People v. Long
| Decision Date | 01 November 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. 1-15-0145,1-15-0145 |
| Citation | 2017 IL App (1st) 150145 -U |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. KEVIN LONG, 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
The Honorable Clayton J. Crane, Judge Presiding.
¶ 1 Held: Where challenges to defendant's indictment fail and the State properly found defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and other-crimes evidence was properly admitted at trial, defendant's conviction is affirmed.
¶ 2 Following a jury trial, defendant Kevin Long was convicted of unlawful use or possession of a weapon by a felon for carrying a briefcase containing four knives into the Daley Center in Chicago, Illinois. He was sentenced to nine years' incarceration to be served concurrently with a 13-year sentence on a conviction for unlawful use or possession of a weapon by a felon in case number 10 CR 6092. On appeal, defendant contends his conviction should be reversed because (1) his indictment was defective; (2) the State failed to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; and (3) the court abused its discretion by allowing other-crimes evidence and evidence of other bad acts in at trial. For the following reasons, we affirm.
¶ 4 At trial, Cook County Sheriff Deputy Dalibor Jevtic testified that he was working at a security checkpoint in the Daley Center at approximately 3:20 p.m. on March 16, 2010, when defendant placed a soft-sided briefcase on the conveyor belt that then passed through the magnetometer. Deputy Jevtic then saw on the magnetometer screen that the briefcase contained four knives. He searched the briefcase and found four knives in packaging, along with a receipt for their purchase earlier that day. Deputy Jevtic called for his supervisor, who then arrested defendant.
¶ 5 Assistant State's Attorney (ASA) Michael Crowe testified that he was the prosecutor on another case, case number 08 CR 16521, in which defendant was charged with intimidation and harassment of a witness named Joseph McCaffrey. He explained that the victim in that case, McCaffrey, was an attorney representing defendant's neighbors. Defendant had filed federal lawsuits against these neighbors and the neighbors had filed countersuits in state court against defendant in the Daley Center. ASA Crowe described defendant's relationship with McCaffrey as "contentious" and "bad," explaining that defendant blamed McCaffrey "as the ring leader of a group of neighbors who were trying to jam him up." Defendant said it "wouldn't be over until he [defendant] was dead." In August 2008, defendant was found guilty of intimidation andharassment of a witness and sentenced to 42 months' incarceration. A certified statement of defendant's conviction was entered into evidence in the instant cause.
¶ 6 Illinois Department of Corrections officer Sean Furlow testified that he is assigned to the Stateville Correctional Center Intelligence and Investigations Unit. As part of his job, he sometimes monitors recorded inmate telephone calls, and he specifically monitored telephone calls between defendant and his mother while defendant was in jail. Furlow identified a compact disc with recordings of telephone calls made by defendant to his mother in Arizona. Excerpts from those calls, placed in 2009, were played in court for the jury. This recording is included in the record on appeal. In some of these recorded excerpts, defendant is shouting and sounds angry. He instructed his mother to tell his ex-wife not to say anything about the bags of knives he left at their home. Defendant referred to attorney McCaffrey in derogatory terms, saying McCaffrey had been harassing him for nine years and was trying to destroy him. Defendant told his mother that "lives are at stake" and he has "nothing to lose." Defendant asked his mother to call his parole officer for him, but warned her not to tell the officer about knives in his house, saying, "If you're going to call her, I don't want you talking about anything that's in the house like knives or anything* * * because then they'll go through with the search warrant." He told her not to tell the parole officer about the bags of knives in his house that were "brand new" and "in the packages."
¶ 7 Attorney McCaffrey also testified for the State that he was the attorney representing defendant's neighbors after defendant filed lawsuits against them in federal court. McCaffrey filed counter lawsuits on the neighbors' behalf. In 2008, McCaffrey walked out into a Daley Center hallway after having testified in a hearing on one of the neighbor's cases when he encountered defendant. According to McCaffrey, defendant told him, McCaffrey was "surprised" and asked defendant what he had just said. Then, defendant again told McCaffrey, McCaffrey notified law enforcement and, subsequently, testified against defendant in a case arising from those threats. Defendant was convicted in that case of witness intimidation. McCaffrey testified that, on March 16, 2010, the day defendant was discovered bringing knives into the Daley Center, McCaffrey was practicing law in the Daley Center and had six cases on the call that week. It appears that a representative from McCaffrey's law firm, rather than McCaffrey himself, was present in the Daley Center at the time defendant attempted to bring the knives in. Over a defense objection, McCaffrey testified that defendant had threatened him on "numerous occasions" in the past, including threats of both "personal bodily harm" and "professional reputation."
¶ 8 Cook County Circuit Court Judge Kathy Flanagan testified that she is a judge in the law division in the Circuit Court of Cook County, and her courtroom is located in the Daley Center. Defendant had a case in her courtroom for a number of years, but she eventually recused herself after defendant left "disturbing" messages on her private voicemail. In those messages, defendant talked about his pending case and complained that he was not being treated fairly. He also left a voicemail in which he claimed he knew where Judge Flanagan lived and that she lived with her elderly parents. He said he was "not going to take any action against [her elderly parents] even though he didn't like the way [Judge Flanagan] was doing his case for him." Additionally, defendant accessed the staff-only area of her chambers. She described her interactions with defendant in her courtroom and in the chambers area as "very unpleasant." Judge Flanagan wasscheduled to work at the Daley Center every day the week defendant brought the knives in to the Daley Center.
¶ 9 Parole Officer Penny Wosar testified that defendant was assigned to her as a parolee in 2009. Wosar met with him on November 15, 2009, and reviewed a mandatory supervised release agreement and the "rules of parole." One document they reviewed together was the "Project Safe Neighborhood" form, the gist of which was that he was not to "possess any weapons or guns." Wosar testified that she considered brass knuckles, knives, batons, and knuckle knives to be dangerous weapons. On cross examination, she admitted that the paperwork did not define a dangerous weapon, but only stated that defendant was prohibited from possessing a "gun or other dangerous weapon."
¶ 10 United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Clerk of Court Thomas Bruton testified that, as a clerk of the court, he is responsible for keeping records such as case files, filings by parties on a case, and orders by judges. Bruton published to the jury an executive committee order regarding defendant by which defendant was not allowed access to the court building because of specific troubling history. For example, the order described defendant having filed suit against various individuals including judges of the court in which, even after being instructed not to do so, he included personal identifying information about the defendants including their social security numbers. The order also recounted instances of defendant defying library rules in the Dirksen Building, as well as accessing restricted areas of the Dirksen Building. By that executive order, defendant was enjoined from entering the Dirksen Building unless he first obtained leave to do so and, if he did obtain leave to enter the building, he would then be escorted by a United States Marshal while there.
¶ 11 Gary Miller, who was defendant's cell mate at Cook County jail, testified that he and defendant were friendly with one another and discussed "pretty much anything." According to Miller, defendant said he was arrested for bringing knives into the Daley Center, and that he purchased those knives and brought them to the Daley Center as a test to "see what he could get away with." Defendant said security would not do anything or might just make him remove the knives from the building or throw them away, since the knives were still in their packaging. According to Miller, defendant told him attorney McCaffrey was responsible for all of his legal troubles, that he intended to rape McCaffrey's daughter and kill McCaffrey's whole family. Miller also said defendant told him he "wanted to play with his knives" with a female Cook County judge, whose name he did not mention. On cross-examination, Miller denied he had told another inmate that he planned to make up stories about defendant in order to get him in trouble. At the time h...
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