People v. Watkins

• Citation: 25 N.E.3d 1189
• Decision Date: 21 January 2015
• Docket Number: No. 3–12–0882.,3–12–0882.
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Charles WATKINS, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

25 N.E.3d 1189

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Charles WATKINS, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 3–12–0882.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Third District.

Jan. 21, 2015.

Michael J. Pelletier and Sharifa Rahmany (argued), both of State Appellate Defender's Office, of Chicago, for appellant.

Jerry Brady, State's Attorney, of Peoria (Justin A. Nicolosi (argued), of State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor's Office, of counsel), for the People.

OPINION

Justice CARTER

delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 After a jury trial, defendant, Charles Watkins, was convicted of unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver (720 ILCS 570/401(a)(2)(A)

(West 2012)) and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that the trial court erred in admitting at trial: (1) evidence that defendant had previously been convicted of unlawful possession of cannabis with intent to deliver as other-crimes evidence of defendant's intent to deliver the controlled substance in the present case; and (2) photographs of two sets of drug-related text-message conversations containing the name “Charles” that were found on a cell phone in close proximity to the drugs in the present case as evidence that defendant had a connection to the cell phone and, circumstantially, to the drugs. We affirm the trial court's ruling as to the other-crimes evidence and reverse the trial court's ruling as to the text messages. In addition, because we find that the erroneous admission of the text messages in this case was not harmless error, we reverse defendant's conviction and remand this case for a new trial.

¶ 2 I. FACTS

¶ 3 On about January 26, 2012, defendant was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver (720 ILCS 570/401(a)(2)(A)

(West 2012)) and with unlawful possession of a controlled substance (720 ILCS 570/402(a)(2)(A) (West 2012)). During the pretrial stage of the case, the State filed a notice of its intent to offer into evidence several of defendant's prior drug convictions as proof of defendant's intent to deliver the substance in the present case and for any other issue for which the evidence might become relevant during the trial. The convictions the State sought to admit were: No. 10 CF 191 (unlawful possession of cannabis), No. 10 CF 1213 (unlawful possession of a controlled substance), No. 10 CM 2102 (unlawful possession of cannabis), No. 09 CF 289 (manufacture or delivery of cannabis)¹ , No. 07 CM 2324 (unlawful possession of cannabis), and No. 06 CM 2046 (unlawful possession of cannabis).

¶ 4 The trial court treated the notice as a motion in limine and held a hearing on the matter prior to trial. At the hearing, the State argued that it was seeking to admit the convictions not to show defendant's propensity to commit crime but to prove defendant's intent to deliver the substance, to prove defendant's knowledge or absence of mistake about the substance, and to prove defendant's general familiarity with drugs. The State discussed some of the different factors the trial court was to consider in deciding whether to admit the evidence. The first such factor, according to the State, was whether there were sufficient facts to prove the other crimes. The State asserted that the sufficiency of the evidence of the other crimes was not a concern in this case because the defendant had actually been convicted of the other offenses and because the State was seeking to admit the actual convictions and not just the underlying facts of the offenses. As for the closeness in time and the similarity between the current offense and the prior offenses, the State asserted that all of the cases were within the past six years and that the fact that different drugs may have been involved did not make the current offenses and the prior offenses dissimilar. Regarding the probative nature of the evidence, the State described the circumstances of the instant case (that it involved constructive possession of drugs found in a common area) and asserted that the defendant would likely to try to distance himself from the drugs and would likely argue that he had no knowledge of the drugs and was not in possession of them. Citing United States v. Perkins, 548 F.3d 510 (7th Cir.2008)

, the State asserted further that the other-crimes evidence should be admitted for that exact reason—because it showed that defendant was not somebody who had one isolated incident where he was caught in the same room with drugs or in the same area with drugs but, rather, that defendant had a series of encounters with drugs over the past several years. The State noted that as to the possession with intent to deliver charge, it was the State's burden to prove intent and that the other-crimes evidence should be admitted for that purpose. Finally, with regard to prejudice, the State asserted that any prejudicial impact could be minimized by instructing the jury that the evidence could only be considered by it for the limited purposes specified.

¶ 5 Defendant opposed the motion and asked the trial court to exclude the other-crimes evidence. Defendant asserted that the danger of unfair prejudice to defendant substantially outweighed the probative value of the other-crimes evidence. Defendant claimed that any jury instruction given by the trial court as to the limited nature of the evidence would “go right over [the juror's] heads,” and would not be understood by the jury. According to defendant, the other-crimes evidence would ultimately be considered by the jury as evidence of defendant's propensity to commit the crime charged—that because defendant had been convicted of drug crimes in the past, he must have been the person who was in possession of the drugs in the present case. Defendant noted that several of the prior crimes involved a different drug (cannabis) than defendant was charged with in the present case (cocaine). Regarding the sufficiency of the evidence to prove that defendant had committed the other crimes, defendant asserted that he was not challenging that factor because the State had prior convictions to establish that the other crimes had been committed by defendant.

¶ 6 At the conclusion of the hearing on the motion in limine, the trial court took the motion under advisement. The trial court later granted the State's motion, in part, ruling that it would allow the State to admit as evidence of defendant's intent to deliver in the instant case defendant's prior conviction for manufacture or delivery of cannabis.² In so doing, the trial court stated that it was relying in major part upon the decision in People v. Walker, 194 Ill.App.3d 864, 141 Ill.Dec. 534, 551 N.E.2d 721 (1990)

. The State informed the trial court that it would be presenting the evidence in the form of a certified copy of conviction and that it would prepare for the trial court a jury instruction that the trial court was supposed to read to the jury before the evidence was presented and that was also to be made part of the jury-instruction packet.

n¶ 7 In addition to the above, on the date of the hearing on the motion in limine, defense counsel informed the trial court that he had just received some late discovery from the State. The discovery indicated that one of the police officers in the case had recovered several hundred text messages from one of the cell phones that was found in the same drawer as the drugs during the execution of the search warrant and that as an expert witness, the officer was going to opine that the text messages demonstrated an intent to distribute drugs. Defendant asked that the text messages be excluded because they had not been turned over until just before the trial. The trial court denied that request and instead continued the trial for a few days to allow defense counsel to review the text messages and to further prepare for trial.

¶ 8 The jury trial in this case was held in August 2012. During opening statements, the prosecutor told the jury that the evidence would show that defendant was a “drug dealer” and that on the date in question, defendant was caught with almost 50 grams of powder cocaine and $5,000 in cash. Defense counsel told the jury in his opening statement that the prosecution had the burden of proof and that it would not be able to prove its case against defendant because the evidence simply was not there. Defense counsel asserted that the evidence would not show to whom the drugs belonged—that a lot of people came and went from the residence, that defendant was just visiting at the time the drugs were found, that the drugs were not found anywhere near the defendant, and that defendant's fingerprints were not found on any of the items recovered. Although the prosecution did not mention anything about a cell phone or text messages in its opening statement, defense counsel told the jury in his opening statement that it might eventually hear some evidence that the State would present about a cell phone and certain text messages on the cell phone. Defense counsel commented that there would be no evidence connecting that cell phone to defendant—no identifying marks on the phone, no name on the phone, no fingerprints, and no phone number associated with the phone. Transitioning away from the cell phone and back into the lack of evidence, defense counsel commented further that there would be “no testimony from any direct eyewitness taking the stand claiming that [defendant] at any point possessed drugs that were found in that residence, let alone that he possessed with any type of intent to deliver drugs.”

¶ 9 After the opening statements had concluded, the trial moved into the evidence phase. The evidence presented at the trial, relevant to the issues raised in this appeal, can be summarized as follows. On January 26, 2012, several police officers executed a search warrant at the residence at 608 East Thrush in Peoria, Illinois. The officers...