People v. Sykes

• Decision Date: 22 September 1987
• Docket Number: No. 85-3697,85-3697
• Citation: 161 Ill.App.3d 623,515 N.E.2d 253
• Parties: , 113 Ill.Dec. 444 PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas SYKES, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 253

515 N.E.2d 253

161 Ill.App.3d 623, 113 Ill.Dec. 444

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas SYKES, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 85-3697.

Appellate Court of Illinois First District, Second Division.

Sept. 22, 1987.

Paul S. Biebel, Jr., Public Defender of Cook County, Chicago (Karen A. Popek, of counsel), for defendant-appellant.

Richard M. Daley, State's Atty., County of Cook, Chicago (Thomas V. Gainer, Jr., Bonnie Meyer Sloan, Anthony J. Carballo, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellee.

Justice BILANDIC delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant, Thomas Sykes, was convicted by a jury for aggravated kidnapping and unlawful restraint. He was sentenced on the aggravated kidnapping charge to an extended term of imprisonment of 30 years in the Illinois Department of Correction. Defendant appeals his conviction and sentence.

On April 13, 1984, at about 8:30 a.m., the victim, age ten, was walking to school. As she approached a playground, a man she had never seen before came up to her and asked where her parents were. She identified the man as the defendant. After she told defendant she could not talk to strangers, he asked her if she wanted some candy or money and asked her name. She ignored defendant. Defendant then grabbed her arm dragging her into an alley. She testified that defendant threatened to kill her if she screamed and that he pulled a gun from his sock and put it to her head.

The victim testified that defendant pulled her through two or three alleys until they reached a partially vacant apartment building. At this point, defendant encountered Lark Branch, the manager of the building, and represented the victim as his niece. Lark denied defendant access to the building.

Defendant then pulled her down the street. Branch, suspicious of defendant, followed. Upon seeing another man across the street, the victim yelled for help. Defendant ran off.

The victim described defendant as wearing a light tan jacket, brown shoes, black pants, brown hat, and having brown eyes. She also stated that he did not have a beard or mustache. At trial, she identified the jacket defendant was wearing as that worn by the man who abducted her.

On May 3, 1984, Branch saw defendant walking down the street. This was the first time Branch had seen the defendant since the incident. Branch called the police and together they found defendant and he was arrested.

The next morning, the victim viewed a lineup in the presence of her mother and Detective Jack Stewart. She identified defendant as her abductor. Prior to trial, a hearing was held on defendant's motion to suppress identification testimony on the ground that the lineup was unconstitutionally suggestive.

Stewart testified at the hearing that there were five participants in the lineup, including defendant, who was in the second position. Defendant wore a beige or tan jacket in the lineup while the other participants wore jackets which were black, brown, or blue. Four of the five men in the lineup, including defendant, had some facial hair. After argument, the trial court found that the lineup was not unduly suggestive and the motion was denied.

The victim testified at trial that she recognized the defendant because of his face, not the jacket. She stated that she was looking at defendant's face most of the time during which he pulled her through the alleys and down the street.

Lark Branch also testified concerning the occurrence. Prior to his testimony, the trial court granted defendant's motion in limine to bar any testimony that would refer to Sykes as a "vagrant" who was "hanging around" the apartments in Branch's building. The court also granted another motion to bar Branch from testifying about an alleged incident in which defendant supposedly tried to rob an elderly woman in the building.

During his testimony, however, Branch testified, that he had "[p]ut him [defendant] out of a vacant apartment ... he was trying to sleep in one time." He also stated, "and then when I put him out of the apartment, next day some tenants were moving out and they got him from somewhere to help ... Then two weeks after that he tried to stick up a lady." At this point, defendant objected. The court sustained the objection.

The State also presented the testimony of another victim at trial for the purpose of showing modus operandi, identification and intent. Prior to trial, defendant moved to preclude the admission into evidence of other crimes by defendant. The State indicated that they intended to introduce in their case-in-chief evidence of three other alleged crimes by defendant. After argument, the court allowed only the evidence from the case involving the victim concluding that there was "a similarity of facts and circumstances that would indicate a behavioral pattern that is unique." The court found that the alleged facts in both involved the abduction of ten year old black girls in the same neighborhood, in the proximity to some school. The court also noted that in one case, the victim was taken to a vacant apartment, while in another, the victim was taken to an abandoned building.

Defendant renewed his motion prior to the testimony of this witness at trial. The court denied this motion.

The witness testified that at about noon, on April 3, 1984, she began to walk home from school. As she was crossing an alley, a man she had never seen before grabbed her by the arm, put a gun to her head, and told her that he would kill her if she screamed. She identified that man as the defendant both at a lineup and in court. She testified that defendant was wearing a light brown jacket, blue jeans, a cap, and had a light mustache and bumps on his face as if he was growing a beard.

Defendant pulled her through the alley, across a vacant lot and into a building. Defendant then took her to an abandoned apartment and ordered her to take off her clothes. She took off all her clothes except her stockings which the defendant removed.

At this point, there was a noise in the hallway and defendant went out to the door. The girl then put her pants and coat on, grabbed her shoes, and climbed out the fire escape.

The witness testified that upon returning home, she told her mother what happened and the police were called. The police, the girl, and her mother returned to the apartment where her clothing was recovered.

Defendant then presented his defense. His girl friend testified that on the day in question, defendant was with her in their apartment. Defendant's sister testified that on the day of the alleged attack of the other victim, defendant was with her at their mother's home.

At the close of the evidence, the jury found defendant guilty of aggravated kidnapping and unlawful restraint. Judgment was entered only on aggravated kidnapping with unlawful restraint merging into the aggravated kidnapping conviction. Defendant was sentenced to an extended term of imprisonment of 30 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections and now appeals his conviction and sentence.

I.

Defendant asserts that his conviction for aggravated kidnapping must be reversed because the State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the "secret confinement" element of the charged offense.

The jury found defendant guilty of the aggravated kidnapping count which alleged that he "knowingly and secretly confined [the victim], a child under the age of thirteen years, against her will * * *."

Kidnapping occurs when a person knowingly: (1) and secretly confines another against his will. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1983, ch. 38, par. 10-1(a)(1).) A kidnapper, within the meaning of the statute, is guilty of the offense of aggravated kidnapping when he takes, as his victim, a child under the age of 13 years. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1983, ch. 38, par. 10-2(a)(2).) "Secret confinement," the gist of kidnapping, must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. (People v. Mulcahey (4th Dist.1977), 50 Ill.App.3d 421, 425, 8 Ill.Dec. 627, 365 N.E.2d 1013, aff'd, 72 Ill.2d 282, 21 Ill.Dec. 176, 381 N.E.2d 254.) Secret confinement may be shown by proof of either the secrecy of confinement or the place of confinement. 72 Ill.2d 282, 285, 21 Ill.Dec. 176, 381 N.E.2d 254.

Defendant contends that the victim was simply not confined in any place or any thing. She was not "shut in," "kept in," "enclosed within bounds," or "imprisoned." He states that although she may have been detained or restrained from going to her intended destination, as to constitute the offense of unlawful restraint as the jury so found, she was not "confined" anywhere. Moreover, defendant asserts, assuming arguendo that confinement was sufficiently established, the State nonetheless failed to prove that such confinement was "secret."

Illinois reviewing courts have frequently discussed what proof is necessary to establish the "secret confinement" element of the charged offense. In such cases, the victim has clearly been "confined" or enclosed within something, most commonly, a house or a car. See, e.g., People v. Mulcahey (1978), 72 Ill.2d 282, 21 Ill.Dec. 176, 381 N.E.2d 254 (victim bound to a chair in her own home); People v. Bishop (1953), 1 Ill.2d 60, 114 N.E.2d 566, cert. denied, 346 U.S. 916, 74 S.Ct. 278, 98 L.Ed. 412 (car); People v. Siegal (1935), 362 Ill. 389, 200 N.E. 72 (basement, car and garage); People v. Landis (1st Dist.1966), 66 Ill.App.2d 458, 214 N.E.2d 343 (car).

In the instant case, the victim simply was not confined or enclosed within any place or any thing. The testimony presented at trial indicates that defendant grabbed her by her right arm as she was walking near a playground. He pulled her into an alley and began walking north with her. They proceeded through two or three alleys until they reached Woodlawn Avenue and then continued down Woodlawn Avenue for two or three blocks. Upon reaching the partially vacant building, defendant conversed with Lark Branch who denied them entry. Defendant and the victim then continued...