People v. Moss
| Citation | 275 Ill.Dec. 444,205 Ill.2d 139,792 N.E.2d 1217 |
| Decision Date | 18 October 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 87134.,87134. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Illinois |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Sanantone MOSS, Appellant. |
Charles M. Schiedel, Deputy Defender, and Kathryn Saltmarsh, Assistant Defender, of the Office of the State Appellate Defender, Springfield, for appellant.
James E. Ryan, Attorney General, Springfield, and Richard A. Devine, State's Attorney, Chicago (William L. Browers, Assistant Attorney General, Chicago, and Renee Goldfarb and William L. Toffenetti, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.
Following a jury trial in the circuit court of Cook County, defendant was convicted on two counts of first degree murder for the deaths of his ex-girlfriend, Emma Renee Jones (Renee), and her 11-year-old daughter, Diandra Jones. The same jury found defendant eligible for the death penalty and found no mitigating factors sufficient to preclude its imposition. The circuit court sentenced defendant to death. Defendant appeals his convictions and death sentence directly to this court. 134 Ill.2d R. 603. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
The murders of Diandra and Renee occurred in November 1991, while defendant was incarcerated and awaiting trial on charges that he sexually assaulted Diandra. Subsequent to the murders, the State proceeded to trial on the alleged sexual assault. Defendant was convicted of aggravated criminal sexual assault and sentenced to 60 years' imprisonment. In connection with the murders, defendant was initially charged with four counts of first degree murder (Ill.Rev.Stat.1989, ch. 38, pars. 9-1(a)(1), (a)(2)), two counts of conspiracy to commit first degree murder (Ill.Rev.Stat.1991, ch. 38, par. 8-2(a)), two counts of solicitation of murder (Ill.Rev. Stat.1991, ch. 38, par. 8-1.1(a)), and one count of intimidation (Ill.Rev.Stat.1991, ch. 38, pars. 12-6(a)(1), (a)(3)). The State nolprossed all charges except those for first degree murder. Defendant's mother, Sandra Major, his aunt, Danita Best, and his sister, Kerrie Major, were also charged with the murders. Sandra died of natural causes while awaiting trial. Danita pled guilty to first degree murder and agreed to testify against defendant in exchange for a sentence of natural life. Kerrie was found guilty after a bench trial and received a sentence of natural life.
At defendant's murder trial, his sister, Orvette Davis, testified that defendant telephoned her collect several times while he was incarcerated during the fall of 1991. In a September 1991 conversation, defendant asked her to "get rid of" Diandra and Renee because he did not want them to testify at his upcoming sexual assault trial. He did not want to "get the boot," meaning the electric chair. Defendant made the same request in October 1991, which Orvette understood as a request to kill Diandra and Renee. Orvette refused to help her brother. She told Danita Best about defendant's first request.
Danita Best testified that she was also charged with the murders of Diandra and Renee. She pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against defendant in exchange for a sentence of natural life. Danita had approximately 15 telephone conversations with defendant from August to November 1991. Danita accepted defendant's collect phone calls in Sandra Major's apartment, where Danita lived at the time. During their first conversation in August 1991, defendant told Danita that he wanted her to help Sandra "get rid of" Diandra and Renee so they could not testify against him. Danita understood this to mean that defendant wanted them killed. She told defendant that she could not help him because she was on parole after a conviction for voluntary manslaughter and theft. Defendant threatened that if she did not, the same thing that had happened to one of his girlfriends would happen to her. Danita thought he was referring to a woman named Cora whom defendant had beaten on the head with a hammer. Danita believed that she needed to do as she was told or something would happen to her. In the past, defendant had attempted to throw her out of a ninth-floor window. However, she testified that she did not decide to participate in the murders until the day they occurred. Defendant reiterated during their remaining conversations that Danita had to help Sandra get rid of Diandra and Renee because of the upcoming trial. Danita believed that defendant's requests were serious. Danita further testified that Diandra and Renee lived in an apartment below Sandra's. On November 22, 1991, the date of the murders, Sandra told Danita to get cocaine from her room, mix it with rat poison, and go to Renee's apartment and let her smoke the mixture. When Renee was "knocked out," they were going to kill her. Danita mixed the cocaine and poison; she then went to the store at Sandra's request to buy cigarettes, gin, and wine. Danita brought these items to Renee's apartment. Renee and her children, 13-year-old Matthew, 11-year-old Diandra, and 2-year-old Troy, were in the apartment. Later in the evening, Matthew left to go to a friend's house. Renee attempted to smoke the cocaine but it would not burn. Danita returned to her apartment where Sandra gave her more cocaine that was not laced with rat poison. Back in Renee's apartment, Danita and Renee began drinking and smoking the cocaine. In time, Sandra and Kerrie Major joined them.
When the cocaine ran out, Kerrie and Renee left the apartment to buy more. Once they left, at Sandra's instruction, Danita retrieved a knife from the kitchen, went to the couch where Diandra was sleeping, and stabbed her in the chest, neck, and upper face several times until she was dead. Sandra stood over Danita and told her to make sure that Diandra was dead. When Renee and Kerrie returned, Renee did not realize that Diandra was dead because her body had been covered with a blanket to make it appear as though she was still sleeping. Shortly thereafter, Sandra gestured to Danita that it was time to kill Renee. Sandra and Kerrie wrapped a cord from an iron around Renee's neck and began choking her. Danita started stabbing Renee in the upper part of her chest, and in her throat and face. Danita stated that she stabbed Renee "[t]hirty, forty, a lot of times." Renee pleaded with Sandra that she would not testify, but Sandra told her it was too late. Kerrie then broke a wine bottle over Renee's face and began stabbing her with it and with a screwdriver.
According to Danita, although Renee's youngest son, Troy, was in the apartment at the time of the murders, his life was spared because Sandra thought he was defendant's son and her grandson. After Renee was dead, Sandra told Kerrie and Danita to gather up the bottles, glass, and sheets. Sandra left the apartment and returned shortly with her husband, James Patterson. At some point, defendant's sister Cecelia joined them. Sandra told Cecelia to take the glass and knives to her apartment. The bodies were loaded into Patterson's car; then Sandra, Patterson, Danita, Kerrie, and Cecelia drove to an empty lot and discarded the bodies. They left Troy next to a garbage can in an alley near a hospital. On their way home, they stopped to buy gin and cigarettes.
Upon returning to her apartment, Sandra instructed her daughter Rosaline to take their clothes to the laundromat. The day after the murders, Sandra told Danita to stay at Patterson's house for a while because Matthew could place her at the crime scene on the day of the murders. Danita complied. About one week later, Danita flagged down a police officer on the street and told him that she had witnessed a murder. In her testimony, Danita acknowledged that she first lied to the police about her involvement in the murders but stated that she eventually confessed.
On cross-examination, Danita admitted that she made numerous false statements to the police regarding the events of November 22, 1991. In several statements, Danita told the police that she did not take part in the murders and fabricated several persons that were involved. Later, in a written statement, Danita admitted that she was involved in the crime but minimized her level of participation. Ultimately, she acknowledged to the police the extent of her involvement and implicated defendant for the first time in a court-reported statement. The defense attorney further elicited that Danita had been smoking cocaine for three days prior to the murders and that she believed her life depended on whether her testimony made "the prosecutors happy."
Eliza Warner, Renee's mother, testified that on the morning of November 23, 1991, she tried to telephone her daughter. When no one answered, she went to her daughter's apartment. She entered the apartment with her key and noticed that all the windows were open and the television was on but no one was home. In the back bedroom, she discovered blood on the floor, the walls, draperies, and clothing. She also found a bloody screwdriver. Eliza left the apartment and went to a neighbor's apartment to call the police.
Matthew Warner testified that on the evening of November 22, 1991, he left his mother's apartment around 10 p.m. to spend the night at a friend's house. Danita Best had been at the apartment on that day. The following morning, Matthew had been expecting a phone call from his mother to let him know when to return home. When she did not call, Matthew went home and learned that his mother and sister were missing.
Daniel Pierce testified that on the morning of November 23, 1991, he heard a car stop abruptly by the window of his apartment. The car door opened and he heard some rumbling near a garbage can outside the window. The car then sped away. Pierce heard whimpering and crying outside the window. He went outside and found a baby boy later identified as Troy Jones.
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