People v. Rakin

• Citation: 2022 IL App (2d) 200712 U
• Decision Date: 23 November 2022
• Docket Number: 2-20-0712
• Parties: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Petitioner-Appellee, v. FARID S. RAKIN, Respondent-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

2022 IL App (2d) 200712-U

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Petitioner-Appellee,
v.
FARID S. RAKIN, Respondent-Appellant.

No. 2-20-0712

Court of Appeals of Illinois, Second District

November 23, 2022

This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23(b) and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Lake County. No. 17-CF-1574 Honorable Patricia S. Fix, Judge, Presiding.

JUSTICE SCHOSTOK delivered the judgment of the court. Justices Hutchinson and Birkett concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

SCHOSTOK, JUSTICE

¶ 1 Held: Trial court did not commit reversible error in denying suppression of defendant's statement, questioning jurors during voir dire, or admitting certain lay opinion evidence, but defendant must be resentenced.

¶ 2 A jury found the defendant, Farid Rakin, guilty of the first degree murder of Ciera Davis after he fired seven shots toward her car, striking her in the head and chest and killing her. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison. He appeals, arguing that his confession was involuntary, improper voir dire amounted to plain error, the trial court should not have admitted a witness's opinion about

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the victim's intentions, and the trial court improperly relied on elements of the offense to increase his sentence. We affirm Rakin's conviction, vacate his sentence, and remand for resentencing.

¶ 3 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 4 On the night of June 4, 2017, Rakin helped organize a birthday party at 1632 11^th Street in Waukegan that extended into the early morning hours of June 5. Davis attended. She had long been friends with Rakin, but recently Rakin had started and then ended a brief sexual relationship with her. Also present was Rakin's girlfriend, Nicole Maise, with whom Rakin had recently reunited. Davis and Maise got into a fight. People at the party forced Davis to leave. Once outside, Davis hit Rakin's car with a stick, poured gasoline on it, and then began to ram his car with her own. While in her car, Davis was shot twice. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

¶ 5 The police arrived on the scene within an hour after the shooting. The police found Davis's car in the street, in neutral with the engine running. The car was positioned diagonally, near the entrance to a common driveway that led to the party house and the house to the north of it. The front wheels of the car were turned roughly parallel to the street. The driver's side door was open but no one was inside. There was blood on the driver's seat. There were bullet holes in the front passenger side window and door. The front windshield was intact.

¶ 6 During their investigation, the police recovered a gun later found to have fired the bullets that struck and killed Davis. There were no fingerprints or DNA on the gun. One of the partygoers identified Maise as the shooter, and Maise was initially charged with the murder of Davis. Waukegan police detective Charles Schletz and his partner spoke with Maise, who denied shooting Davis, and the charges against her were dismissed. Another witness to the shooting identified

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Rakin as the shooter and said Rakin's son, Trevor Smith, had handed him the gun used in the shooting. A warrant for Rakin's arrest was issued.

¶ 7 On August 22, 2017, officers learned that Rakin was at a motel in Racine, Wisconsin, and they executed the warrant. When Rakin was arrested, Maise was with him, and the police found illegal drugs in the motel room. Both Rakin and Maise were taken to the Racine police station.

¶ 8 Rakin was interviewed by Schletz and his partner, who videorecorded the questioning. The interview began at 12:20 p.m. and lasted for about one hour and 50 minutes. Schletz read the Miranda warnings and Rakin indicated that he understood each of his rights. The tone of the interview was conversational throughout. Schletz frequently exhorted Rakin to say what had happened but did not yell or verbally abuse Rakin.

¶ 9 Schletz began to talk about Davis. Rakin asked why the police had arrested Maise. Schletz started to explain why Maise had been charged earlier with Davis's shooting, but Rakin clarified that he meant what had happened "today." Schletz said Maise was being detained "for safety" and explained that, while the Racine police were concerned with the drugs found at the motel, he and his partner were interested in "what happened in Waukegan." Rakin again asked about Maise and whether she was in custody; Schletz said she was there for questioning but had not been charged. Rakin said Maise was not involved with the drugs found at the motel.

¶ 10 Schletz continued speaking about Davis's shooting. He spoke at length, telling Rakin that the police knew from witnesses what had happened, that he saw Rakin as a respected person and someone who felt bad about Davis's death, and that it was clear that Davis had been "out of control." Asked what happened, Rakin recounted his relationships with Davis and Maise and their fight at the party. Schletz noted that Maise was identified by one person as the shooter. Rakin said she was not involved and had been inside the house when Davis was shot. Schletz described

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Maise crying during her earlier interview and saying Rakin would do right by her and would not hurt her. Rakin continued describing the events of that night. After Davis had been forced to leave the party, people called him outside, telling him that Davis was pouring gasoline on his car. (Rakin's Dodge was parked in a common driveway near the house next door.) Rakin said that he saw Davis pouring the gasoline but did not care as he had insurance. He went back inside, but he was again called outside when Davis began ramming his car with her car, an Oldsmobile Bravada.

¶ 11 After seeing Davis ram his car, Rakin tried to open the front passenger side door of the Bravada but it was locked. Davis then backed up and drove forward to ram Rakin's car again, hitting Rakin's knee as he moved out of the way. Rakin said that his leg was injured and that he still could not stand for more than five seconds. However, he did not complain of any pain during the interview.

¶ 12 Schletz asked Rakin if he thought Davis was trying to run him over. Rakin said no. Although Davis had struck him with her car, she was not trying to hit him. She was trying to smash his car. He asserted that "she didn't try to run me over and I didn't think she was going to try to run me over." He denied shooting at Davis. Asked whether, when she was shot, Davis had been trying to leave or trying to hit him, Rakin repeated that she was not trying to hit him. She was just enraged.

¶ 13 Schletz told Rakin that the police had found the gun used to shoot Davis, Rakin's fingerprints were on it, and there was video of Rakin going to the area where the gun was found. Schletz suggested that the shooting of Davis could be seen as a sad but understandable accident that occurred because she was out of control. Schletz again mentioned Maise's earlier arrest for the shooting and her identification by one person as the shooter, saying that they needed the defendant's account and that, although the warrant had been quashed, the charges against Maise

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had not been dropped while the investigation was continuing. Over the next 40 minutes or so, Schletz repeated these themes-the strength of the evidence against Rakin, including eyewitnesses' statements and the gun that supposedly bore Rakin's fingerprints; Schletz's opinion that Rakin was not a cold-blooded killer but someone who cared about and protected those around him; and the argument that if Rakin admitted that he shot Davis, it would protect people Rakin cared about (Maise and Rakin's son) from prosecution. Rakin continued refusing to answer questions about the shooting itself.

¶ 14 About an hour after the interview started, Schletz noted that, while Rakin was 49 years old, the women he was involved with were much younger and thus were more unfortunate: Davis "only got" 25 years to live before she was killed, and Maise was just 27, had a young child, and was "crying her eyeballs out" over facing possible jail time for the drugs in the motel room and Davis's murder. Rakin repeated that Maise had "nothing to do with" any of it and offered to sign a statement taking responsibility for the drugs found at the motel. However, he did not respond to Schletz prodding him to confess to the shooting.

¶ 15 Schletz told Rakin that what Rakin said would affect the charges that he would eventually face, commenting that "Not everybody that kills somebody *** is charged with the same thing or gets charged." Rakin received this skeptically, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded, and said the police would not believe his story. Schletz said he could believe "almost anything" based on the position of Davis's car in the street. Yawning prodigiously, Rakin began to describe the events preceding Davis's shooting again, emphasizing that Maise was not outside at the time and was not involved, saying that the last thing he wanted was for anything to happen to his girl. But, yawning more, he declined to talk about the shooting itself, saying he just did not want to go into it. Rakin also rejected Schletz's suggestion that he could reduce the charges brought against him

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by giving a statement admitting to shooting Davis. He noted that, with a weapon involved, he would spend the rest of his life in jail even on lesser charges. Schletz continued to suggest that the charges against Rakin could be reduced, depending on what he told them, and might be only second degree murder or aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. Not getting a response, Schletz dropped this tack and began to emphasize that he and his partner would be "straight" with Rakin and Maise, just as they were when they went to the State's attorney earlier about dropping the charges against Maise. When Schletz...