People v. Sandridge
| Decision Date | 26 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 1-17-3158,1-17-3158 |
| Citation | 2020 IL App (1st) 173158,443 Ill.Dec. 644,162 N.E.3d 278 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jeffrey SANDRIDGE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
James E. Chadd, Patricia Mysza, and Daniel H. Regenscheit, of State Appellate Defender's Office, of Chicago, for appellant.
Kimberly M. Foxx, State's Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, David H. Iskowich, and Jessica L. Wasserman, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.
¶ 1 Defendant-appellant Jeffrey Sandridge was convicted of first degree murder in the shooting death of Milton Carswell on May 3, 2014, for which he was sentenced to 60 years' imprisonment. On appeal, the defendant argues that his due process rights were violated when investigating police officers defied bona fide subpoenas and failed to preserve their field notes memorializing their interviews with eyewitnesses. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the judgment of the circuit court of Cook County and remand the case to the trial court with instructions.
¶ 3 In July 2014, the defendant was indicted on eight counts of first degree murder and one count of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon arising out of the death of Milton Carswell in May 2014. The defendant sought discovery of, inter alia , "written or recorded memoranda containing the substance of oral statements by [ ] witnesses." The defendant also served a subpoena upon the Maywood Police Department in July 2014 requesting "any notes and memorand[a] contained in any office, unit files, working files or running files, and all documents of any officer or detective for this case."
¶ 4 In February 2016, in its answer to discovery promulgated by the defendant, including the subpoenas for all notes, the State represented that all memoranda of oral statements given to police by witnesses were contained in the police reports that it had tendered to the defense in open court. One month later, the defendant filed a motion for the State to produce "a copy of any and all hand written notes in this case," but the State continued to deny having any handwritten notes in its possession.
¶ 5 A bench trial commenced on August 14, 2017, at which the evidence revealed that on May 3, 2014, the defendant shot Milton Carswell in the head and ran over his body in a parking lot of an apartment complex at 34 South 18th Avenue in Maywood, Illinois. Four witnesses testified at trial: Barbara Carswell, Milton Carswell's sister; Unique Reedy, Barbara Carswell's daughter and Milton Carswell's niece; Jose Fernandez, Milton Carswell's friend; and Tiffany Lewis, who was visiting family at the apartment complex on the day of the shooting.
¶ 6 Barbara Carswell testified that she lived at 29 South 18th Avenue in Maywood, across the street from the parking lot where the shooting occurred. The defendant was her ex-boyfriend. Three weeks prior to the shooting, she was in the parking lot on South 18th Avenue in Milton Carswell's car with Jose Fernandez and Milton Carswell when she had "an altercation" with the defendant, who wanted her to go into the house. The defendant hit her, and she "cut" him. Jose Fernandez and Milton Carswell intervened, and the defendant threatened to return and kill them. Following this incident, Barbara Carswell ended her four-year relationship with the defendant.
¶ 7 On May 3, 2014, at approximately 6:00 p.m., Milton Carswell was in the parking lot with Jose Fernandez and at least one other friend, known as J.B. According to Jose Fernandez, the three had been drinking throughout the afternoon and were "pitching quarters" when Jose Fernandez saw the defendant drive into the parking lot in his Cadillac. Jose Fernandez had known the defendant for approximately six months from the neighborhood and from his relationship with Barbara Carswell. When the defendant arrived on May 3, 2014, Jose Fernandez quickly went inside his mother's apartment to avoid problems with him. From the window, Jose Fernandez saw the defendant exit his car holding a gun. The defendant walked to Milton Carswell and, holding a gun to Milton Carswell's head, walked Milton Carswell towards the street, where he shot him once in the head. The defendant then got back into his car and ran over Milton Carswell before exiting the parking lot.
¶ 8 Unique Reedy was also watching the altercation from her mother's house across the street. She knew the defendant from his four-year relationship with her mother, Barbara Carswell. Just as Jose Fernandez, she saw the defendant drive into the parking lot in his Cadillac. While she did not see the defendant's whole face, she saw his profile. The defendant and Milton Carswell walked toward each other, and the defendant then showed his gun and shot Milton Carswell in the head. She also saw the defendant run over Milton Carswell before leaving. Unique Reedy ran to her mom, who was in the house, and told her not to look outside because the defendant had shot Milton Carswell.
¶ 9 Barbara Carswell testified that when Unique Reedy told her of the shooting, she ran to the window and saw the defendant drive over Milton Carswell. The defendant made eye contact with Barbara Carswell before driving away. Barbara Carswell also testified that the defendant called her after he was arrested, while he was in jail. The trial court admitted the recorded calls into evidence. While this court was unable to play the CD recording of the calls that were made part of the record on appeal, the uncertified transcript of the calls that was provided to the trial court revealed that the defendant offered Barbara Carswell money to change her identification testimony.
¶ 10 Tiffany Lewis saw the shooting from her car, which was parked in the parking lot. She and her two-year-old were waiting in the car while her two older children were in front of the building.1 Tiffany Lewis saw the defendant drive into the parking lot in a gold Cadillac. She had seen the defendant with Barbara Carswell on prior occasions. The defendant walked across the parking lot to Milton Carswell with a gun in his hand. At trial, Tiffany Lewis testified that a white van then blocked her view of the defendant and Milton Carswell, and while she heard a gunshot, she did not see the defendant shoot Milton Carswell. However, she was impeached with her prior statement to the assistant state's attorney one month after the shooting that nothing obstructed her view and she saw the defendant shoot Milton Carswell.
¶ 11 Following the shooting, Barbara Carswell, Unique Reedy, Jose Fernandez, and Tiffany Lewis all went to the Maywood police station, where they waited together in a room before a detective interviewed each of them separately. Barbara Carswell claimed that they did not talk about the shooting amongst themselves as they waited.
¶ 12 Officer Patrick Reilly, an investigator for the Maywood Police Department for two years at the time of the shooting, was called to testify by the State. On May 3, 2014, Officer Reilly was on patrol when he was called to the apartment building at 34 South 18th Street. When he arrived, he saw a black man face down on the ground with blood around his head and a 9-millimeter shell casing nearby. There were several people around the decedent. Officer Reilly testified that he spoke to Jose Fernandez and Tiffany Lewis at the scene, but his report said he spoke to four witnesses; the remaining two witnesses were not identified. Officer Reilly testified that he took notes at the scene that he incorporated into his report. He believed the notes were in his locker, but when he went to retrieve them, he could not find them.
¶ 13 Detective Luis Vargas, a detective for the Maywood Police Department for eight years, also testified for the State. Detective Vargas was assigned to the Milton Carswell homicide investigation. When he arrived at the scene, he first spoke to Officer Reilly and then canvassed the scene. He then went to the police station where the witnesses were waiting. He met with all four witnesses and interviewed them separately. He acknowledged that they waited together in the same room prior to being interviewed. Following his conversations with the witnesses, he began looking for the defendant. The defendant was eventually located and arrested on June 27, 2014.
¶ 14 Detective Vargas testified that he took notes on his conversations with the witnesses on May 3, 2014, and those notes were the basis for the report he prepared on December 4, 2014. However, he admitted to discarding his notes after writing the report. On cross-examination, the detective testified that he "most likely" would have received the subpoena sent by the defense before he prepared his report on December 4, 2014. Detective Vargas claimed that he did not know why he did not provide his notes in response to the subpoena. He said that he destroyed his notes in spite of the subpoena because that was his common practice. He further stated that he believed they were his personal notes and he did not have to provide them in response to a subpoena. Defense counsel then queried the detective as to whether the Maywood Police Department had a common practice of destroying investigatory notes after receiving a subpoena, but an objection to that question was made by the State and sustained by the court. Defense counsel did not pursue any further inquiry regarding the notes and why Detective Vargas believed he could ignore a subpoena to produce his notes.
¶ 15 On redirect examination by the State, Detective Vargas said that he had no independent recollection as to exactly when he received the subpoena and that it could have been after he had destroyed his notes.
¶ 16 After the State rested, the defendant moved for a directed verdict, which was denied. The defense rested without putting on any evidence, and the parties proceeded to...
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