People v. Valdovinos
| Decision Date | 22 March 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. 1-10-3235,1-10-3235 |
| Citation | 2013 IL App (1st) 103235 |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JOSE VALDOVINOS, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and may not be cited as precedent by any party except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).
Appeal from the
Circuit Court of
Cook County.
¶ 1 Held: (1) Where several witnesses, including defendant himself, testified that defendant's nickname was "Pepe," any error in permitting a detective to testify that, after speaking with a suspect, he was able to connect defendant's name with the nickname "Pepe" was harmless. (2) Although the trial court issued erroneous jury instructions as to the counts of armed robbery and aggravated vehicular hijacking, the errors do not rise to the level of plain error.
¶ 2 Following a jury trial, defendant Jose Valdovinos was convicted of armed robbery, aggravated vehicular hijacking, and aggravated kidnaping based on his conduct toward victimJose Rodriguez on December 14 and 15, 2008. Defendant was sentenced to concurrent sentences of 15 years for the aggravated vehicular hijacking, 15 years for the armed robbery, and 20 years for the aggravated kidnaping in the Illinois Department of Corrections. On appeal, defendant claims: (1) that a Chicago police detective's testimony that he knew defendant was involved after speaking with a suspect was improper hearsay; and (2) that the jury was improperly instructed on the elements of armed robbery and aggravated vehicular hijacking. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
¶ 4 On January 26, 2009, defendant was indicted, along with four codefendants,1 for attempted first-degree murder, aggravated vehicular hijacking, aggravated kidnaping, armed robbery, and aggravated battery, based on their actions toward victim Jose Rodriguez on December 14 and 15, 2008.
¶ 6 On August 9, 2010, defendant filed a motion in limine, asking the trial court to bar the State from introducing out-of-court statements made by his codefendants, who were not scheduled to testify during his trial, in which they implicated defendant in the crimes against Rodriguez. The court denied the motion, finding that the police could testify to the course of the investigation, but limited the State during closing argument from arguing that the substance of the codefendants' statements implicated defendant.
¶ 8 Defendant's trial began on August 9, 2010. The State presented the testimony of seven witnesses, including victim Jose Rodriguez, and the defense presented the testimony of four witnesses, including defendant.
¶ 11 The State's first witness was Jose Rodriguez, the victim. Rodriguez testified that on the evening of December 13, 2008, he and three friends visited a bar known as El Plan. Rodriguez was drinking liquor and playing pool, when he observed an acquaintance called Pepe; Rodriguez identified defendant in court as Pepe. Defendant was in the presence of three other people, one of whom Rodriguez identified as Lazaro Perez. Rodriguez testified that he knew defendant from playing pool at the bar, and had known him for a week. Rodriguez testified that when Rodriguez was at the bar the prior week and played pool with defendant, he had approximately $1,200 in cash in his wallet. On December 13, when defendant played pool with Rodriguez, defendant wanted to wager $50 on the game, but Rodriguez only wanted to play for beers. Defendant "kind of got upset," but they ended up playing for beers.
¶ 12 Rodriguez testified that he stayed at the bar on December 13 for approximately five hours, until he left at 1 a.m. on December 14 to drive a friend to his vehicle. Rodriguez then returned to the bar, parking his vehicle approximately one block from the bar. Rodriguez was exiting his vehicle when a red van pulled up. Defendant and Perez exited the van and defendant pointed a gun at Rodriguez's head; Rodriguez described the gun as a semiautomatic handgun.
Defendant then hit Rodriguez over the head, grabbed him, and placed him in the backseat of Rodriguez's vehicle. Defendant told Rodriguez that, if he screamed, defendant would kill him. Defendant sat in the backseat with Rodriguez, pointing the gun to Rodriguez's head, and Perez drove the vehicle to a detached garage located next to a house.
¶ 13 When they arrived at the garage, Rodriguez's hands and feet were bound with tape by defendant, Perez, and another man, who had tattoos on his arms and had driven the red van; Rodriguez's hands were bound behind his back. Defendant took Rodriguez's keys and wallet and demanded $350,000; defendant told Rodriguez that, if he did not pay defendant, defendant would kill him. Rodriguez informed defendant that he did not have that much money and that defendant might have the wrong person. Rodriguez told defendant that the most money he could give defendant was $10,000 from his job as a carpenter.
¶ 14 The men covered Rodriguez's head and led him to the house, where they placed Rodriguez inside a closet. Inside the closet, Rodriguez moved frequently because he was hot, and the man with the tattoos hit him with a baseball bat because of his movement. Rodriguez testified that defendant also hit him with a baseball bat "a lot of times" whenever he moved.
¶ 15 Rodriguez testified that he was taken out of the closet and into a room, where his feet were tied with a rope attached to a door. While at the house, defendant made a phone call to someone supposedly in Mexico, which Rodriguez heard because the call was on a speakerphone. The person said that if Rodriguez did not have the money, he was going to kill Rodriguez's family in Mexico and defendant would kill Rodriguez; Rodriguez testified that he had documents in his vehicle that contained his family's address in Mexico that defendant had removed from hisvehicle. Defendant and Perez left for "awhile," and Rodriguez was alone with the tattooed man. When defendant and Perez left, the tattooed man beat Rodriguez with a baseball bat, threw him on the floor, and had two pitbull dogs lick the blood from Rodriguez's face.
¶ 16 Defendant and Perez returned to the house approximately three hours later. A young woman with a little girl also came to the house while Rodriguez was there and argued with defendant, saying "that wasn't right." The woman and little girl left, as did defendant. Perez and the tattooed man then took Rodriguez to another location. Rodriguez heard Perez and the tattooed man saying that they were afraid the young woman would call the police.
¶ 17 When they moved Rodriguez to the second location, Perez and the tattooed man moved him in a blue Volvo vehicle, which Perez drove; Rodriguez and the tattooed man sat in the backseat and the tattooed man held a "blade" to Rodriguez's neck. Rodriguez testified that he was moved on the evening of December 14, so he had been at the first house through the entire day of December 14.
¶ 18 When they arrived at the second location,2 defendant was waiting for them. Defendant came up to the vehicle, grabbed Rodriguez, placed a gun to Rodriguez's back, and took him inside the apartment; Rodriguez testified that the gun he observed appeared identical to the one defendant had previously displayed. Perez and the tattooed man also went inside the apartment,where three other people were present; Rodriguez identified the other three people as Facundo Zamora, Luis Lara, and Felipe Trujillo. Defendant led Rodriguez to the bedroom, where defendant, Perez, and the tattooed man wrapped his hands and feet with "more tape." Defendant beat Rodriguez with a baseball bat every time he moved, then told Rodriguez that he needed to obtain $350,000; Rodriguez told defendant that he did not have the money.
¶ 19 At some point during the night, defendant left the apartment with the tattooed man; Perez, Zamora, Lara, and Trujillo remained at the apartment. They were drinking liquor and periodically came back to check that Rodriguez was well-tied. They told Rodriguez that they would kill him the following day if he could not obtain the money.
¶ 20 Rodriguez testified that he "felt that [he] had to fight for [his] life," so, all night, he tried breaking through the tape binding his feet. Eventually, during the early morning, the tape binding his feet ripped, but his hands remained bound. Rodriguez could not hear any noise from the four men, so he believed they were sleeping and decided to try to escape. Rodriguez was able to unlock and open the back door and left. Rodriguez ran through the alley and considered asking for help from a nearby school, but did not want to scare the children.
¶ 21 Rodriguez testified that he continued running, and found a woman on the street; Rodriguez later learned the woman's name was Maria Campos. He told her what happened and asked her to help him and call the police. Campos told Rodriguez to hide in her vehicle and covered Rodriguez with a tablecloth until the police arrived. When the police arrived, they cut the tape binding Rodriguez's hands.
¶ 22 Rodriguez testified that the police placed him in the backseat of their squad vehicle andhe directed them to the building where he was being held. Additional officers arrived and the police entered the apartment, bringing out Perez, Trujillo, Lara, and Zamora and arresting all four. The police then took Rodriguez to the hospital, where he was treated for his wounds and released.
¶ 23 Rodriguez testified that he spoke to the police at the hospital and told them what had happened and about the man he knew only as Pepe, the defendant. After leaving the hospital several hours later, he went to the police station, where he was...
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