People v. Urdiales

• Citation: 871 N.E.2d 669,225 Ill.2d 354
• Decision Date: 16 February 2007
• Docket Number: No. 98996.,98996.
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Andrew URDIALES, Appellant.
• Court: Supreme Court of Illinois

871 N.E.2d 669

225 Ill.2d 354

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Andrew URDIALES, Appellant.

No. 98996.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

February 16, 2007.

As Modified Upon Denial of Rehearing May 29, 2007.

Charles Schiedel, Deputy Defender, Duane E. Schuster, Assistant Defender, Office of the State Appellate Defender, Springfield, for appellant.

Lisa Madigan, Attorney General, Springfield, Thomas J. Brown, State's Attorney, Pontiac (Gary Feinerman, Solicitor General, Claire E. Labbé and Michael M. Glick, Assistant Attorneys General, Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

OPINION

Justice KARMEIER delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion:

Defendant, Andrew Urdiales, was indicted in the circuit court of Livingston County for the first degree murder of Cassandra Corum. See 720 ILCS 5/9-1(a) (West 2004). The State subsequently filed notice of intent to seek the death penalty. Defendant tendered a plea of guilty but mentally ill; however, the State disputed the existence of mental illness. The parties subsequently agreed to an evidentiary hearing in which the trial court simultaneously received evidence concerning the factual basis for the plea and conducted a bench trial on the issue of guilt/innocence. The trial court ultimately rejected defendant's plea of guilty but mentally ill and his bench trial defense of insanity. The court found defendant guilty of first degree murder. Defendant waived a jury for the eligibility stage of capital sentencing, and the circuit court subsequently found defendant eligible for the death penalty based upon prior murder convictions. See 720 ILCS 5/9-1(b)(3) (West 2004). Defendant elected jury consideration for the aggravation/mitigation phase of sentencing. After considering evidence in aggravation and mitigation, the jury concluded that death was the appropriate sentence. See 720 ILCS 5/9-1(g) (West 2004). The circuit court thereafter sentenced defendant to death. Because defendant was sentenced to death, his appeal was brought directly to this court. Ill. Const.1970, art. VI, § 4(b); 134 Ill.2d R. 603.

On appeal, defendant contends that (1) the trial court erred in ordering defendant restrained during trial, and instructing the jury that "security measures" had been implemented; (2) the trial court's repeated on-the-record criticisms of recent appellate court opinions deprived defendant of due process and fundamental fairness; (3) the trial court denied defendant due process and fundamental fairness when the court disparaged the motives and conduct of attorneys from the Office of the State Appellate Defender; (4) the trial court abused its discretion in rejecting defendant's plea of guilty but mentally ill; (5) the trial court's verdict of guilty, instead of guilty but mentally ill, was against the manifest weight of the evidence; (6) the trial court's statement to the sentencing jury, that the court had rejected defendant's insanity defense at trial, and the prosecutor's reference thereto in closing argument, "improperly demeaned the defendant's mitigating evidence of mental illness, and punished defendant for exercising his constitutional right to present a defense"; (7) the trial court erred in denying defendant's request to submit experts' reports to the jury; (8) the trial court erred in improperly assisting the prosecutor in cross-examining a witness and thus establishing a foundation for a prosecution exhibit; (9) the prosecutor's closing argument denied defendant due process; (10) the sentencing jury should have been specifically instructed that a background of extreme emotional or physical abuse is a mitigating factor; and (11) the Illinois death penalty statute violates principles announced in Apprendi in that it does not require application of the reasonable doubt standard at the second stage of capital sentencing proceedings. We set forth, hereafter, a summary of the evidence pertinent to a discussion of the issues raised by defendant.

BACKGROUND

On July 14, 1996, police found the nude body of an unidentified woman floating in the Vermilion River in Livingston County. The woman's wrists had been handcuffed, her ankles were bound with duct tape, and her mouth was covered with duct tape. An autopsy revealed that the victim had died of a single gunshot wound to the head and seven stab wounds to the head and chest. The body was later identified as that of Cassandra Corum. Corum had been reported missing from Hammond, Indiana.

Corum's murder was subsequently linked to the murders of two young women in Cook County. The bodies of Laura Uylaki and Lynn Huber had been found in Wolf Lake, a body of water in Cook County, near the Indiana border. Each of those victims had also been shot in the head and stabbed multiple times. Ballistics tests indicated that all three victims were killed by bullets fired from the same gun.

On April 1, 1997, a police officer in Hammond, Indiana, responded to a call involving defendant and a prostitute. The prostitute told the officer that defendant had wanted to take her to Wolf Lake, handcuff and duct tape her, and have sex with her. In November of 1996, the same officer had arrested defendant for unlawful possession of a firearm, and at that time had found rolls of duct tape in defendant's truck. The Hammond police officer forwarded the information he had obtained to Chicago detectives, who subsequently obtained the gun seized from defendant as a result of his November 1996 arrest. Testing revealed that defendant's gun had fired the bullets that killed Cassandra Corum, Laura Uylaki, and Lynn Huber.

On April 22, 1997, Chicago police officers approached defendant, who voluntarily agreed to talk with them. At the police station, detectives showed defendant photographs of Corum, Uylaki, and Huber, but defendant claimed he did not recognize them. During the questioning, defendant indicated he had bought his handgun approximately four or five years earlier from a gun shop in Calumet City, and it had been under his exclusive control until it was confiscated in Hammond, Indiana. When officers told defendant the three women had been killed by bullets fired from his gun, defendant paused for a minute took off his security guard badge, started taking off his shoelaces, and said, "Well, I guess I'm not going to work today." Defendant then provided the police with detailed confessions to all three Illinois murders. Without prompting from the police, defendant also mentioned "some matters" that California authorities "might be interested in." Defendant subsequently confessed to the murders of Robbin Brandley, Julie McGhee, Mary Ann Wells, Tammy Erwin, and Denise Maney, as well as the kidnapping, rape, and attempted murder of J.A., all of which were committed in California between 1986 and 1995.

The details of those offenses were provided in testimony and evidence presented at the aggravation/mitigation phase of sentencing, and will be recounted in our discussion of that portion of defendant's trial.

On March 10, 1998, a Livingston County grand jury returned a four-count indictment charging defendant with first degree murder for the killing of Cassandra Corum. In March of 2001, the State filed notice of its intent to seek the death penalty, alleging three possible eligibility factors: that the defendant had been convicted of murdering two or more individuals (720 ILCS 5/9-1(b)(3) (West 2000)), that he had killed Cassandra Corum during the course of an aggravated kidnapping (720 ILCS 5/9-1(b)(6) (West 2000)), and that the murder was committed in a cold, calculated, premeditated manner pursuant to a preconceived plan (720 ILCS 5/9-1(b)(11) (West 2000)).

Defendant was convicted of the Cook County murders, and was sentenced to death on September 3, 2002. In that case, a jury rejected claims that defendant was legally insane or mentally ill as defined in section 6-2(d) of the Criminal Code of 1961. See 720 ILCS 5/6-2(d) (West 2002). On January 10, 2003, then-governor George Ryan commuted defendant's death sentence to one of natural life in prison without the possibility of parole.

On November 3, 2003, defendant's appointed counsel in this case, Steven Skelton and James Elmore, requested that the trial judge accept the appearance of attorney Stephen Richards as additional counsel for defendant. Richards was a deputy defender with one of the State Appellate Defender's Death Penalty Trial Assistance offices (hereafter DPTA). The trial judge allowed Richards to enter his appearance with the understanding that Skelton and Elmore would be "lead counsel" and that the court would look to them for management of the case.

Richards subsequently tendered a written entry of appearance during a hearing conducted on December 1, 2003. On that document, John Hanlon and Allan Sincox, staff attorneys of DPTA, were also listed as entering their appearance. The trial judge did not immediately notice the unauthorized addition of Hanlon and Sincox, a matter that came to the court's attention when the judge observed what he perceived as disruptive behavior in the courtroom:

"THE COURT: Who is the gentleman behind Mr. Richards, because I am getting tired of the expressions on his face and his gyrations. * * * And now he is quite red-faced and he seems very angry.

Sir, who are you?

MR. SINCOX: My name is Allan Sincox. My appearance is now on file. Mr. Richards filed an appearance with my name listed on it today. I have been assisting with this case.

THE COURT: You are not an attorney in this case, sir. You are not now an attorney in this case.

Oh, I see the appearance has—well, I gave permission, Mr. Richards, for you to assist Mr. Elmore and Mr. Skelton at this relatively late date. I have not given permission for John Hanlon, Allan Sincox to do so. I have not heard from Mr. Elmore and Mr. Skelton that they want their assistance. So the way the record stands now, and I do thank you for calling that to my attention[,] Mr. Richards has been...