People v. Ramey

• Decision Date: 24 September 1992
• Docket Number: No. 69191,69191
• Citation: 177 Ill.Dec. 449,603 N.E.2d 519,151 Ill.2d 498
• Parties: , 177 Ill.Dec. 449 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Irving RAMEY, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 519

603 N.E.2d 519

151 Ill.2d 498, 177 Ill.Dec. 449

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Irving RAMEY, Appellant.

No. 69191.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Sept. 24, 1992.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 30, 1992.

Charles M. Schiedel, Deputy Defender, and Timothy M. Gabrielsen, Asst. Defender, Office of State Appellate Defender, Springfield, for appellant.

Roland W. Burris, Atty. Gen., Springfield, and Jack O'Malley, State's Atty., Chicago (Terence M. Madsen, Asst. Atty. Gen., Chicago, and Renee Goldfarb, Kevin Sweeney and James Veldman, Asst. State's Atty., of Counsel), for the People State of Ill.

Justice THOMAS J. MORAN delivered the opinion of the court:

The defendant, Irving Ramey, was indicted along with Joe Gant by a Cook County grand jury for, inter alia, the murder of Derrick Quincy Wilkinson. Defendant was tried separately and a jury found him guilty of murdering Wilkinson and of committing the following additional offenses: home invasion, aggravated unlawful restraint, and possession of a stolen motor vehicle. He was sentenced to death on the murder charge; to 60 years for home invasion, to 6 years for aggravated unlawful restraint, and to 7 years for possession of a stolen motor vehicle. The death sentence was stayed (134 Ill.2d R. 609(a)), pending direct review by this court (Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, § 4(b); 134 Ill.2d R. 603).

Defendant raises the following pretrial issues: (1) whether he was denied equal protection of the laws when the State exercised its peremptory challenges against African-American venirepersons; (2) whether the court erred when it did not require the State to articulate a reason for its challenge to an African-American venireperson; (3) whether he was denied effective assistance of counsel when his attorney failed to move for the dismissal of the charges because he was not tried within the statutory time limit (Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 38, par. 103-5); and (4) whether he was denied his Federal right to a speedy trial.

Defendant raises the following issues relative to the guilt phase of the trial: (1) whether the court erred in admitting evidence under the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule; (2) whether he was denied his constitutional rights when Gant's out-of-court testimony was admitted through the testimony of third persons; (3) whether he was denied a fair trial when the prosecutor asked leading questions of the State's key witness; (4) whether the State's remarks during closing argument denied him a fair trial; and (5) whether the court erred in giving the jury an instruction not found within the Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Criminal (2d ed. 1981) (hereinafter Defendant raises the following issues concerning the sentencing hearing: (1) whether the court improperly instructed the jury at the eligibility phase of the death penalty hearing and thus sentenced him in an arbitrary and capricious manner; (2) whether the court erroneously instructed the jury at the aggravation and mitigation phase of the hearing; (3) whether his death sentence should be vacated where the statutory aggravating factor was also an element of the home invasion offense; (4) whether the prosecutor's remarks during the aggravation and mitigation phase were in violation of Federal and State law; (5) whether unreliable aggravating evidence was admitted at the second stage of the hearing; and (6) whether his death sentence should be vacated because an alternate juror served in place of an original juror during the second phase of the death penalty hearing.

[177 Ill.Dec. 453] IPI Criminal 2d), relative to felony-murder.

Lastly, defendant challenges the constitutionality of the death penalty.

The State presented the following evidence at defendant's trial. Charles Roof, a Hazel Crest police officer, testified that he and his partner responded to a call at a townhouse building located at 2125 West 171st Street. When he arrived, he saw a woman yelling from an upstairs window. He entered the residence and proceeded to an upstairs bedroom where he saw a hysterical woman (Regina Dunn) handcuffed to a man (Derrick Quincy Wilkinson). He rolled the man over and "observed a large amount of blood from approximately his neck to his waist." The paramedics were called and they cut the chains that linked the two victims together.

Regina Dunn was called to the witness stand and her testimony was as follows: she lived at 2125 West 171st Street with her three children and her fiancee, Wilkinson; her fiancee operated a business in which he repaired and rented electronic equipment; on occasion, he would bring some of the equipment home; on July 31, 1986, she was awakened by someone who covered her face, put a sharp object to her neck, and threatened to kill her if she moved; she was unable to see who was in the room, but she thought there were at least two people in the bedroom because she remembered hearing two different voices; she was gagged, her feet were tied, and after hearing "metal rattling," she felt a brace placed around her wrist; the intruders left the bedroom and she heard them go downstairs; she then heard things being rolled out the front door; after she no longer heard noises from downstairs, she sat up and shook the pillow from her face; she noticed that Wilkinson was lying on his stomach and that his hands were cuffed behind his back; her hands were cuffed in front of her, but they were pulled to one side because her hands were linked to Wilkinson; she hollered from the window for help and, eventually, police and fire department personnel came to her aid; as she was taken to an ambulance, she noticed that the contents of her purse, as well as the contents of her fiancee's wallet, were strewn about the room; she also noticed that her car, a 1972 Chevrolet Nova, and her fiancee's automobile, a 1975 Blazer, were missing; after being released from the hospital, she noticed a number of electronic items at her home were also missing; she told the police that a scratched Teac cassette player and a General Electric video cassette recorder (VCR) were missing; and she knew Joseph Gant because when her girl friend Martha Travis and Travis' five children lived with her at the townhouse (from the fall of 1985 to the spring of 1986), Gant would visit one of Travis' daughters.

Dr. Eupil Choi conducted a postmortem examination of Wilkinson and found that he died as a result of a single stab wound to the chest.

Edward O'Brien, an evidence technician employed by the Hazel Crest police department, testified as follows: on August 1, 1986, he was assigned to work on the Wilkinson homicide and he traveled to the scene of the crime; while there, he found, at a distance of approximately 50 feet from Dunn's townhouse, a butcher knife lying in the street--the knife tested negative for Gerald Jackson, a Hazel Crest resident, testified as follows: he knew Gant and he saw defendant and Gant "together a lot"; he received a telephone call from Gant at about 10 p.m. on July 31, 1986; during this phone call, Gant told him that he wanted Jackson's handcuffs because he and the defendant were going to a disco and that they intended to wear the handcuffs on their belt and "mess around with them"; Jackson put two sets of handcuffs and two sets of keys in his mailbox; Gant was going to pick up the handcuffs sometime after their phone call; the following day, August 1, 1986, he looked in his mailbox and noticed that the handcuffs and keys were gone; and he identified the State's exhibits as his two handcuffs, but noted that the handcuffs were now cut apart.

[177 Ill.Dec. 454] blood stains and no suitable fingerprints were found on it; he recovered two pairs of handcuffs, one pair was taken from Dunn and the other pair was taken from Wilkinson; during the night of August 1, 1986, he went to Chicago and photographed a Chevrolet Nova that belonged to one of the victims; the car was located at the southeast corner of St. Louis and Ohio Streets; he retrieved a serrated steak knife from the floor of the car--the knife tested negative for blood stains and one print was found on it, but it did not compare with defendant's prints or anyone else believed to be connected to the case; and on August 7, 1986, he photographed the other vehicle that was reported missing from the Dunn residence, a Chevrolet Blazer.

Bartholomew Veal, a former high school classmate of the defendant, testified as follows: on July 29, 1986, Gant visited his house and stated that he and the defendant wanted to burglarize a house at 171st Street in Hazel Crest; Gant informed him that "VCRs, color t.v.s, stereo equipment, [and] all types of electronic equipment" were at this location; Veal told Gant that he did not want to get involved; on July 30, 1986, Gant returned to Veal's house, but this time he was accompanied by the defendant; they each asked Veal if they could use Veal's mother's gun and Veal answered no; defendant and Gant then told Veal that they planned to break into a residence on 171st Street wearing gloves and ski masks, and that they were going to handcuff and gag the occupants of the home; on August 1, 1986, he learned from a news report that someone was murdered at 171st in Hazel Crest; the following day he telephoned Gant and recognized defendant's voice as the party who answered the phone; Veal told defendant, " 'You guys did it' "--defendant then hung up the phone; defendant and Gant visited his house on August 3, 1986, and they brought a turntable and two VCRs with them; they asked Veal if he could "get rid of them"; Veal decided not to get involved and he then made a number of anonymous phone calls to the Hazel Crest police department in which he named Gant and the defendant as the perpetrators of the crime on 171st Street.

Gary Jones, a detective employed by the Hazel Crest police department, testified as follows: he was assigned to investigate a homicide at 2125 West 171st Street; Gant was named by Dunn as a...