People v. Ligon
| Decision Date | 18 November 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 108855.,108855. |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee,v.Dennis LIGON, Appellant. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Michael J. Pelletier, State Appellate Defender, Patricia Unsinn and Alan D. Goldberg, Deputy Defenders, Patrick F. Cassidy, Asst. Appellate Def., of Office of State Appellate Def., of Chicago, for appellee.Lisa Madigan, Atty. Gen., of Springfield, Anita Alvarez, State's Atty., of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg and Michele Grimaldi Stein, Asst. State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.
At issue is whether the federal constitution requires appointment of counsel for indigent postconviction petitioners at the summary dismissal stage whenever the appellate court on direct review has declined to address an ineffective assistance of counsel claim because the facts needed to adjudicate the claim are dehors the record and thus cannot be resolved on direct review. For the reasons that follow, we hold that the constitution does not require the appointment of counsel in such cases.
Following a jury trial, defendant, Dennis Ligon, was convicted of aggravated vehicular hijacking (720 ILCS 5/18–4(a)(3) (West 2002)). The circuit court of Cook County sentenced him to a term of natural life in prison as a habitual offender. Defendant's conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal, but the appellate court declined to rule on two of his claims regarding ineffectiveness of trial counsel, finding that those issues could be more appropriately addressed in a proceeding for postconviction relief. People v. Ligon, 365 Ill.App.3d 109, 122, 301 Ill.Dec. 753, 847 N.E.2d 763 (2006) ( Ligon I ). Defendant subsequently filed a pro se postconviction petition, but did not raise the two issues that the appellate court declined to adjudicate. The circuit court summarily dismissed defendant's postconviction petition as frivolous and patently without merit. The appellate court affirmed that dismissal. 392 Ill.App.3d 988, 331 Ill.Dec. 496, 910 N.E.2d 1252 ( Ligon II ). We allowed defendant's petition for leave to appeal. 210 Ill.2d R. 315.
Defendant's trial began on April 2, 2003. Defendant was represented by assistant public defenders Anthony Thomas and Camille Calabrese. Just before opening statements on April 2, 2003, Thomas informed the court that he intended to call the defendant's son, Dennis Compton, as a
[346 Ill.Dec. 466 , 940 N.E.2d 1070]
witness, stating that he had interviewed Compton for the first time the previous day. Thomas further explained to the court that the name was given to him by the prosecution, which learned of Compton when interviewing another witness. The prosecutor did not object to the defense calling Compton, noting that she also had an opportunity to speak to him the prior day.
In her opening statement, Calabrese told the jury that this would be a “text book case of misidentification,” stating that defendant's son, Dennis Compton, is almost his father's look-alike and that the jury would learn that “the actual story behind this case is of a father who is protecting his son.” She also told the jury that she believed she was going to be able to produce Dennis Compton, noting that he had been subpoenaed. She stated that she was confident that after the jury heard his testimony, it would have a reasonable doubt as to defendant's guilt. She concluded that defendant “may be guilty of protecting his son, but that doesn't mean he's guilty of taking this automobile.”
Briefly, the evidence presented by the State at trial included the testimony of several witnesses. Ana Diaz testified that on December 16, 2000, defendant approached her in broad daylight as she exited her red Ford pickup truck at a Sears parking lot off of Western Avenue in Chicago. Defendant pushed a gun into her ribs and told her to leave the keys in the ignition and to get out. He then proceeded to drive away in her truck. On January 3, 2001, the day her truck was recovered by police and defendant was arrested, she immediately and unequivocally picked defendant out of a lineup as the man who stole her truck and held her up at gunpoint. She also identified a BB gun recovered by police from the truck as the gun used by defendant to commit the crime.
Three other witnesses that knew defendant testified that they observed him driving the truck between December 16, 2000, and January 3, 2001. On the evening of January 2, 2001, defendant drove Georgio Dawson, a 13–year old boy, and Tenita Barber, a 17–year–old girl, around in the truck. After dropping Dawson off at an apartment building where the truck was eventually recovered, defendant drove Barber around town drinking liquor and smoking marijuana with her. Defendant told Barber he had just bought the truck. Around 5:10 a.m., on January 3, 2001, the two returned to the place where they had left Dawson. Defendant honked his horn, but then got out of the truck when Dawson did not come out. After defendant had walked away from the truck, Dawson came out and got in the truck. Shortly thereafter, police arrived and discovered that the truck had been stolen. They searched it and recovered a BB gun from the driver's side. Dawson told police that the man who had been driving the truck was named “Dennis.” Police then took Dawson to look for the man who had been driving the truck in question. Dawson pointed defendant out at an El station about a block and a half from where the truck had been parked. After verifying from defendant that his first name was Dennis, police placed him under arrest.
The jury found defendant guilty of aggravated vehicular hijacking. Following his trial, defendant filed a pro se motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, arguing, among other things, that his trial counsel was ineffective by confessing defendant's “guilt in protecting his son” and then not calling Dennis Compton to testify, thereby leaving the jury with the impression that defendant must have committed the crime. The trial court allowed the
[346 Ill.Dec. 467 , 940 N.E.2d 1071]
public defender's office to withdraw. The court appointed attorney Stephen Decker as defendant's counsel for the posttrial proceedings. After obtaining and reviewing all of the transcripts of defendant's trial, Decker filed a supplemental motion for a new trial, which incorporated by reference the claims asserted in defendant's pro se motion. Decker's motion alleged in relevant part that trial counsel's performance was deficient in failing to produce Compton or explain his nonappearance after telling the jury during opening statements that Compton had committed the crime and had been subpoenaed to testify.
At the hearing on defendant's posttrial motion, Thomas, defendant's trial counsel, testified that prior to trial he developed a strategy of misidentification because he believed the descriptions of the hijacker more closely resembled Compton than defendant. During two interviews with defense counsel, Compton's account with regard to the red Ford pickup truck was erratic, contradictory and inconsistent. At one point during the interviews, when Thomas pointed out that Compton's account was inconsistent, Compton asked Thomas, “What do you want me to say?” This comment caused Thomas to believe that he would be suborning perjury if he called Compton to testify. Moreover, on the day that Compton was to testify, he was arrested in the courthouse for intimidating Dawson. Thomas was concerned that if Compton should be called, the facts of the intimidation offense would come out before the jury and harm defendant's case. Thomas noted that due to the above-discussed considerations, the jury would not view Compton as a favorable witness. Thomas expressed his concerns about Compton to defendant, but told defendant he would call Compton if defendant wanted. Defendant agreed that Compton should not be called. Thomas acknowledged that he did not call Compton to testify, nor did he display him to the jury.
Compton testified at the hearing that during his interviews with the public defenders he did not indicate what his testimony would be. During the hearing, Compton testified that neither he nor defendant committed the hijacking and that he had not witnessed who did. Compton admitted that during the trial, he was arrested and eventually pled guilty to communicating with the witness Dawson.
Defendant testified at the hearing on his posttrial motion that he did not tell Thomas not to call Compton. According to defendant, on the morning he was arrested, he was on his way to visit Compton, who happened to live near where the truck was recovered and who had knowledge of the truck's origins.
The trial court denied defendant's posttrial motion. At sentencing, the State presented certified copies of two of defendant's prior convictions. The trial court sentenced him to life in prison as a habitual offender, as it was required to do by statute (720 ILCS 5/33B–1 (West 2002)).
On direct appeal, defendant argued that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel in three ways: (1) his trial attorneys said in opening statements that they would produce defendant's look-alike son, Dennis Compton, at trial and would show that he lived near where the truck was recovered, but failed to do so; (2) they failed to properly investigate the case prior to trial when they did not interview Compton until after the trial had begun; and (3) they did not have a reasonable basis to believe that Compton would testify when they made their opening remarks. The appellate court affirmed defendant's conviction. Ligon I, 365 Ill.App.3d 109, 301 Ill.Dec. 753, 847 N.E.2d 763. In doing so, it rejected his first ineffective assistance of counsel claim, which argued that
[346 Ill.Dec. 468 , 940 N.E.2d 1072]
his attorneys erred in stating during opening statement that they would produce Compton and then failed...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- People v. Little
-
People v. Richardson
...if such action is permitted by statute, even when the issue itself is ineffective assistance of counsel. See People v. Ligon, 239 Ill.2d 94, 346 Ill.Dec. 463, 940 N.E.2d 1067 (2010). However, the Ligon court also held that “where * * * the record is insufficient because it has not been prec......
-
People v. English
...appeal are barred by res judicata, and issues that could have been raised on direct appeal, but were not, are forfeited. People v. Ligon, 239 Ill.2d 94, 103, 346 Ill.Dec. 463, 940 N.E.2d 1067 (2010). However, the doctrines of res judicata and forfeiture are relaxed where fundamental fairnes......
-
People v. Hotwagner
...because most petitions are drafted at this stage by defendants with little legal knowledge or training” (People v. Ligon, 239 Ill.2d 94, 104, 346 Ill.Dec. 463, 940 N.E.2d 1067 (2010) ). ¶ 29 If a petition is not dismissed at the first stage, it advances to the second stage, where an indigen......