People v. Rose

• Decision Date: 13 August 2008
• Docket Number: No. 2-06-0940.,2-06-0940.
• Citation: 894 N.E.2d 156,384 Ill.App.3d 937
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Stuart W. ROSE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

894 N.E.2d 156

384 Ill.App.3d 937

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Stuart W. ROSE, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 2-06-0940.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District.

August 13, 2008.

Justice BOWMAN delivered the opinion of the court:

Pursuant to a partially negotiated plea agreement, defendant, Stuart W. Rose, pleaded guilty to intent to manufacture a controlled substance (720 ILCS 570/401(a)(6.6)(B) (West 2000)). In exchange, the State nol-prossed two other drug charges against him. The trial court sentenced defendant to 14 years' imprisonment. On appeal, defendant argues that at sentencing the trial court (1) improperly considered evidence that was suppressed in a prior case against him, and (2) failed to adequately consider mitigating factors. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

On August 16, 2001, defendant was charged with intent to manufacture a controlled substance (720 ILCS 570/401(a)(6.6)(B) (West 2000)); unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver (720 ILCS 570/401(c)(6.5) (West 2000)); and controlled substance trafficking (720 ILCS 570/401.1(a) (West 2000)). During discovery, defendant sought to obtain the names of informants to support an entrapment defense. The State argued that the sole informant had only provided defendant with an undercover officer's pager number. The parties initially agreed that defendant would provide a list of people whom he was living with and had befriended. The State would then provide the trial court with the informant's information for an in camera inspection, and the trial court would determine whether disclosure was required based on an entrapment defense. However, the State later moved to reconsider, arguing that, because defendant was claiming that the informant could have been one of many people, he was on a "fishing expedition." The trial court denied the State's motion. After the State refused to provide the informant's information to the trial court, the trial court granted defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment. On appeal, this court held that defendant had not met his burden of showing that disclosure of the informant's identity was necessary to prepare his defense. People v. Rose, 342 Ill.App.3d 203, 206-07, 276 Ill.Dec. 754, 794 N.E.2d 1004 (2003). We reversed the trial court's ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings. Rose, 342 Ill.App.3d at 207, 276 Ill.Dec. 754, 794 N.E.2d 1004.

On remand, defendant supplied further details of how particular people induced him to commit the crimes with which he was charged, and he renewed his request for an in camera inspection of the informant's information. The trial court ordered an in camera inspection of the informant's file. Thereafter, it granted in part defendant's motion to disclose, allowing defendant to use the informant's name solely in the preparation of his case.

On February 2, 2006, the parties presented a partially negotiated plea agreement to the trial court. In exchange for defendant pleading guilty to intent to manufacture a controlled substance, the State would nol-pros the remaining charges. The trial court accepted the plea agreement and continued the matter for sentencing.

Defendant's sentencing hearing took place on May 23, 2006. The State asked that the trial court take judicial notice that the codefendant in this case, Jeremy Doucette, had entered a fully negotiated plea agreement under which he was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. As part of his plea agreement, Doucette was obligated to testify truthfully against defendant.

The parties agreed to the admission of tapes of recorded conversations between defendant and the undercover officer. The State then called Officer Paul Nevara of the Lombard police department as a witness. Nevara testified that on October 29, 1998, he was assigned to the Du Page Metropolitan Enforcement Group, a narcotics task force team. On that day, the team was working with the Glen Ellyn police department regarding a methamphetamine laboratory in defendant's apartment.

At this point in the testimony, the defense objected. Defense counsel pointed out that the evidence about the 1998 laboratory pertained to prior charges against defendant. He argued that the evidence was inadmissible because it had been suppressed due to the police officers' failure to obtain defendant's consent before entering his apartment, in violation of his fourth amendment rights. The State countered that, even if the evidence was inadmissible for a trial, it was admissible at a sentencing hearing. The trial court overruled defendant's continuing objection and allowed testimony regarding the 1998 incident into evidence.

[Nonpublishable material removed here.]

Based on the factors in aggravation and mitigation, the trial court sentenced defendant to 14 years' imprisonment. The trial court stated that it would have given defendant a greater sentence if not for the mitigating factors and defendant's own statement. The trial court subsequently denied defendant's motion to reconsider, and defendant timely appealed.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Consideration of Suppressed Evidence

Defendant first argues that at sentencing the trial court improperly considered in aggravation evidence that had been suppressed in a prior case against him. Defendant argues that the trial court's allowance of this evidence was improper (1) based on collateral estoppel, (2) based on the fourth amendment exclusionary rule, and (3) because the evidence was otherwise unreliable. We examine each of these contentions in turn.

Collateral estoppel, a component of double jeopardy, provides that, where there is a valid, final judgment determining an issue of ultimate fact, the same parties cannot litigate the same issue in a future case. People v. Slywka, 365 Ill. App.3d 34, 41, 301 Ill.Dec. 770, 847 N.E.2d 780 (2006). Collateral estoppel applies where: (1) the issue decided in the prior suit is identical to the one presented in the current suit; (2) the prior suit contained a final judgment on the merits; and (3) the party against whom estoppel is asserted was a party to or was in privity with a party to the prior suit. Slywka, 365 Ill. App.3d at 41, 301 Ill.Dec. 770, 847 N.E.2d 780. The applicability of collateral estoppel is a question of law, which we review de novo. People v. Powell, 349 Ill.App.3d 906, 909, 285 Ill.Dec. 816, 812 N.E.2d 636 (2004).

Collateral estoppel is inapplicable here because the first requirement has not been met, in that the ultimate issues of fact in the two cases are not identical. In defendant's 1998 case, the grant of the motion to suppress was based on a determination that defendant's fourth amendment rights had been violated by the police officers' nonconsensual search of his apartment; the ultimate issue of whether defendant was guilty of manufacturing methamphetamine was therefore not reached. In the instant case, testimony regarding the 1998 methamphetamine lab was provided as evidence of defendant's prior crimes. As the issues adjudicated in the two cases are not identical, collateral estoppel does not apply. Cf. People v. Fulton, 68 Ill.App.3d 915, 924-25, 25 Ill.Dec. 334, 386 N.E.2d 605 (1979) (although in civil forfeiture proceeding the State failed to present sufficient evidence that the defendant's car had been used to commit an offense, the ultimate fact of whether the defendant participated in the crime was not litigated, and collateral estoppel did not bar the State from subsequently attempting to prove the defendant guilty of various crimes based on an accountability theory).

Defendant next argues that the trial court erred in considering the suppressed evidence because "important constitutional considerations protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures outweigh the procedural rules governing broader admissibility of evidence during a sentencing hearing." Defendant argues that, by allowing such evidence at the sentencing hearing, the "unconstitutional impairment of [his] rights [was] exacerbated." Whether previously suppressed evidence is admissible in a sentencing hearing presents a question of law, which we review de novo. See People v. Daniels, 187 Ill.2d 301, 307, 240 Ill.Dec. 668, 718 N.E.2d 149 (1999) (questions of law reviewed de novo).

We begin our analysis of this issue by considering the types of evidence that are generally admissible in a sentencing hearing. It is well settled that the evidentiary standards used in sentencing are much less rigid than those used in the guilt-innocence phase of trial. People v. Jackson, 149 Ill.2d 540, 547, 174 Ill.Dec. 842, 599 N.E.2d 926 (1992). At sentencing, the defendant's guilt has already been settled, and the sentencing judge is charged with the task of determining the type and extent of punishment, within certain statutory and constitutional limits. Jackson, 149 Ill.2d at 548, 174 Ill.Dec. 842, 599 N.E.2d 926. "`Highly relevant — if not essential — to his selection of an appropriate sentence is the possession of the fullest information possible concerning the defendant's life and characteristics.'" People v. Adkins, 41 Ill.2d 297, 300, 242 N.E.2d 258 (1968), quoting Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 247, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 1083, 93 L.Ed. 1337, 1342 (1949). The trial court may conduct a broad search into a defendant's "`moral character, habits, social environment, abnormal tendencies, age, natural inclination or aversion to commit crime, and stimuli motivating his conduct, in addition to his family life, occupation, and criminal record.'" People v. Harris, 375 Ill. App.3d 398, 408-09, 313 Ill.Dec. 960, 873 N.E.2d 584 (2007), quoting People v. Moore, 250 Ill.App.3d 906, 919, 189 Ill.Dec. 615, 620 N.E.2d 583 (1993). The source and type of information that the sentencing court may consider is virtually without bounds. People v. La Pointe, 88 Ill.2d 482, 496, 59 Ill.Dec. 59, 431 N.E.2d 344 (1981). For evidence to be admissible in a sentencing hearing, it is...