People v. Sanders
| Decision Date | 20 June 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 1-16-0718,1-16-0718 |
| Citation | 434 Ill.Dec. 4,134 N.E.3d 305,2019 IL App (1st) 160718 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Maurice SANDERS, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
James E. Chadd, Patricia Mysza, and Tiffany Boye Green, of State Appellate Defender’s Office, of Chicago, for appellant.
Kimberly M. Foxx, State’s Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg and John E. Nowak, Assistant State’s Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.
¶ 1 After a bench trial, defendant Maurice Sanders was convicted of possession of a controlled substance, namely, heroin, and sentenced to five years with the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC).
¶ 2 On this appeal, defendant claims that the trial court erred in denying his pretrial motion for disclosure of the exact surveillance location of the officer who observed him during the offense. Defendant also challenges the imposition of various fines and fees. For the following reasons, we do not find persuasive his arguments regarding the surveillance location and, thus, affirm his conviction. However, with respect to the fines and fees, we remand to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent with the newly revised Illinois Supreme Court Rule 472(e) ( ), which we discuss further below.
¶ 4 Defendant was charged by information with a single count of possession of one gram or more of heroin with intent to deliver. After a bench trial, the trial court found him guilty of the lesser included offense of possession of a controlled substance.
¶ 5 Prior to trial, defendant moved for disclosure of the surveillance location of police officer Alan Rogers, who had observed defendant during the offense and who was the sole witness to testify at defendant's bench trial.
¶ 6 In response to the motion, the trial court conducted an in camera examination of Officer Rogers. The only individuals present during the examination were the trial judge, the court reporter and Officer Rogers. The transcript, which was sealed, is a part of the appellate record.
¶ 7 After the in camera examination, the trial court stated on the record:
The above record shows that defense counsel was present but did not object to the trial court's issuing its decision at this time and did not seek further argument in addition to defendant's written motion.
¶ 8 At trial, Officer Rogers testified that he had been a police officer for 15 years. On May 14, 2015, he and his fellow officers began a narcotics investigation on the 1000 block of North Lawndale Avenue in Chicago, in which he was the surveillance officer. At 11:10 a.m., he observed defendant enter a nearby vacant lot, bend down by a pile of sticks and brush, and remove a piece of yellow and red paper from the pile. Officer Rogers next observed defendant remove a gold item from the paper and walk toward a woman standing on the sidewalk. Defendant and the woman spoke briefly, and defendant handed her the gold item in exchange for paper money.
¶ 9 Officer Rogers testified that, during the next five minutes, he observed defendant walking around, near the lot. Defendant was then approached by a man on a bicycle. After speaking with this man briefly, defendant returned to the vacant lot to retrieve a piece of yellow and red paper from the pile. Defendant removed a gold item from the paper and handed it to the man in exchange for paper money.
¶ 10 Officer Rogers testified that, based on his training and his 15 years of experience, he believed these exchanges "to be street level hand-to-hand narcotics transactions." During his surveillance, he kept in constant contact with the other officers through their police radios, "giving them a description of the hand-to-hands after they had occurred" and a description of defendant and his location. After Officer Rogers had radioed the other officers, he observed them approach and detain defendant. Rogers then left his surveillance location and proceeded to the vacant lot. At the lot, he recovered a piece of red and yellow cardboard with a strip of gold tape that "contained six tinfoil packets of suspect heroin." Rogers also confirmed that the person who the officers had detained was the same person who he had observed engaging in hand-to-hand transactions. Officers later recovered $69 in cash from defendant during a custodial search.
¶ 11 Officer Rogers testified that it was a clear day, that it was not raining and that he used binoculars to aid his vision.
¶ 12 On cross-examination, Officer Rogers testified that he was no more than 75 feet away from defendant when he first observed him, or roughly three house lengths away. Over the State's objection, Rogers testified that he was "elevated." Rogers also testified that he was located "[w]est" of defendant and able to observe defendant from the side and "from multiple views." The block contains multiple vacant buildings, and the officers were watching the area because it was a known drug area, with drug sales occurring in nearby vacant buildings. Rogers' surveillance of defendant lasted 20 to 25 minutes. Rogers described to his fellow officers both the woman and the man who were involved in the two hand-to-hand transactions. However, Rogers was not able to observe the denomination of the paper money exchanged. There were no other people in the area during his surveillance. Later, when defendant was searched at the police station and money was recovered, Rogers was present for that search. During cross-examination, the State raised a number of objections to the defense's questions, and every objection was overruled by the trial court.
¶ 13 On redirect, Officer Rogers testified that he did not observe anyone else on the street with defendant when defendant was detained and that he did not observe anyone else handle the red and yellow paper but defendant.
¶ 14 The parties stipulated that, if Monika Kinslow, a forensic chemist with the Illinois State Police Crime Lab, were called to testify, she would testify that she received the six packages recovered from the vacant lot, that she tested four of the six packages which totaled 1.2 grams in weight, that they tested positive for the presence of heroin, and that the total weight of the six packages recovered was 1.8 grams.
¶ 15 The State rested and defendant moved for a directed finding, which was denied. After closing arguments, the trial court found defendant guilty of the lesser included offense of possession of a controlled substance. Defendant filed a posttrial motion for a new trial claiming, among other things, that the trial court erred when it denied his pretrial motion for disclosure of the surveillance location. The trial court denied the motion, stating, "I think I gave wide enough latitude with respect to questioning during trial."
¶ 16 During sentencing, the State observed that defendant had many prior convictions for possession of a controlled substance, and defense counsel spoke about defendant's close family ties and life-long problem with substance abuse. During allocution, defendant stated that he had been "sentenced plenty of times to the penitentiary" but had never received help there. He asked the trial court for treatment "to get back on track." After considering factors in aggravation and mitigation, the trial court sentenced defendant on February 11, 2016, to five years with IDOC, with a recommendation for drug treatment.
¶ 17 Defendant filed a motion to reconsider sentence, which the trial court denied, stating: "Given the extensive nature of the defendant's background, and although I did take into consideration the obvious need for treatment, the Court believes that the sentence in this case under these facts in this background is appropriate." This timely appeal followed.
¶ 19 Defendant claims that the trial court erred: (1) by denying his pretrial motion for disclosure of the surveillance location of the officer who observed him during the offense; and (2) by imposing certain fines and fees. For the following reasons, we do not find the first claim persuasive and affirm his conviction. However, with respect to the fines and fees, we remand to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent with the newly revised Illinois Supreme Court Rule 472 (e) ( ), which we discuss further below.
¶ 21 Defendant's first claim is that the trial court erred in denying his pretrial motion for disclosure of Officer Rogers' surveillance location.
¶ 22 As both sides correctly observe in their briefs to this court, our standard of review is whether the trial court abused its discretion. While a defendant has the right under the sixth amendment ( U.S. Const., amend VI ) to cross-examine the witnesses against him, the trial court does have the discretion to limit the scope of cross-examination and the court's decision to do so will not be disturbed on appeal absent an abuse of that discretion by the trial court. In re Manuel M. , 2017 IL App (1st) 162381, ¶ 17, 410 Ill.Dec. 852, 71 N.E.3d 1131 ; People v. Palmer , 2017 IL App (1st) 151253, ¶ 25, 419 Ill.Dec. 72, 92 N.E.3d 483 ; People v. Jackson , 2017 IL App...
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People v. Williams
...to Rule 472(e) to allow defendant to file a motion "challenging the fees and fines imposed as a part of his sentence"); People v. Sanders , 2019 IL App (1st) 160718, ¶ 53, 434 Ill.Dec. 4, 134 N.E.3d 305 ("[w]ith respect to these fines-and-fees issues, we remand to the circuit court for furt......