People v. McLaurin

• Decision Date: 19 March 2020
• Docket Number: Docket No. 124563
• Citation: 2020 IL 124563,162 N.E.3d 252,443 Ill.Dec. 618
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellant, v. Jasper MCLAURIN, Appellee.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

2020 IL 124563

162 N.E.3d 252

443 Ill.Dec. 618

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellant,

v.Jasper MCLAURIN, Appellee.

Docket No. 124563

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Opinion filed March 19, 2020

Kwame Raoul, Attorney General, of Springfield (Jane Elinor Notz, Solicitor General, and Michael M. Glick and Evan B. Elsner, Assistant Attorneys General, of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

Steven A. Greenberg and Nicholas Burris, of Greenberg Trial Lawyers, of Chicago, for appellee.

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

¶ 1 This appeal arises from defendant Jasper McLaurin's conviction of being an armed habitual criminal ( 720 ILCS 5/24-1.7(a) (West 2014)), following a bench trial in the circuit court of Cook County. The appellate court reversed defendant's conviction, holding that the evidence was insufficient to prove that he possessed a firearm as defined by the Criminal Code of 2012 (id. § 2-7.5; 430 ILCS 65/1.1 (West 2014) ), an element of the convicted offense. 2018 IL App (1st) 170258, ¶ 31, 428 Ill.Dec. 527, 122 N.E.3d 788. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the appellate court judgment and affirm defendant's conviction.

¶ 2 BACKGROUND

¶ 3 In June 2014, defendant was charged with being an armed habitual criminal ( 720 ILCS 5/24-1.7(a) (West 2014)), unlawful use of a weapon by a felon (id. § 24-1.1(a)), and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon (id. § 24-1.6). A bench trial ensued in September 2016.

¶ 4 Chicago police sergeant Nicheloe Fraction testified that on May 25, 2014, around 10:30 a.m., she was sitting alone in an unmarked police vehicle, conducting surveillance unrelated to defendant of an apartment building at 1351 South Kildare Avenue. Fraction observed defendant leave the building "carrying a silver handgun." She was approximately 50 feet away from him, and nothing obstructed her view. Defendant crossed the street and entered the rear of a white van, which proceeded to drive away. Calling for backup, Fraction followed the van and never lost sight of the vehicle. Approximately a block and a half later, the van was stopped by police.

¶ 5 Defendant and two other men were ordered out of the vehicle. Fraction was parked on the driver's side of the van and did not see them as they exited. She identified defendant as "the gentleman I saw carrying the handgun into the rear passenger side of the van." Shortly thereafter, Chicago police officer Jesse Rodriguez asked Fraction to identify a handgun that had been recovered by police at the scene. At trial, she described the item as "the same color [and] size of the handgun I saw the gentleman enter the van with." Fraction further testified that, during her 12 years of experience as a police officer, she had worked with handguns, was familiar with them, and carried one herself.

¶ 6 On cross-examination, Fraction testified that she did not observe anyone remove an object from the van. She further testified that she did not submit the gun for fingerprint analysis and was unaware if such testing had been performed. She testified that when she observed defendant leaving the apartment building he was holding the gun "in a grip that the barrel was coming out the one side and the handle was on the other side." Approximately 20 minutes after the officers transported defendant to the police station, she was asked there to identify the gun, which she did. She described the gun as the same size and color as what she saw in defendant's hand.

¶ 7 Rodriguez testified that he was among the police officers who stopped the van. Like Fraction, Rodriguez stopped his vehicle on the driver's side of the van. The police ordered the three men to exit. Defendant got out through double doors that opened in the middle of the passenger's side. Fraction then confirmed to police that the correct vehicle had been stopped and provided Rodriguez a description of the weapon as a "chrome gun."

¶ 8 The officers patted down the three men and searched the vehicle. They did not find a gun. While standing on the driver's side of the van, Rodriguez looked underneath the vehicle and saw a 9-millimeter chrome handgun on the ground. The gun was located underneath the van, almost in the middle, near the rear passenger's side. Rodriguez partially crawled underneath the van and retrieved the gun. It was loaded. He cleared it by removing the magazine and the bullet from the chamber. Rodriguez placed the handgun in a bag and inventoried it.¹ The gun was not offered into evidence at trial.

¶ 9 On cross-examination, Rodriguez acknowledged that he did not see anyone place or throw anything underneath the vehicle. He testified that he recovered the gun less than five minutes after the van was stopped. Prior to recovering the weapon, Rodriguez called for an evidence technician to come to the scene, but none was available. He did not request that the gun be tested for fingerprints.

¶ 10 It was stipulated that defendant was on mandatory supervised release at the time of this offense and that he had never been issued a Firearm Owners Identification Card. It was further stipulated that defendant had a 2011 conviction for unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and a 2006 conviction for aggravated battery with a firearm.

¶ 11 At the completion of the State's case-in-chief, defendant moved for a directed finding. He argued that no officer had seen any of the doors of the van open, nor did any of them see an object being thrown underneath the van. Defendant also argued that Fraction could only provide the color and size of the gun but no further details about the weapon.

¶ 12 The trial court denied the motion.² The trial court stated that there were many possibilities as to how the gun ended up underneath the van, including a hatch in the middle or back of the van, or someone having kicked it there. The trial court further found that, while "recovering a gun would * * * assist in terms of more credibility with respect to the evidence and the eyewitness testimony," it was Fraction's observations that were important. The trial court stated that "[the] bottom line is it's based on what the officer saw at the time that she saw the defendant pas[s] by her, and she sa[id] * * * she saw the defendant with a gun."

¶ 13 Defendant did not testify or present any witnesses.

¶ 14 In finding defendant guilty of the charged offenses, the trial court highlighted Fraction's testimony that she saw "the defendant in plain daylight come out of a building [and] walk near her vehicle holding a firearm." Additionally, the court noted that Fraction "testifie[d] clearly and plainly and without impeachment that she saw a firearm, and that the defendant was the person holding that firearm." The trial court also noted that, as a police officer, Fraction was "familiar with firearms, works with firearms, [and is] trained with firearms." The court determined that her testimony as to "the way that the defendant [wa]s holding the firearm * * * [wa]s consistent with not being able to say exactly what type of firearm because of the way the defendant's hand was in the middle of [it]."

¶ 15 The trial court considered Rodriguez's testimony and stated that, after the police stopped the van, Rodriguez "look[ed] under the vehicle * * * close to the door area where the defendant exited out of, and only the defendant, [and] s[aw] a weapon that matche[d] the description of size and color given by Officer Fraction." The trial court also recognized Rodriguez's testimony that "the weapon was fully loaded and had to be unloaded by the officer when it was recovered." The trial court found that "the unequivocal testimony in this case is that the defendant was seen on the street carrying a firearm."

¶ 16 The trial court merged all of the counts into the armed habitual criminal offense and sentenced defendant to seven years' imprisonment.

¶ 17 The appellate court reversed defendant's conviction and sentence and entered a judgment of acquittal. 2018 IL App (1st) 170258, ¶ 31, 428 Ill.Dec. 527, 122 N.E.3d 788. The appellate court concluded that the State "failed to meet its burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt [the] possessory firearm offenses where there was no evidence that the item observed in the defendant's possession" qualified as a firearm "as defined by the statute." Id. ¶ 27. The appellate court found that Fraction's testimony that she observed defendant in possession of an item that she believed to be a firearm, standing alone, was not sufficient to sustain defendant's conviction. Id. ¶ 28. The appellate court reasoned that in the case of possessory firearm offenses the item possessed cannot be inferred to be a firearm as defined by statute from circumstantial evidence. Id. ¶ 24.

¶ 18 Justice Mikva disagreed with the majority's holding "that the evidence needed to prove the illegal possession of a firearm is somehow different than the evidence needed to prove that a defendant possessed a firearm during a robbery." Id. ¶ 34 (Mikva, J., specially concurring). She believed that, in both situations, circumstantial evidence, if strong enough, may be relied upon to prove the necessary fact that what the defendant possessed was a firearm as defined by statute. Id. She concurred with the majority, however, that the evidence in this case did not establish defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. ¶ 35.

¶ 19 This court allowed the State's petition for leave to appeal. Ill. S. Ct. R. 315 (eff. July 1, 2018).

¶ 20 ANALYSIS

¶ 21 The issue before us is whether the State presented sufficient evidence of defendant's possession of a firearm to sustain his conviction.

¶ 22 The due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution requires that a defendant may not be convicted " ‘except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.’ " People v. Cunningham , 212 Ill. 2d 274, 278, 288 Ill.Dec. 616, 818 N.E.2d 304 (2004) (quoting In re Winship , 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90...