyd was the offender up until November when Lloyd was arrested. Courts admitted he was the "inside man" in the robbery. He stated he learned about the plan approximately three weeks prior to the occurrence while at the home of Darnell Williams. Both defendants also were there at that time. They told him he would not have to worry about anything and he would not be hurt. Additionally, according to Courts, they threatened to kill him if he informed the police. Courts indicated this was why he initially was not truthful with the police. He claimed that he informed the prosecutors he was involved in the robbery. On the basis that the State withheld this information from defendants, counsel for Lasley moved for a mistrial. The court denied the motion. After several other witnesses testified, the juries found both defendants guilty of the armed robbery and murder charges.

On appeal, defendant Ivory Lloyd contends: (1) the trial court erred when it denied the motion to suppress his lineup identification because he was placed in the lineup in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel; (2) he was denied due process where the State's primary identification witness offered the Lloyd jury perjured testimony and where the closing arguments compounded the prejudice by convincing the jury that the witness did not lie to them, and (3) the trial court committed reversible error when it permitted the State to elicit testimony and to argue that another unrelated armed robbery and Lloyd's reputed gang membership were probative of his guilt. Defendant Willie Lasley contends: (1) the State deprived him of a fair trial by repeatedly arguing facts not in evidence before the Lasley jury and by other deliberate acts of misconduct during rebuttal arguments, and (2) the trial court erred in denying his motion for a mistrial based upon the State withholding information regarding Courts' participation in the crime.

Defendant Lloyd first contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the lineup identification because the police violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Because adversarial judicial proceedings were initiated against defendant prior to the lineup, his Sixth Amendment right to counsel already had attached. (Kirby v. Illinois (1972), 406 U.S. 682, 689, 92 S.Ct. 1877, 1882, 32 L.Ed.2d 411, 417; People v. Martin (1984), 102 Ill.2d 412, 419, 80 Ill.Dec. 776, 466 N.E.2d 228, cert. denied, 469 U.S. 935, 105 S.Ct. 334, 83 L.Ed.2d 270.) In order to waive that right, defendant must have known about it and must have given an intelligent and intentional relinquishment or abandonment of it. (Edwards v. Arizona (1981), 451 U.S. 477, 482, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1884, 68 L.Ed.2d 378, 385; Johnson v. Zerbst (1938), 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461, 1466; People v. Swift (1980), 91 Ill.App.3d 361, 364, 46 Ill.Dec. 842, 414 N.E.2d 895.) The State bears the burden of proof on the waiver issue, (Swift ), and such a burden has been described as a "heavy" one. (People v. Taylor (1979), 76 Ill.2d 289, 310-11, 29 Ill.Dec. 103, 391 N.E.2d 366; People v. Curtis (1985), 132 Ill.App.3d 241, 250, 87 Ill.Dec. 170, 476 N.E.2d 1162.) It is for the trial court to determine if there has been a waiver, and the court need not be...