People v. Little
| Decision Date | 11 July 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 1-15-2711,1-15-2711 |
| Citation | 2018 IL App (1st) 152711 -U |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. VALEN LITTLE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and may not be cited as precedent by any party except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County.
¶ 1 Held: Defendant's convictions for aggravated criminal sexual assault are affirmed over his contention that the State did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt the aggravating factor that, when he committed criminal sexual assault, he acted in such a manner that threatened or endangered the victim's life.
¶ 2 Following a jury trial, defendant Valen Little was found guilty of two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault (720 ILCS 5/12-14(a)(3) (West 2006)) of the victim, V.T., in that he committed criminal sexual assault and, during the commission of the offense, acted in such a manner that threatened or endangered V.T.'s life.1 Defendant was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison for each count, to be served consecutively. On appeal, defendant contends his convictions should be reduced to criminal sexual assault because the State did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt the aggravating factor that he threatened or endangered V.T.'s life. We affirm.
¶ 3 Defendant's first jury trial resulted in a mistrial due to juror misconduct. At defendant's second trial, V.T. testified that, in 2006, she was a shift manager at White Castle and, on April 25, 2006, her shift ended around 3:15 a.m. V.T.'s boyfriend, Camille Howard, usually picked her up, but after calling him numerous times that night, he did not answer his telephone. V.T. decided to walk home because she was frustrated and ready to go home.
¶ 4 On V.T.'s walk home, she noticed a four-door tan car driving around in circles. At some point, she heard a man from behind her say in an "aggressive" tone of voice, "Hey bitch, hey bitch, come here." V.T. turned around and saw a man by a four-door tan car. V.T. just stood there because she was afraid. The man walked towards V.T. and grabbed her jacket in a "strong hold." V.T. felt like she could not get away and did not struggle because she was afraid. When the man was holding V.T.'s jacket, he told her, in an "aggressive" tone, that he was going to kill her with a gun and, while doing so, he reached back into his waistband. V.T. thought he was reaching for a weapon or a gun.
¶ 5 The man then forced V.T. into the driver's side of the car, which was a few feet away. V.T. crawled to the passenger's side. The man got into the driver's side and asked V.T. if shehad a credit card. V.T. told him she did not and asked him to take her home to get one. The man told V.T. he would not take her home because she would not come back out.
¶ 6 The man drove around and eventually stopped the car in a secluded area surrounded by vacant lots. V.T. did not look at the man's face because she was afraid. V.T. testified that, when he stopped the car, he fondled her breasts and told her to "suck his dick." The man touched V.T. in her vaginal area and put her mouth on his penis. He then climbed on top of V.T., inserted his penis in her vagina, and kissed her on the mouth. The man asked V.T., "Did I hurt you?", "Did I rape you?", and if he could be her boyfriend. V.T. did not respond to the man's questions because she was afraid. V.T. did not want the man to kiss her and never agreed to allow him to touch her body or to have vaginal or oral sex with him.
¶ 7 The man let V.T. out of the car near a laundromat. V.T. ran inside and told two women what had happened. About a month later, V.T. picked out the individual who she thought had raped her from a group of photographs and a line-up. The person V.T. identified was not defendant. In 2012, V.T. was shown another photograph array of possible suspects but was unable to identify anyone. V.T. testified that she did not get a good look of the man who raped her. On cross-examination, V.T. testified that she thought the offender had a gun but she never saw a gun, an object that could have been a gun, or anything that looked like a gun.
¶ 8 Symone Barry testified that, on April 25, 2006, she worked at White Castle with V.T. and V.T. left the restaurant at about 3:15 a.m. At about 4 a.m., Barry received a call from V.T., who was hysterical, crying, and stumbling on her words.
¶ 9 Mary Mallett, the manager of the laundromat, testified that, on April 25, 2006, at 4 a.m., a woman, who was crying and hysterical, came into the laundromat and asked her to call thepolice because she had been raped. Deritha Stigler, an employee at the laundromat, testified that the woman was hollering and screaming that she had been raped.
¶ 10 Chicago police officer Eduardo Almanza testified that, on April 25, 2006, at about 4:20 a.m., he and his partner met with V.T. at a laundromat. V.T. was shaken up, crying, and angry.
¶ 11 Heather Oleksy, the emergency room nurse who treated V.T., testified that, on April 25, 2006, at about 4:51 a.m., the police brought V.T. into the emergency room. V.T. was shaking, trembling, and upset. V.T. told Olesky that when she was walking home, a man approached her in a car, pointed what she thought was a gun at her and said "bitch get in the car, or I'll kill you." V.T. told Olesky that he ripped at her clothes and raped her vaginally and orally. A rape kit was performed on V.T. and vaginal swabs were collected.
¶ 12 Gitana Wallace, a forensic scientist with the Illinois State Police, testified that she identified semen on the vaginal swabs taken from V.T. Robert Boyle, a forensic DNA analyst with Cellmark Laboratories, testified he performed DNA tests and worked up the DNA profile from the semen found on the vaginal swabs. Boyle obtained a mixture profile in the sperm fraction of the vaginal swabs with a major male DNA profile, but he did not have a male profile to compare it to. The minor mixture was female and matched V.T.'s DNA profile. Michael Mathews, a forensic scientist with the Illinois State Police, testified that, in June 2007, the male DNA profile identified on the vaginal swabs taken from V.T. was uploaded into a DNA database, where it was continually searched. On March 26, 2012, an association was made to defendant for the male DNA profile found on V.T.'s vaginal swabs.
¶ 13 Chicago police detective David Kupczyk testified that, in March 2012, he received information that defendant's name was associated with the male DNA profile found on V.T.'svaginal swabs. Kupczyk compiled a photographic array, but V.T. was unable to pick out anyone. Defendant was arrested on April 6, 2012, and, after a buccal swab was taken from him, he was released because Kupczyk had to wait for the DNA to develop.
¶ 14 Greg DiDomenic, a forensic scientist with the Illinois State Police, testified that he worked up the buccal standard taken from defendant and obtained a full male profile. DiDomenic determined that the male profile identified on the vaginal swabs taken from V.T. matched defendant's DNA profile and would be expected to occur in approximately 1 in 2.9 quintillion black, 1 in 57 quintillion whites, or 1 in 12 quintillion Hispanic unrelated individuals.
¶ 15 Defendant testified that, in 2006, he would seek out female companionship by going to the West side of Chicago to pick up prostitutes. He could tell if a person was a prostitute based on eye contact and body language. When he approached a person he thought was a prostitute, the person would come to his car and he would negotiate with her.
¶ 16 Defendant testified that, on April 25, 2006, he drove to the West side of Chicago, negotiated with a prostitute to have sex for $20, and then drove to a quiet residential area because it seemed safe at that time. Defendant testified that, after he parked the car, the woman pulled his zipper down and she performed oral sex. The woman then went over to the passenger side, pulled her pants down, and they had sex. After the woman saw that he had more than $20, they got into an argument because she wanted more money. Defendant started driving because he wanted to take her back to where he picked her up. The woman asked him to stop the car at a laundromat. Before she got out of the car, she said, "[t]his is all you're going to give me for what I did" and "I got you, you know." The woman went into the laundromat and defendant drove off. In 2012, defendant consented to giving a "cotton swab" to Kupczyk because he did not doanything wrong. Defendant testified that he never forced the woman to have sex with him and never told her he had a gun or was going to kill her.
¶ 17 The jury found defendant not guilty of two counts of aggravated criminal assault based on the aggravating factor that he displayed, threatened to use, or used a dangerous weapon, other than a firearm, or any other object fashioned or used in a manner that leads the victim, under the circumstances, reasonably to believe that the object is a dangerous weapon (720 ILCS 5/12-14(a)(1) (West 2006)). However, the jury found defendant guilty of two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault in that he knowingly committed an act of sexual penetration on V.T. by contact between his penis and V.T.'s mouth (Count III) and his penis and V.T.'s vagina (Count IV), by the use of force or threat of force, and acted in such a manner as to threaten or endanger V.T.'s life (720 ILCS 5/12-14(a)(3) (West 2006)). The court subsequently denied defendant's motion for a new trial and sentenced him to 10 years in prison for each count, to be served consecutively.
¶ 18 Defendant contends on appeal that the State did not prove him guilty of aggravated criminal sexual assault beyond a...
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