People v. Thomas

• Decision Date: 01 December 2020
• Docket Number: 1-17-0310
• Citation: 2020 IL App (1st) 170310,186 N.E.3d 930
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Shante THOMAS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

2020 IL App (1st) 170310

186 N.E.3d 930

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Shante THOMAS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-17-0310

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Second Division.

Opinion filed December 1, 2020

Modified upon denial of rehearing December 15, 2020.

Amy P. Campanelli, Public Defender, of Chicago (Marsha Watt, Assistant Public Defender, of counsel), for appellant.

Kimberly M. Foxx, State's Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, Mary L. Boland, Tasha-Marie Kelly, and Hareena Meghani-Wakely, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

JUSTICE LAVINdelivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Following simultaneous but severed jury trials, defendantShante Thomas and her boyfriend, codefendant Deandre Minkens, were found guilty of first degree murder ( 720 ILCS 5/9-1(a)(1)(West 2010)) of Rosemary Newman(the victim) and intentional homicide of her unborn child (id.§ 9-1.2(a)(1)).¹Defendant was sentenced to natural life in prison.

¶ 2 In this direct appeal, defendant challenges the trial court's denial of her pretrial motions to quash arrest and suppress incriminating statements made at the police station and to admit evidence of codefendant's violent nature.Defendant also challenges the trial court's refusal to give non-Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions (IPI) on obstruction of justice, even though she was not charged with that offense in the indictment and conceded that it was not a lesser included offense of those for which she was charged.Last, defendant challenges her murder conviction based on the sufficiency of the evidence and her discretionary life sentence as unconstitutionally excessive.Finding no merit in defendant's arguments, we affirm.

¶ 3 BACKGROUND

¶ 4Defendant was 19 years old when she accompanied codefendant to the police station after he was arrested for first degree murder of the victim and intentional homicide of her unborn child on April 25, 2011.Defendant left the station later that night but returned the following day.Meanwhile, the police learned that defendant had misled them in their investigation of the victim's murder.

¶ 5Defendant was initially arrested for obstruction of justice on April 26, 2011.Thereafter, defendant confessed that she was involved in the victim's murder and was then charged with the above-stated offenses (seesupra¶ 1).

¶ 6 Prior to trial, defendant filed several motions to quash arrest and suppress evidence, arguing, in the main, that she was in custody without probable cause beginning on April 25, 2011, when codefendant was arrested; thus, her subsequent confession was inadmissible as fruit of the poisonous tree.In response, the State argued that defendant voluntarily chose to accompany codefendant to the police station where she was treated as a witness, not a suspect, and that she voluntarily returned the following day.

¶ 7 Evidence at the hearings on defendant's motions generally showed that around 3:30 p.m. on April 25, 2011, defendant was with codefendant near her home when he was arrested for the murder.The police asked defendant if she wanted to accompany codefendant to the police station.She said yes and was given a ride by the police.Unlike codefendant, however, defendant was not handcuffed when the police drove her in a separate vehicle from him that did not contain a barrier between the front and back seats.Defendant was also allowed to keep her personal belongings, including her cell phone.

¶ 8 At the station, defendant told the police that she had been with codefendant and their friend, Joshua Miller, the night the victim was murdered.Because defendant was not considered a suspect at that time, her statements were not recorded.The police drove defendant home later that night.Meanwhile, the police learned that Miller had not been with defendant or codefendant the night in question but, instead, had been asked to provide an alibi by codefendant prior to his arrest and then again by defendant after she left the police station that night.

¶ 9 The next evening, on April 26, 2011, defendant returned to the station with her mother, Mia Fox.The police told defendant what Miller had said but she nevertheless maintained her initial story.Still, she refused to take a polygraph test, asking for an attorney instead.

¶ 10We note that defendant's mother called an attorney, Raymond Kennan, on April 27, 2011.Kennan's testimony, however, established that he never represented defendant even though he spoke to one of the detectives about the investigation while she was at the police station.²

¶ 11 In any event, the police stopped all questioning after defendant asked for an attorney.Subsequently, defendant was arrested for obstruction of justice.She then asked to speak to one of the detectives.Defendant was informed of her Miranda rights but waived them and agreed to take a polygraph test.We note, however, that after defendant was arrested for obstruction of justice, all ensuing conversations with the police were electronically recorded, also known as electronic recording of interrogations.

¶ 12Defendant again waived her Miranda rights before taking the polygraph test the next morning.During the test, she was given food and a blanket and allowed to use the bathroom.The results of defendant's polygraph test were consistent with her having provided false information to the police about her whereabouts the night the victim was murdered.After defendant was informed of the test results, she spoke to her mother and then asked to speak to one of the detectives.She continued to change her story as to the events that occurred on the night in question but eventually confessed that she was in codefendant's car when the victim was murdered and then went to the forest preserve with him to dump her body.

¶ 13 Ultimately, the trial court denied defendant's motions to quash arrest and suppress her statements made at the police station, including her confession.In reaching its decision, the court concluded that defendant voluntarily went to the police station when codefendant was arrested and that there was probable cause to arrest her for obstruction of justice the following day.The court further concluded that suppression was not warranted because defendant's statements were made voluntarily either before she was in custody or after she had been Mirandized.

¶ 14The trial court also denied defendant's pretrial motions to admit evidence related to codefendant's violent nature, including past crimes and out-of-court statements made by the victim to her friend.

¶ 15 The cause proceeded to trial where the following evidence, consisting of many of the facts already presented at the suppression hearings, was adduced.In the summer of 2010, defendant was in a relationship with codefendant when he began seeing the victim, who later became pregnant, presumably with his child.When defendant learned of the situation, she was incensed and, consequently, began threatening the victim, leading her to file police reports against defendant.Testimony of the victim's close friend, Nailah Washington, also revealed that defendant had threatened the victim on multiple occasions.On one of those occasions, defendant called the victim, letting her know that she was "fucking with the [wrong] family."

¶ 16 Around 10 p.m. on April 23, 2011, the victim, then nine months pregnant, was living with her mother, Rosie Newman(Newman), when she left to meet codefendant.He picked her up and drove them to an Applebee's restaurant less than two miles away, located at 4937 Cal Sag Road in Crestwood, Illinois.After they arrived, the victim called her mother, letting her know they made it to the restaurant safely and that she would be home soon.³But the victim never made it home.

¶ 17 The next morning, on Easter Sunday, codefendant called Newman, asking to speak to the victim.He claimed to have been with defendant the night before, not with the victim.Newman immediately called the police to file a missing person's report.A short time later, Alsip police officers Joshua Spencer and Hector Puente arrived at Newman's apartment where she explained to them the above-stated events.She gave them codefendant's phone number but their calls to him went unanswered.Newman also described her daughter the last time she ever saw her, stating she was wearing a green T-shirt and black pants and had red-tinted hair that was tightly braided.

¶ 18 When the officers entered the victim's information in the police database, they discovered her previous reports of being threatened by defendant, as mentioned above (supra¶ 15).Meanwhile, a body was found matching the victim's description less than three blocks away from codefendant's home, in a Calumet City forest preserve.

¶ 19 Testimony from the detectives who were called to assist with the investigation of the body that was found, and later identified as the victim, indicated they found her lying facedown wearing only a "green T-shirt, underwear and ankle socks."Additionally, the detectives observed injuries to the victim's mouth, nose, neck, and back, as well as petechial hemorrhaging in her eyes, indicating manual strangulation.The victim's autopsy confirmed those observations, revealing that she suffered blunt force trauma to the head and died from strangulation.

¶ 20 Later that afternoon, codefendant returned Officer Spencer's call, claiming that he had not seen the victim in several days even though two Applebee's employees confirmed that he had been with her at the restaurant the night before.Nevertheless, codefendant claimed that he had been at a night club known as "The Lick" in Harvey, Illinois, but surveillance video showed him and defendant more than 30 miles away from that club at a gas station near defendant's home.They were in a white four-door Saturn that the officers had learned belonged to codefendant.

¶ 21The State introduced forensic evidence of the victim's fingernail...