People v. Robinson

• Decision Date: 30 April 2009
• Docket Number: No. 2-07-0088.,2-07-0088.
• Citation: 391 Ill. App. 3d 822,909 N.E.2d 232
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Curtis T. ROBINSON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

909 N.E.2d 232

391 Ill. App. 3d 822

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Curtis T. ROBINSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 2-07-0088.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District.

April 30, 2009.

Rehearing Denied July 1, 2009.

Thomas A. Lilien, Deputy Defender, Yasemin Eken (both Court-appointed), Office of the State Appellate Defender, Elgin, for Curtis T. Robinson.

John H. Vogt, Stephenson County State's Attorney, Freeport, Lawrence M. Bauer, Deputy Director, Cynthia N. Schneider, State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor, Elgin, for the People.

Justice BOWMAN delivered the opinion of the court:

Following a jury trial, defendant, Curtis T. Robinson, was convicted of unlawful possession with intent to deliver more than 100 grams but less than 400 grams of cocaine (720 ILCS 570/401(a)(2)(B) (West 2004)) and sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment. On appeal, defendant argues that: (1) the trial court erred in denying his motions to quash his arrest and suppress evidence; (2) the trial court improperly admitted hearsay testimony, irrelevant evidence about controlled drug buys, and other-crimes evidence; (3) the State made improper comments in its rebuttal closing argument; (4) during sentencing, the trial court improperly considered in aggravation factors inherent in the offense; and (5) he is entitled to monetary credit against his fines for time he served in jail before sentencing. We affirm as modified.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Motions to Suppress

Defendant was charged by complaint on April 19, 2004, three days after the incident. A hearing on defendant's various motions to quash his arrest and suppress evidence took place on September 12, 2006. Officer Matthew Summers of the Freeport police department testified as follows. On April 16, 2004, around noon, he received an anonymous call on his cell phone. The informant said that defendant frequently made trips to Rockford to pick up cocaine to bring back to Freeport and that defendant was planning to do so that day. The caller said that defendant would be riding in a maroon Cadillac driven by a black female with a first name similar to Lashanda. The caller did not know the driver's last name but knew that she had a twin sister. The caller said that Summers could find defendant and the Cadillac on the 300 block of East Pleasant, where defendant lived. Summers then met with the caller in person, though he still did not know who she was. She repeated basically the same information that she had told him over the phone. Summers agreed that he did not mention the face-to-face meeting in his police report.

After the meeting, sometime before 1 p.m., Summers drove to the 300 block of East Pleasant. He saw defendant in front of an apartment building, and a maroon Cadillac was parked on the street. Summers ran the Cadillac's license plate, and it came back as a 1986 Chevrolet registered to Lathecia Walker. Summers arranged to have a "loose surveillance" of the vehicle, whereby officers were positioned to see if the car left Freeport "in a manner that was explained to us."

Summers received a second call from the informant saying that defendant was leaving the area in the Cadillac. Summers returned to Pleasant Street and saw the Cadillac pulling away. He followed it until it turned onto Route 20 and began driving east toward Rockford. Summers then called Sergeant Mark Marti and told him that he would need someone to help stop the Cadillac if it returned to Freeport.

At about 11:15 p.m., Summers saw the Cadillac returning to Freeport on Route 20. He began following it back to Freeport and contacted Marti. Marti stopped the vehicle on Route 20, near Hollywood Road, based on the improper registration. There were no streetlights or sidewalks in the area.

When Summers arrived at the scene, Marti and auxiliary officer Klinefelter were present. The owner and driver of the vehicle was identified as Lathecia Walker. Defendant was in the front passenger seat. Marti asked Walker to step to the rear of the Cadillac and advised her that she would be receiving a traffic citation for improper registration. Summers told her that she was free to leave but that the car would have to remain at the scene for further investigation. He also told Walker that she could wait in the back of the squad car while he conducted the investigation, and she agreed. Summers again informed Walker that she was not under arrest. He said that he would leave the back door of the squad car open so that it would not lock.

Summers then took defendant out of the Cadillac and searched him for officer safety. Summers next told him that he was free to leave but that the vehicle had to remain at the scene. He did not direct defendant where to go other than to just stand away from the vehicle. Summers told defendant that he was going to get a search warrant for the car because he had reason to believe that defendant was transporting drugs from Freeport to Rockford. Summers asked defendant if there were any drugs in the car, and defendant said no. Summers then told him that he thought there were enough drugs in the car to send his girlfriend to prison for a long time and that if defendant were honest about what was in the car, he may be able to help his girlfriend out. Defendant then asked if he could call Summers the next day because he did not want to see Walker go to prison. Summers asked for and obtained consent to search defendant's person for drugs.

Summers then went over to Walker and asked if she would consent to have the officers search her car. Walker agreed, and Summers informed defendant. Defendant then began to yell at Walker not to allow the officers to search the car. Summers opened the driver's-side door, and at that point Marti advised him that he believed that Walker had revoked her consent to the vehicle search. Summers decided it was best to tow the vehicle and get a search warrant.

While waiting for the tow truck, Summers walked past defendant and defendant said, "`Can I ask you something?'" Summers told defendant again that he was free to leave and that he would talk to him only if he wanted to talk about "the case that was going on." Defendant asked if someone had "told on him," and Summers asked if he could be more specific. Defendant said that he just wanted to know if someone had told on him. Summers asked if defendant wanted to talk about the drugs that were going to be found in the car. Defendant declined.

At that point Walker's citation was completed, and either she or defendant made a phone call. While the officers were waiting for the tow truck, a vehicle came and picked up defendant and Walker. When asked if he knew whether defendant or Walker "had a cell phone before they actually took out their cell phones to call for a ride," Summers replied that he did not think that defendant had one on his person and did not know if the phone was "in the car or in a purse or where it was." Summers agreed that "someone called [defendant] on his cell phone and someone picked him up." Defendant never complained about not being able to leave during the stop.

Summers later obtained a search warrant for the car and, in the pouch behind the driver's seat he found two baggies of cocaine. Summers had told defendant he was free to leave at least twice during the stop.

Mark Marti provided the following testimony. Summers had told him that the Cadillac had an improper registration and that there was information that it would be carrying drugs. When Marti first stopped the car, Walker told him that she had the registration transferred. Marti checked the paperwork and asked defendant if he knew anything about the transfer. Defendant rifled through some papers, but Marti did not find any evidence that Walker had the paperwork transferred properly. He issued her a citation for improper registration. There was a videotape of the entire stop, but it lacked audio because the audio was a separate component that Marti had forgotten to bring with him.

The State requested that the trial court take judicial notice of the traffic ticket issued to Walker, the complaint for the search warrant, and the search warrant. Defendant objected to judicial notice of the complaint for the search warrant. The trial court took judicial notice of all three documents.

The trial court denied defendant's motions to quash his arrest and suppress evidence. It ruled that Walker was lawfully stopped for improper vehicle registration and that the subsequent encounter between the police and defendant was consensual, rather than a seizure.

B. Motions in Limine

Before trial, defendant filed several motions in limine requesting, among other things, that the trial court bar: evidence regarding the information provided by the anonymous informant Summers' statement to defendant at the time of the traffic stop that he "had reason to believe that [defendant] was transporting drugs from Rockford to Freeport"; evidence that the police knew defendant from prior contacts; and testimony from defendant's parole officer that he had been looking for defendant after the incident but could not find him. The State did not object to the exclusion of information regarding the anonymous tip. However, the State pointed out that the police were not able to find defendant for over one year after the arrest warrant was issued and it argued that Summers' statement to defendant regarding drugs was relevant to show defendant's awareness of the potential charge against him and was proof of the reason for his flight as was the testimony from defendant's parole officer.

The trial court ruled that Summers would be allowed to testify that he told defendant he had reason to believe he was transporting drugs from Rockford to Freeport, reasoning that it had already ruled that the conversations between defendant and Summers were admissible, and because the evidence was relevant to the State's theory of flight. The trial court further ruled that the police...