People v. Ward

• Decision Date: 02 February 2007
• Docket Number: No. 1-04-1852.,1-04-1852.
• Citation: 862 N.E.2d 1102,308 Ill.Dec. 899
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William WARD, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

862 N.E.2d 1102

308 Ill.Dec. 899

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William WARD, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-04-1852.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Sixth Division.

February 2, 2007.

Michael J. Pelletier, Deputy Defender, Therese Bissell, Assistant Appellate Defender, Office of the State Appellate Defender, Chicago, for Appellant.

Richard A. Devine, State's Attorney, James E. Fitzgerald, Michelle Katz, Tasha-Marie Kelly, Assistant State's Attorneys, Cook County State's Attorney's Office, Chicago, for Appellee.

Justice JOSEPH GORDON delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant, William Ward, appeals after his conviction by a jury of two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm. Defendant first argues that the State failed to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, asserting that his identification by a witness was too doubtful and unreliable and that there was insufficient evidence to prove that he possessed the weapon used in the shooting at the time the shooting occurred. Defendant also alleges that the State injected reversible error into the trial by minimizing its burden of proof and inflaming the jury's passions and prejudices in its closing argument. He further contends that the circuit court erred by: declining to grant his motion to suppress; allowing the jury to determine that the victims suffered severe bodily injuries; failing to question the jurors individually after one of them indicated that defendant communicated with him, and that he had shared that experience with his fellow jurors; failing to give the jury the instruction required by People v. Prim, 53 Ill.2d 62, 289 N.E.2d 601 (1972), when the jury indicated that it was deadlocked; and failing to conduct a hearing as required by People v. Krankel, 102 Ill.2d 181, 80 Ill. Dec. 62, 464 N.E.2d 1045 (1984), when presented with defendant's pro se complaints of ineffective assistance of counsel. Further, defendant claims that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the circuit court's refusal to provide a copy of the transcript of the identifying witness's testimony to the jury, when the jury asked for the transcript. Finally, defendant contends that his counsel was ineffective for failing to preserve his alleged errors surrounding the State's closing argument, the lack of jury questioning, the absence of a Prim instruction, and for misinforming defendant that his posttrial motions would be prepared by the state appellate defender.

We affirm.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On December 29, 2000, a grand jury indicted defendant for six counts of attempted first degree murder, two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, six counts of aggravated battery, two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm, three counts of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon. These charges stemmed from the drive-by shooting of two people in Harvey, Illinois, on September 24, 2000.

At defendant's trial, Officer Montague Hall testified that he was a Harvey police officer on September 24, 2000. Around 7:25 p.m., he responded to a call of shots fired in an alley around 150th and Honore. Hall recovered two .9-millimeter bullet casings at the scene. He spoke with a man on the ground who had been shot in his leg who was subsequently transported to Ingalls Hospital in an ambulance. Hall also spoke with two other people, James Tolbert and Terrence Coprich, who provided him with descriptions of two possible offenders. Hall recorded their descriptions, as to both persons, as "male Black, unknown height, unknown weight, unknown complexion," in his police report. He suggested that the undetailed descriptions he recorded were insignificant because the investigating detectives would reinterview witnesses to obtain more specific information.

Harvey Detective Samuel White testified that he was assigned to investigate the September 24 shooting in the alley around 150th and Honore. In the course of the investigation, he interviewed Tyrone Moten on October 29, 2000. At the time, Moten was in police custody based on a parole violation. After speaking with Moten, White began to look for defendant.

White testified that on November 17, 2000, he went to defendant's residence. He knocked on the door, but nobody answered. As he was leaving, he saw defendant drive up toward the residence. The two made eye contact and defendant drove off. White chased defendant in his car to 164th Street and Halsted, where defendant exited his car. When White tried to take him into custody, defendant punched White. However, White was able to get defendant to the ground and handcuff him. Other Harvey police then transported defendant to the police station, while White returned to defendant's residence.

Upon his return, White entered defendant's residence with Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) parole agent Agent Giorgakis. White observed Giorgakis search the bedroom, from which he recovered a safe and ammunition. White and Giorgakis then returned to the police station, where they opened the safe and discovered a loaded gun, ammunition, and a magazine.

The following day, White spoke with defendant. Defendant admitted that he had stolen the gun from his girlfriend, who lived with him at that residence. White then sent the gun and ammunition to the Illinois State Police crime lab.

The next day, on November 19, 2000, White met with one of the shooting victims, Michael Walker at Christ Hospital. White was accompanied by a felony review assistant State's Attorney. White presented Walker with a photo array of six men, defendant and five others. However, Walker was unable to identify defendant as the person who shot him. In fact, he pointed to another person as the person he thought shot him. White testified that he no longer knew the whereabouts of the photo array he had shown Walker.

Giorgakis next testified for the State. He testified, consistent with his suppression hearing testimony, that he was at defendant's residence with White on November 17, 2000. Giorgakis corroborated White's account of defendant pulling up to his home, seeing the officers, and then speeding away. He further confirmed that defendant struck White after stopping and exiting his car at 163rd Street and Halsted.

Giorgakis then described how he returned to search defendant's residence. He explained that he searched the bedroom and recovered ammunition and a lockbox from under the bed. He took the lockbox to the Harvey police station, opened it there, and recovered from within a .9-millimeter handgun as well as four fully loaded clips. He testified that he turned these items over to White.

Terrence Coprich testified next as to the occurrence of the shooting itself. Coprich admitted that he was a convicted felon whose probation had been terminated unsatisfactorily.

Coprich testified that on September 24, 2000, he was in the backyard of James and Michael Tolbert's house at 150th and Honore. Michael Tolbert was working on Walker's car. Moten came by and he, Coprich, and unspecified others, got into a car and drove to 158th and Vine to look into a fight involving Moten that had occurred there earlier. There, while some spoke with an acquaintance named Cliff, Moten, a woman named Sakina, and defendant got into a fistfight. Defendant then ran to the back of the house at 158th and Vine. While most of the party got back into their car, Moten remained outside, picked up a brick, and smashed out the windows of defendant's truck. Moten then reached into the truck and took a blue and red hat known as a "one-fifty," based on its price of $150, from the front seat. Coprich grabbed Moten, chastising him for his conduct, and pulled him into the car. The entire party then returned to the Tolberts' residence.

After returning to 150th and Honore, Coprich and three others decided to get some beer. As they went back to his car after making the purchase, they noticed a gray station wagon pass by. Coprich recognized defendant as the front passenger in the wagon. Coprich and the others got in his car and followed the station wagon. Coprich surmised that the people in the wagon knew where his friends were, so he turned into the alley adjacent to the Tolbert residence to try to warn his friends to disperse. However, as he approached them, the station wagon entered the alley from another direction. Coprich testified that he again saw defendant and another man in the wagon as the cars became parallel, with the passenger doors of the two cars facing each other. He described the distance between himself and defendant at that moment as matching the distance between himself and the jury box at the time of his testimony. He described defendant as having "his head straight." Coprich then saw "a gun come up," "fire," and heard "popping." According to Coprich, defendant shot across the driver's seat of the wagon. Coprich fled by driving his car away from the scene, but then returned to check on his friends. He came back to find Walker already on his way to a hospital and J.C. Johnson lying on the ground shot in the leg and hip.

On November 19, 2000, Coprich viewed a lineup at the Harvey police department. At that time he picked out defendant as the person he observed shooting.

On cross-examination, Coprich originally testified that he did not remember if he talked to the first police officers to come to the scene of the shooting, but that he had been told he did. He then testified that the first officers asked him "about what went on," that he answered the officer's questions, and that he observed the officer taking notes. Coprich further acknowledged that, on the same day he observed the lineup, he gave a statement to Detective White and Assistant State's Attorney Alzetta Bozeman. Coprich testified that he told Bozeman about the fight between Moten, Sakina, and defendant, preceding the shooting, and Moten's breaking of the windows of defendant...