People v. Redd

• Citation: 173 Ill.2d 1,670 N.E.2d 583,218 Ill.Dec. 861
• Decision Date: 23 May 1996
• Docket Number: No. 76086,76086
• Parties: , 218 Ill.Dec. 861 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Frank REDD, Appellant.
• Court: Supreme Court of Illinois

Page 583

670 N.E.2d 583

173 Ill.2d 1, 218 Ill.Dec. 861

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Frank REDD, Appellant.

No. 76086.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 23, 1996.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 30, 1996.

Certiorari Denied Jan. 6, 1997.

See 117 S.Ct. 699.

Charles M. Schiedel, Deputy Defender, and John J. Hanlon, Assistant Defender, of the Office of the State Appellate Defender, Springfield, and Frank Redd, pro se, for appellant.

James Ryan, Attorney General, Springfield, and Jack O'Malley, State's Attorney, Chicago (Arleen C. Anderson, Assistant Attorney General, Chicago, and Renee Goldfarb and Linda Woloshin, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the court:

Following a jury trial in the circuit court of Cook County, the defendant, Frank Redd, was convicted of the murder and the rape of Aretha and Leola Bea. At a separate sentencing hearing, the same jury found the defendant eligible for the death penalty. The jury further determined that there were no mitigating circumstances sufficient to preclude imposition of that sentence. The judge sentenced defendant to death for the murders and to a term of 60 years' imprisonment for each of the rape convictions. The defendant's execution has been stayed pending direct review by this court. Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, § 4(b); 134 Ill.2d Rs. 603, 609(a). For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.

In 1985, at the close of defendant's first jury trial on the offenses charged here, he was convicted of two counts of murder and two counts of rape and sentenced to death. On direct appeal, this court reversed defendant's conviction and sentence and remanded the cause to the circuit court for a new trial and sentencing hearing. People v. Redd, 135 Ill.2d 252, 142 Ill.Dec. 802, 553 N.E.2d 316 (1990). On remand, the defendant waived his right to the assistance of counsel and Defendant's convictions stem from events that occurred in the early morning hours of March 4, 1984. Evidence at trial revealed that on March 3, 1984, Ruby Bea went shopping and left her three daughters, Aretha, age five, Leola, age three, and Robertrese, age two, in the care of defendant's mother, Earceaner Washington, at Mrs. Washington's apartment. When Ruby returned, defendant and several other acquaintances were present at Mrs. Washington's. Ruby stayed for awhile and visited. That evening, at Ruby's request, defendant accompanied Ruby and her three children to Ruby's apartment located at the rear of the third floor of 6712 South Halstead in Chicago.

[218 Ill.Dec. 866] proceeded pro se at both the trial and the capital sentencing hearing. Against defendant's wishes, a public defender was assigned to be present in the courtroom as standby counsel throughout both phases of defendant's trial.

Defendant was with Ruby in her apartment when later that evening all three children went to sleep in one bed, fully clothed. After the children were asleep, Ruby and defendant left the children and went downstairs to the second-floor apartment where defendant's sister, Gloria Stewart, and Ruby's brother-in-law, Leslie Bea, lived. When Ruby went downstairs, she did not lock her apartment door because she knew that the street-level entrance to the building was locked. In Gloria's apartment, everyone sat at the table talking, except defendant, who paced the floor. Defendant left briefly, but soon returned and began pacing again.

After defendant left a second time Ruby looked down the steps to see that the street-level entrance remained locked. She did not see defendant as she looked down the stairs. She assumed he had gone into one of the other apartments in the building because insufficient time had passed for someone to leave the building. Ruby was aware that defendant knew the occupant of the apartment across the hall from Gloria's.

After approximately one hour, defendant returned to Gloria's apartment and went directly to the bathroom. At trial, Leslie Bea testified that when defendant returned the second time he had dark red spots on his shirt and red spots on his hand. Defendant conversed with Gloria and Leslie in the bathroom and then left again.

Ruby remained with Gloria and Leslie, and then later returned to her third-floor apartment. When Ruby entered her apartment, she went to the bedroom. She believed she saw two of her daughters, but not Aretha, sleeping in the bed. As she looked for Aretha, Ruby saw blood on the kitchen floor by the back door. Ruby ran down to the second floor, seeking Gloria's help to find Aretha. After asking for help, but without finding Aretha, Ruby returned to her apartment. When she went back into the bedroom to check on Leola and Robertrese, Ruby discovered that Leola was dead.

Betty Gray, the occupant of the apartment opposite Ruby's apartment, looked out of her door at about 1:30 a.m. on March 4, 1984, and saw that the door to Ruby's apartment was open. Gray entered Ruby's apartment and heard Ruby crying. Percy Hamilton, another apartment occupant in the same building, was with Ruby. Gray ran back to her own apartment and telephoned the police. She then returned to Ruby's apartment, where she found Robertrese sitting unharmed at the end of the bed. Leola was under the covers, with her mouth open and a garment twisted around her neck. Hamilton moved Leola into the living room and attempted resuscitation. Gray unsuccessfully tried to remove the item from around the child's neck.

Police arrived at Ruby's apartment at approximately 2 a.m. on March 4, 1984. When they entered they saw Leola's body on a small couch. The child was naked from the waist down, had a cloth wrapped around her throat and had blood coming from her vaginal area. In the dining room police found a child's shoe, a pair of panties, a pair of small jeans and blood on a piece of furniture. In the kitchen, the back door was ajar about 12 inches and had a nonworking refrigerator lodged against it. Ruby testified that the door was ordinarily secured shut with nails with the refrigerator pushed against the door. A pane of glass was broken out of the A police officer walked out the back door, and from the third-floor landing saw Aretha's body lying in the back yard. The child was naked from the waist down and had a cloth wrapped around her throat. About 10 feet from the body was a pair of panties. Other than the footprints the police officer made when he approached the body, no other footprints were found within a 10-foot radius around the body.

[218 Ill.Dec. 867] same door and glass was scattered on the kitchen floor.

Lydia Booth testified that in March of 1984, she lived next door to defendant's mother's apartment in a building approximately five blocks from where Ruby and her family lived. At approximately 12:30 or 1 a.m. on March 4, 1984, Booth was standing on the landing, near the entrances to her and defendant's mother's apartment. As Booth saw defendant come up the stairs, she noticed he was wearing blue jeans with blood on them. Booth asked defendant what had happened and defendant replied that he had fallen. He then went into his mother's apartment. Defendant left approximately 20 minutes later. He wore a different pair of pants and he carried a bag. Booth asked defendant why he had changed his clothes, but defendant did not answer. Booth then asked defendant if he was going to the lounge where his brother worked. Defendant replied that he was going to the lounge but "he had to make a run first."

Several witnesses, including people from the apartment building, defendant, and his mother, were questioned at police headquarters on the morning of March 4, 1984. When police first interviewed defendant, he admitted he had been with Ruby Bea on March 3, but stated that he went home after partying for awhile.

After their initial interview with defendant at the police station, police went to defendant's mother's home and recovered a jacket, a sweater with a wet front and a pair of undershorts they found hanging in the bathroom with the sweater. The sweater and jacket matched the description of the clothing defendant was seen wearing at the victims' apartment building on the evening of the offenses. After police recovered the clothing, they gave defendant Miranda warnings. Defendant then gave police an account of his activities on the evening of March 3 that differed from his original story, but he continued to deny any involvement in the offenses.

Late in the evening of March 4, police recovered a pair of bloody blue jeans from the dumpster in the alley behind the lounge where defendant's brother worked. Police again advised defendant of his rights, confronted him with the evidence and the witnesses' statements. Defendant denied any involvement, but then stated that he remembered being alone with the three children and that one was dead on the couch, but that was all that he could recall.

At approximately 9:30 p.m. that day, defendant confessed to having had intercourse with the victims and then strangling them. Defendant wrote a statement in his own hand that was witnessed and initialed by two assistant State's Attorneys. Defendant also told police that he wore blue jeans during the offenses, and identified the blue jeans that police recovered from the dumpster as the same pants he wore on the night of the murders.

The autopsy performed on Leola revealed 11 instances of external injury, including a ligature impression and abrasions on the neck, abrasions on the chest, and abrasions on the forehead. An internal exam of Leola revealed she had an extensive laceration or tear of the posterior wall of the vagina extending to the border with the rectum. All injuries were recent, and the doctor who performed the autopsy determined that Leola was alive at the time she sustained the injury to her vaginal wall. The doctor also concluded that the cause of Leola's death was strangulation.

The autopsy of...