People v. Robinson
| Docket Number | 1-19-2289 |
| Decision Date | 19 May 2021 |
| Citation | 2021 IL App (1st) 192289,197 N.E.3d 692,459 Ill.Dec. 38 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kevin ROBINSON, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Sara Garber, of Thedford Garber Law, of Chicago, for appellant.
Kimberly M. Foxx, State's Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, David H. Iskowich, and Retha Stotts, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.
¶ 1 Following a jury trial in 2012, defendant was found guilty of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated criminal sexual assault. The trial court sentenced defendant, who was 24 years old at the time of the offense, to a statutorily mandated term of natural life imprisonment for the aggravated criminal sexual assault conviction based on a prior conviction for criminal sexual assault and a concurrent term of 20 years’ imprisonment for the aggravated kidnapping conviction. In his first direct appeal, we reversed his conviction for aggravated kidnapping, affirmed the aggravated criminal sexual assault conviction, and remanded for resentencing. People v. Robinson , 2016 IL App (1st) 130484, ¶¶ 55, 57-58, 404 Ill.Dec. 324, 55 N.E.3d 798.
¶ 2 On remand, defendant argued before the trial court that his life sentence, mandated under the former section 12-14(d)(2) of the Criminal Code of 1961 ( 720 ILCS 5/12-14(d)(2) (West 2008) (recodified as 720 ILCS 5/11-1.30(d)(2) )), is unconstitutional as applied to him based on his mental illnesses as it violates his rights under the eighth amendment of the United States Constitution ( U.S. Const., amend. VIII ) and proportionate penalties clause of the Illinois Constitution ( Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 11 ). He developed a significant factual record in the trial court in support of his claim. The trial court rejected this claim and again sentenced him to natural life imprisonment.
¶ 3 On appeal, defendant raises the same constitutional issues. For the reasons that follow, we hold that defendant's mandatory life sentence does not violate the eighth amendment or the proportionate penalties clause because he was an adult at the time he committed the aggravated criminal sexual assault and he failed to show that the protections outlined in Miller v. Alabama , 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), should extend to him based on his mental illnesses. Also, despite the mandatory nature of the sentencing statute, the trial court nevertheless considered the relevant factors regarding defendant's upbringing, mental illnesses, culpability, future dangerousness, and rehabilitative potential before imposing the sentence. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
¶ 5 We previously set forth the facts from defendant's trial in Robinson , 2016 IL App (1st) 130484, 404 Ill.Dec. 324, 55 N.E.3d 798, and discuss them briefly here only to the extent necessary. The evidence showed that in September 2008, defendant met the 25-year-old female victim, B.H., who had developmental delays, for the first time at the mall through mutual friends. They exchanged phone numbers, and he later called the victim around midnight and invited her out to eat and to the movies. Once defendant and the victim were alone together on the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Red Line, he persuaded her to exit the train and enter a dark, boarded-up house at approximately 2 a.m. under the pretext that he and a friend wanted to buy the property and his friend wanted him to "go check this property out." Once inside the house, defendant pushed her against the wall and began kissing her. When she told him not to do this, he pushed her to the ground, slapped her, and told her to stop screaming. He then forcibly raped B.H. and made her clean herself off with her hand afterwards. He warned her not to tell anyone because he knew where she lived. Id. ¶¶ 4-10. Defendant later called, and she testified that he warned her, " ‘if I have told anybody or anything, he knows where I stay at and he will come get me.’ " Id. ¶ 12. As soon as B.H. was away from the defendant and on a bus back to her house, she called her mother and asked her to meet her at the bus station, where she informed her mother that she had been raped. They called 911, and she was taken to the hospital where a sexual evidence kit was obtained. There was a human male DNA profile identified from the rectum swabs of the victim that matched defendant's DNA profile. B.H. identified defendant in a photographic lineup the next day. Id. ¶¶ 11, 17-18.
¶ 6 At trial, the State also presented other acts evidence of a 2002 incident where defendant met a 16-year-old female, D.H., on a CTA train, engaged her in conversation, and got her phone number. Defendant later called around midnight and invited her to hang out at an "El" station where he was with a friend. After D.H. arrived and was alone with defendant in the sitting area of a bathroom inside the station, defendant asked his friend to lock the door from the outside. Defendant then forcibly raped D.H. He later told his friend that he " ‘did something bad to [his] friend.’ " Id. ¶ 19.
¶ 7 Following his convictions in the instant case, the trial court sentenced defendant to statutorily mandated natural life imprisonment for the aggravated criminal sexual assault conviction based upon his prior conviction for criminal sexual assault from May 2003 and a concurrent term of 20 years’ imprisonment for the aggravated kidnapping conviction. Id. ¶¶ 20-22.
¶ 8 In his first direct appeal, defendant argued that (1) there was insufficient evidence supporting his conviction of aggravated kidnapping and (2) the jury was given an erroneous instruction where the aggravated kidnapping instruction was predicated on a confinement theory but the charges in the indictment and the kidnapping instruction were predicated on an inducement theory. Id. ¶¶ 25, 37. This court found sufficient evidence to support his conviction of aggravated kidnapping. Id. ¶ 35. However, we found the jury was improperly instructed on aggravated kidnapping and that this established plain error requiring reversal under the second prong of the plain error test. Id. ¶ 55. We therefore reversed his conviction for aggravated kidnapping, affirmed his conviction for aggravated sexual assault (predicated on kidnapping, which the jury was properly instructed on), and remanded for resentencing. Id. ¶¶ 55, 57.
¶ 10 On remand, the trial court held a series of hearings for the parties to present argument and evidence pertinent to resentencing defendant for the aggravated criminal sexual assault conviction.
¶ 11 At a hearing on April 16, 2019, the State reiterated the facts presented at trial surrounding the aggravated criminal sexual assault in this case and the other-acts evidence. The State asserted that because defendant was previously convicted of criminal sexual assault, a sentence of natural life imprisonment must be imposed pursuant to the former section 12-14 (d)(2) of the Criminal Code of 1961 ( 720 ILCS 5/12-14(d)(2) (West 2008)).
¶ 12 Defense counsel argued that the sentencing statute (id. ) requiring a natural life sentence was unconstitutional as applied to defendant under the proportionate penalties clause of the Illinois Constitution ( Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 11 ) and the eighth amendment of the United States Constitution ( U.S. Const., amend. VIII ) based on the reasoning outlined in Miller , 567 U.S. at 479, 132 S.Ct. 2455 (), and People v. Coty , 2018 IL App (1st) 162383, 425 Ill.Dec. 47, 110 N.E.3d 1105 (), rev'd , 2020 IL 123972, 449 Ill.Dec. 220, 178 N.E.3d 1071,1 considering his life-long mental illnesses and difficult childhood.
¶ 13 In support, defense counsel presented defendant's records from the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), and presentence investigation report (PSI). Counsel asserted that defendant's records showed that defendant was born to a teenage mother who was at the time a ward of DCFS and who suffered from mental illnesses, that defendant was placed in foster care as an infant and experienced the deaths of three different foster mothers, and that defendant eventually lived in various group homes. Defendant reported experiencing physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in the foster homes. He also received in-patient treatment three different times at mental health facilities. Defense counsel argued that defendant exhibited serious behavioral and emotional problems at school, received special services, and dropped out after one year of high school. After that, he was receiving no treatment or support of any kind, and by the age of 18 he was arrested for the first criminal sexual assault. Counsel argued that the forensic report from 2003 indicated defendant was not taking any medications and had attempted suicide in jail, and he was found fit to stand trial with medication. He pleaded guilty and served six years in prison, being released in 2008. Counsel argued that following his release, he was not receiving any treatment or mandated to be on any medications, and then he was arrested for the instant case when he was 24 years old. Following his arrest, he was evaluated and placed on antipsychotic and antidepressant medications for bipolar disorder
and depression.
¶ 14 The trial court indicated that it wanted to see defendant's records from the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) records and continued the hearing until the records were provided.
¶ 15 We note that a secured record on appeal contains numerous documents provided by defendant in the trial court related to his claim that he suffered from life-long mental...
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