People v. Lewis

• Decision Date: 13 April 2018
• Docket Number: NO. 4–15–0637,4–15–0637
• Citation: 100 N.E.3d 679,2018 IL App (4th) 150637
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Noble LEWIS Jr., Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

2018 IL App (4th) 150637

100 N.E.3d 679

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee,

v.Noble LEWIS Jr., Defendant–Appellant.

NO. 4–15–0637

Appellate Court of Illinois, Fourth District.

April 13, 2018

Michael J. Pelletier, Jacqueline L. Bullard, and Sonthonax B. SaintGermain, of State Appellate Defender’s Office, of Springfield, for appellant.

Jacqueline Lacy, State’s Attorney, of Danville (Patrick Delfino, David J. Robinson, and Linda S. McClain, of State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor’s Office, of counsel), for the People.

JUSTICE STEIGMANN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 In March 2015, the State charged defendant, Noble Lewis Jr., with home invasion ( 720 ILCS 5/19–6 (West 2014) ) and domestic battery (subsequent offense) (id. § 12–3.2(a)(2) ). In April 2015, a jury found defendant guilty of domestic battery but not guilty of home invasion. The trial court later sentenced him to five years in prison.

¶ 2 Defendant appeals, arguing that (1) the State failed to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, (2) the trial court erred because, when the deliberating jury requested to hear again the compact disc recording of the victim's 911 call, the court had the jury brought into the courtroom where the compact disc was replayed in the presence of the court, both counsel, and the defendant, (3) his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel, and (4) this court should vacate the purported fines imposed by the circuit clerk but not imposed by the judge.

¶ 3 We reject defendant's first three arguments but agree with his fourth. Accordingly, we vacate the clerk-imposed fines, and we otherwise affirm the trial court's judgment.

¶ 4 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 5 Defendant's jury trial occurred in April 2015, and the following facts are undisputed.

¶ 6 From about 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. on February 28, 2014, defendant's then-girlfriend, Kelly Glore, had coffee in Danville, Illinois, with a friend, Glen Fink. At the time, defendant, a mechanic by trade, was working on a car and drove it to AutoZone to buy some parts. While there, he received a telephone call from Glore, who wanted him to pick her and Fink up from Kmart because it was too cold for them to wait for the bus. Defendant did so, dropped Fink off at his destination, and dropped Glore at her apartment on Fairweight Avenue. Defendant then resumed work on the car.

¶ 7 At 4:30 p.m. or 5 p.m., he finished with the car and arrived at Glore's apartment around 5:30 p.m. He cooked supper, which he and Glore ate while drinking vodka. Around 7 p.m. or 8 p.m., a man whom defendant knew, Michael Roberson, arrived at the apartment, and defendant introduced him to Glore.

¶ 8 At this point, the accounts from Glore and defendant as to what happened substantially differ.

¶ 9 A. The State's Case-in-Chief

¶ 10 1. The Testimony of Kelly Glore

¶ 11 Glore testified that when Roberson came over, he and defendant smoked crack cocaine. As she was lying on a mattress in the living room, Roberson looked over at her and asked, " ‘Ma'am, which room do I get?’ " Thinking he was just talking nonsense because he was high, she at first ignored him. When he repeated the question, she responded, " ‘What do you mean, which room do you get?’ " He explained he had paid defendant $50 to live in her apartment.

¶ 12 Upon receiving this news, Glore asked defendant to come with her to the bedroom so she could talk with him. During their conversation in the bedroom, she told defendant "he needed to leave and sober up for a couple of hours." The prosecutor asked her:

"Q. What happened?

A. At that point, I saw a look in his eyes, and I got scared and ran outside. I ran to the apartment steps, ran to the side of the apartment, and I called the police, and then I ran back up the steps and ran toward my apartment, and [defendant] was going to throw me over the balcony, so I braced myself between the balcony and the girl's apartment door[,] and that's when he was punching me in the head and face."

¶ 13 After defendant "let [her] up," she went back into her apartment. Both he and Roberson had "[taken] off." Defendant "probably realized that [she had] called the cops."

¶ 14 The police arrived at her apartment, and she told them what had happened. The police looked for defendant but could not find him. They told her to call them back if he returned.

¶ 15 About 2 a.m., defendant kicked in the door of her apartment. When he did so, she was lying on the mattress in her living room and had not left the apartment since the police had been there. She explained what happened next, as follows:

"At first, he came after me with a staple gun. Then he grabbed a kitchen chair and put a hole in the wall, broke the kitchen chair, and then he put a mask on his face, and I asked [him] why he was putting the mask on his face, and he said so that way when he kills me, we [sic ] couldn't identify him. Then he put some gloves on, and I asked him why he put the gloves on. He said because that way they won't get any fingerprints from him. He had two knives in his hand[,] and he came to the mattress and jumped on top of me and told me he was going to kill me. First, he wanted to get the phone, but I had the phone stuffed under the mattress in my hand, and—when he had the knives to my neck, I told him—I took the [B]ible out to him, and then he got up, but it was God that called 911, because I couldn't see what I was calling. And then the police came in."

¶ 16 On cross-examination, Glore denied she smoked crack cocaine with Roberson when he came to her apartment with defendant, but she admitted smoking crack cocaine three months before the trial. She remembered going to the police station and giving a statement to a detective named Lewallen, but because "[it had] been a long time [ago]," she could not remember everything she had told him. She remembered telling him about the staple gun. However, she could not remember whether she told the detective that defendant had been living with her on Fairweight Avenue or that he had hit her eight times.

¶ 17 She agreed with defense counsel that this was "not the first time [she had] called the police on [defendant]," but she could not remember the date when she previously had done so. She and defendant had known each other for only a year prior to the trial. A previous battery occurred sometime when they lived together on East Main Street before she moved to Fairweight Avenue. She had defendant arrested for domestic battery on that previous occasion, and "[h]e spent some time in jail." When he was released from jail, she allowed him to move back in with her on East Main Street because she loved him.

¶ 18 2. The Recording of Glore's First 911 Call

¶ 19 The first 911 call that Glore made in the early morning of March 1, 2014, lasted 5 minutes and 20 seconds. The State played a compact disc, on which the call was recorded. In the 911 call, Glore, wailing and sobbing, identified her attacker as "Noble Lewis, Jr." She stated that he had left after punching her, she currently was alone in the apartment, and this was not the first time he beat her up.

¶ 20 3. The Testimony of Kyle Harrold

¶ 21 Kyle Harrold testified he was a Danville police officer. On March 1, 2014, around midnight, he received a dispatch to Fairweight Avenue regarding a domestic battery call. When he arrived at the apartment, the door frame was intact, and there were no obvious marks on the door. Inside, it was a "pretty standard apartment," with "nothing really out of place."

¶ 22 The prosecutor asked Harrold:

"Q. Could you please describe your own personal [observations] of what Kelly Gore looked like at that time?

A. At that time, she had swelling, some bruising and redness in the right corner of her right eye. She also had redness in her left ear."

¶ 23 After talking with Glore, Harrold attempted to locate the suspect but was unsuccessful. He told Glore to call back if the suspect returned to the apartment, and the police would come as fast as they could.

¶ 24 At about 2:15 a.m. on March 1, 2014, the dispatchers received a hang-up 911 call. They looked up the telephone number and discovered it was Glore's.

¶ 25 In response to the hang-up 911 call, Harrold returned to apartment No. 6 on Fairweight Avenue. As Harrold got out of his squad car, "a male black who was later identified as [defendant]" was on a porch. (In the courtroom, Harrold identified defendant as the man.) Upon seeing Harrold, defendant "ran back into the apartment." Harrold ran after him and up some stairs. When Harrold reached Glore's apartment, he found (1) the door of the apartment partly ajar, (2) a large mark, seemingly a shoe print, on the center left of the door, by the door handle, and (3) the door frame broken, with splinters of wood on the floor. Glore yelled, " [‘C]ome in and get him[!’] " On Harrold's instructions, she ran out of the apartment, and defendant came into the living room. Harrold then arrested him.

¶ 26 4. The Testimony of Danielle Lewallen

¶ 27 Danielle Lewallen testified she was a Danville police officer currently assigned to the second-shift patrol, but in March 2014 she was assigned to the detective division. (She explained that patrol officers in the Danville Police Department normally were rotated into the detective division, where they remained for a year, and then were rotated out again.)

¶ 28 On March 1, 2014, at about 2 a.m., the dispatcher notified her of a hang-up 911 call. The 911 call history indicated an address on East Main Street, and at first Lewallen went to that address, but nothing appeared to have happened there. Harrold then informed Lewallen that only a few hours earlier he handled a domestic call on Fairweight Avenue, at apartment No. 6, Glore's apartment. So, Lewallen and Harrold went to that address.

¶ 29 Upon arriving, they found the door of the apartment busted in and a shoe print on the door. Two people were in the apartment, defendant and Glore. The interior of the apartment was in disarray, things were strewn...