People v. O'Neal
| Decision Date | 30 July 2021 |
| Docket Number | 4-20-0014 |
| Citation | 2021 IL App (4th) 200014,192 N.E.3d 724,455 Ill.Dec. 895 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ryan H.J. O'NEAL, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
James E. Chadd, Catherine K. Hart, and Salome Kiwara-Wilson, of State Appellate Defender's Office, of Springfield, for appellant.
Scott Rueter, State's Attorney, of Decatur (Patrick Delfino, David J. Robinson, and Luke McNeill, of State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor's Office, of counsel), for the People.
¶ 1 In August 2019, following a bench trial, the court found defendant, Ryan H.J. O'Neal, guilty of one count of first degree murder (felony murder while armed with a firearm) ( 720 ILCS 5/9-1(a)(3) (West 2014); 730 ILCS 5/5-8-1(a)(1)(d)(i) (West 2014)) and two counts of armed robbery with a firearm ( 720 ILCS 5/18-2(a)(2) (West 2014)). The trial court sentenced defendant to 24 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) followed by 3 years’ mandatory supervised release (MSR).
¶ 2 In this appeal, defendant raises three issues relating to his conviction and sentence: (1) the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion to suppress his statements to police because he did not knowingly and intelligently waive his Miranda rights (see Miranda v. Arizona , 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) ) and his statements were involuntary, (2) the Illinois felony murder statute is unconstitutional as applied to him because he was a juvenile when he committed his crimes, and (3) the trial court erred by sentencing defendant to 24 years in DOC while his more culpable codefendant received a 20-year sentence. We disagree and affirm the trial court's judgment.
¶ 4 Cesley Taylor and her fiancée, Britney Wilson, spent Labor Day 2015 at the beach in Shelbyville with Britney's family. As they returned to their Decatur apartment that evening, they spotted defendant exiting a vehicle near the apartment complex entrance. The women picked up defendant and drove him to their apartment because Cesley had made plans to shoot dice with him and Daiquan Cline. The three entered the small, one-bedroom apartment, and Britney went to lie down in the bedroom while Cesley and defendant began shooting dice. What the women did not know, however, was that defendant, Cline, and two others planned to rob the dice game, believing Cesley had on hand $2000. According to their plan, defendant texted Cline to tell him when Britney went to the bedroom and he and Cesley were alone. Minutes later, Cline and his cohorts knocked on the door. When Cesley asked who it was, Cline announced himself. She opened the door to let him in but was confused to see others with him and asked "what was going on." Just then the two other masked men—Darion Evans and Shaitan Cook Jr.—entered the apartment, pulled out guns, and demanded money from Cesley. As part of the plan and ruse that defendant was an unknowing victim to an unsuspected robbery, he asked the men why they were doing this and handed over his money. When Cesley initially said she did not have money, Cook went to the bedroom and demanded money from Britney. Eventually Evans grabbed money from Cesley's hand and forced her to the bedroom as he and Cook held the women at gunpoint, still demanding more money. Defendant and Cline, meanwhile, gathered Cesley's shoes, her iPhone and charger, a small purse, and some cash. Upon hearing multiple gunshots, defendant and Cline ran out of the apartment, followed quickly by Evans and Cook.
¶ 5 The men ran to Cline's car parked nearby and drove around. They stopped three times, once to switch drivers, once to throw Cesley's iPhone into a pond, and once to divide their spoils. While at a park, the men divvied up the money (approximately $40 in one-dollar bills) and disposed of the small purse and its contents, including Cesley's ID. Then the men dispersed and went to their respective homes.
¶ 6 Meanwhile, Britney staggered from the bedroom, trailing blood along the way, looking for the cell phone she shared with Cesley. When she could not find it, she banged on a neighbor's door for help. When police arrived, they found Britney on the ground outside the apartment. She appeared "[v]ery sick[,] [s]he was throwing up, and she also had a lot of blood on her." The police followed the blood trail into the apartment looking for other victims. They found Cesley in the bedroom. She was unresponsive, not breathing, and later pronounced dead at the scene. Britney was taken to Decatur Memorial Hospital and then Carle Foundation Hospital for treatment of multiple gunshot wounds.
¶ 7 The next morning, September 8, 2015, per a request from law enforcement, the resource officer at Decatur Eisenhower High School removed defendant from his classroom and transported him to the Decatur Police Department for questioning. Police had learned from Britney that defendant was shooting dice with Cesley in the women's apartment before the robbery. The officer handed defendant over to Detective Ronald Borowczyk, who was acting as defendant's designated juvenile officer (DJO), at approximately 10:45 a.m. Defendant's interactions with Borowczyk and other law enforcement personnel were video recorded. The recording begins with Borowczyk getting defendant's address and phone number and asking who he can contact for defendant. Defendant says Borowczyk can contact his mother, Rotasha Ridley. Borowczyk left the room and returned about five minutes later with Detective Brian Kaylor. Borowczyk identified Kaylor as a detective with the Decatur police, and defendant nodded affirmatively like he understood. Kaylor, with Borowczyk sitting in the room observing defendant, read defendant his Miranda rights from the form titled "Custodial Interview Advice Juvenile." Kaylor told defendant he could read along and confirmed defendant could read. The video shows Kaylor turned the paper around so defendant could follow along, and it appeared defendant did read along. After Kaylor read a right or group of rights, he stopped and asked defendant some variation of the question "does that make sense" or "do you understand," and each time defendant affirmed he understood what was read to him. When Kaylor asked defendant to initial and sign the form, defendant asked where he should put his initials. Kaylor explained again that by initialing defendant was confirming the rights were read to him and by him and he understood those rights. Defendant then initialed next to each advisement and signed the rights form.
¶ 8 Once he did so, Borowczyk said to defendant, while maintaining eye contact with him: "If you have any questions or anything like that while, uh, Detective Kaylor is talking to you, just let him know and he can come get me, okay?" Still looking at Borowczyk, defendant nodded affirmatively, indicating he understood. Borowczyk then left the room as Kaylor began asking defendant about his cell phone number.
¶ 9 Kaylor began the interrogation by informing defendant his name came up in the Cesley Taylor investigation and said: "Let me just explain this to you, your honesty can take you real far here, okay?" Defendant said he would be honest, and Kaylor allowed him to tell him what happened the night before. Over the next 20 minutes or so, defendant told multiple versions of what happened in Cesley and Britney's apartment. His stories varied from denying being at the apartment, to denying knowing who entered the apartment, to naming everyone who came in, and to knowing Cline and the others came to rob the dice game.
¶ 10 During this time, Kaylor often stopped defendant to ask for clarification or for more detail, and then he usually had defendant start again from the beginning. He confronted defendant when he believed defendant was being dishonest or hiding something. Kaylor employed various interrogation tactics during the interview: he implored defendant to be honest, he said he would leave the interrogation if defendant kept lying, he told defendant this was his one chance to be honest and explain himself, he reminded defendant that his "good friend" was dead, he reminded defendant that Britney survived and was talking to police, he said the police knew more than defendant thought they knew, he asked defendant if he wanted to go home or go to jail, he told defendant that talking with police made him "a witness" and not "a rat," and he encouraged defendant "to be brave" and "put on some big-boy pants." Kaylor eventually told defendant he would have "to ask yourself, how involved do you want to be, *** do you want to be a witness, or do you want to be a defendant?" When defendant clarified, "by defendant you mean I was part of it, like I was?" Kaylor interrupted, As Kaylor asked defendant more questions, defendant slowly divulged more information. The two kept talking until Borowczyk knocked on the door, entered, and said:
The interrogation continued, and defendant eventually admitted he knew Cline and others intended to come to the apartment to rob the dice game, but he did not know they were going to kill Cesley. Once he admitted this, defendant said: "Oh my god, *** I'm fitt'n [sic ] to go to jail." Kaylor assured defendant he was "doing the right thing." To which defendant responded, "No I'm not, cuz [sic ] y'all going to take me to jail regardless." As Kaylor explained what he would have defendant do next (look at pictures of suspects and look at a diagram of the apartment to show where people were)...
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