People v. Nelson
| Decision Date | 31 March 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 1-15-1960,1-15-1960 |
| Citation | 2020 IL App (1st) 151960,161 N.E.3d 991,443 Ill.Dec. 339 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gerald NELSON, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
James E. Chadd, Patricia Mysza, and S. Emily Hartman, of State Appellate Defender's Office, of Chicago, for appellant.
Kimberly M. Foxx, State's Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg and Marci Jacobs, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.
¶ 1 In January 2001, seven-month-old Gerelle Nelson suffered a catastrophic neurological collapse. The attending pediatricians concluded that he must have been violently shaken by the caregiver who was with him at the onset of his symptoms. Confronted with this classic diagnosis of "shaken baby syndrome" (the forerunner of "abusive head trauma"), Gerelle's father, defendant Gerald Nelson, confessed that he shook Gerelle—not in malice but in frustration—when Gerelle would not stop crying.
¶ 2 Defendant pleaded guilty to aggravated battery of a child. As the charge implies, Gerelle had survived the trauma. But his injuries and resulting motor deficits were profound and largely irreversible. Gerelle suffered from spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy.
¶ 3 In April 2006—more than five years after he sustained his injuries, and while defendant was in prison—Gerelle was found face-down in a pillow. He had suffocated to death. As for how Gerelle wound up in these fateful circumstances, an event no witness claimed to see, the State took the position that he must have rolled over while sleeping.
¶ 4 The State charged defendant with Gerelle's murder. On the issue of causation, the State's theory was that defendant's conduct over five years earlier of shaking the baby caused the injuries that left Gerelle unable to lift his head from the pillow and thus vulnerable to suffocation, in what would have been fairly benign circumstances for a normally developed near-six-year-old child. In this way, defendant's conduct was a contributing cause of Gerelle's death.
¶ 5 A key defense argument at trial was that the State's own evidence gave rise to a question of supervening causation. Specifically, the State's theory of how Gerelle wound up in this compromised position—he rolled over in his sleep—was contradicted by his mother's testimony that he was unable to roll over (or walk, or crawl, or sit up) on his own. Thus, the State now had to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that no supervening cause was responsible for Gerelle's tragic death. And the State failed to carry that burden. Or so the defense argued.
¶ 6 On appeal, defendant argues (among other things) that the trial court misunderstood the law of supervening causation. We agree. In our view, what the trial court failed to grasp was precisely the point that defense counsel tried to hammer home during closing argument: That it was the State's burden to prove the absence of a supervening cause of death beyond a reasonable doubt. Our review of the record convinces us that this error was not harmless. We reverse and remand for a new trial.
¶ 9 In late January 2001, Gerelle Nelson was a seemingly healthy seven-month-old baby. He lived in Sauk Village with his father, defendant Gerald Nelson; his mother, Belinda Michelle Nelson (following the parties' general practice in the trial court, we will call her Michelle); and his half-sister, Brianna Simpson, Michelle's daughter from a past relationship. Michelle worked day shifts, and defendant worked night shifts. They divided responsibility for Gerelle's care accordingly, leaving him in the care of six-year-old Brianna, for a time, when Michelle would have to leave for work in the morning before defendant returned home.
¶ 10 Such were the circumstances on the morning of January 29, 2001. Michelle left for work around 6:30 a.m. Gerelle was asleep in his crib. Defendant came home from work about an hour later, took Brianna to school, shoveled the driveway, and went inside to change Gerelle's diaper. Around 9:30 a.m., he called 911 to report that Gerelle was not breathing. The first responders found defendant holding a listless Gerelle in his arms. They revived Gerelle with cardiopulmonary resuscitation and took him to St. Margaret Mercy Hospital in Indiana.
¶ 11 Defendant initially told the police, in sum, that he woke Gerelle and put him down on the floor to change his diaper. The phone rang, and defendant left Gerelle's room to answer it. In the kitchen, defendant decided not to take the call after all; instead, he prepared a bottle and a bowl of baby cereal for Gerelle. But all the while, Gerelle had been crying, so defendant went back to check on him. He found Gerelle with a plastic bag over his face. Defendant had put that bag on the floor, alongside the other supplies for changing Gerelle, to use as a receptacle for the dirty diaper. Defendant took the bag off Gerelle's face and saw that he was not breathing. Defendant tried to revive him for about 15 minutes, to no avail, and then called 911.
¶ 12 While Gerelle was being treated in the hospital, the police investigated the scene. On the floor in Gerelle's room, they found a fresh diaper and clothing, wipes and baby powder, and a plastic bag with "some kind of substance spot" on it that looked like saliva. (There is no evidence that the substance was ever tested.) In the kitchen, they found a prepared bottle of formula and a cup of baby cereal. The caller identification showed that the last incoming call was received at 9:21 a.m. Defendant's 911 call was received at 9:37 a.m., 16 minutes later.
¶ 13 Dr. Troy Shaffer, an emergency physician at St. Margaret Mercy Hospital, treated Gerelle for hypoxia and acute respiratory failure. This diagnosis was based on the history conveyed by defendant and on Gerelle's presenting symptoms—minimal spontaneous respirations and a need for mechanical ventilation, unreactive pupils, and a lack of purposeful movements. In short, he was unresponsive but with no external signs of trauma. Of particular concern, however, was his decerebrate posturing, meaning that his muscles were locked in a position that could indicate a severe brain injury. Dr. Shaffer recognized that Gerelle would need a higher level of care than a local hospital could provide. When Gerelle was stabilized—that is, in critical condition but likely to survive transport—he was taken by ambulance to Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
¶ 14 There, Gerelle was examined and treated by an interdisciplinary team of physicians, led by Dr. Amy Goldberg, a fellow in child abuse pediatrics working under the supervision of Dr. Emily Flaherty. Between January 29 and February 1, 2001, the team performed a battery of neurological, ophthalmic, radiological, and other tests on Gerelle. Many of the salient findings were presented at defendant's trial, in extensive, often technical, and sometimes contested expert testimony. Suffice it to say, for our purposes here, that those findings included a parietal fracture in Gerelle's skull, a subdural hematoma, and bilateral cerebral and retinal hemorrhaging.
¶ 15 These injuries, Dr. Goldberg and the other treating physicians believed, could not be explained by a hypoxic event like suffocating on a plastic bag. After considering and ruling out several differential diagnoses, they concluded that Gerelle had "shaken baby syndrome," the prevailing diagnosis of exclusion at the time.
¶ 16 On February 1, 2001, Dr. Goldberg told Detective Cates that Gerelle's injuries were the result of being shaken. Detective Cates confronted defendant about Gerelle's skull fracture and retinal hemorrhaging. Defendant held fast to his account of events. He denied that he shook Gerelle and insisted that he would never intentionally hurt his son. But he could not explain how Gerelle's skull was fractured. Defendant was taken into custody. Later that day, he agreed to give a written statement.
¶ 17 Defendant said in his statement that Gerelle would not stop crying. While changing his diaper, defendant lifted him by the arms and shook him back and forth for 30 seconds. Gerelle's eyes rolled back in his head, and he stopped breathing. Defendant tried at first to resuscitate Gerelle and then called 911 after his efforts were unsuccessful. He never meant to hurt Gerelle and was sorry for shaking him so hard. Defendant also said that he lied about finding a plastic bag over Gerelle's face because he was scared.
¶ 18 More than four years later, on August 15, 2005, defendant pleaded guilty to aggravated battery of a child. The stipulated factual basis of the plea, which was admitted into evidence at defendant's murder trial, stated that defendant
¶ 19 While the aggravated battery case was pending, the judge concluded that he "didn't see [defendant] as a threat" and thus allowed him supervised visitation with Gerelle and Michelle. This ongoing "family structure" and other substantial mitigating factors convinced the judge to impose the minimum prison sentence of six years.
¶ 21 Meanwhile, Gerelle had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a result of his injuries. In mid-February 2001, he was discharged from Children's Memorial Hospital into the care of Dr. Charles Sisung at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. After Gerelle returned home with his mother, Dr. Sisung continued to provide outpatient therapy to Gerelle.
¶ 22 In his stipulated testimony, Dr. Sisung stated that Gerelle suffered from quadriplegia, muscle spasticity and contracture, seizures, and very limited motor control and cognitive function. Dr. Sisung last saw Gerelle in March 2006. He was at his "most improved state" at that time, but he still "lacked significant...
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...for which a defendant is charged. People v. Lucas , 231 Ill. 2d 169, 178, 325 Ill.Dec. 239, 897 N.E.2d 778 (2008) ; People v. Nelson , 2020 IL App (1st) 151960, ¶ 48, 443 Ill.Dec. 339, 161 N.E.3d 991. The trier of fact need not "disregard inferences that flow normally from the evidence befo......