People v. Wideman

• Decision Date: 31 March 2016
• Docket Number: No. 1–12–3092.,1–12–3092.
• Citation: 52 N.E.3d 531,402 Ill.Dec. 610
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Lawrence WIDEMAN, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

52 N.E.3d 531

402 Ill.Dec. 610

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Lawrence WIDEMAN, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 1–12–3092.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, First Division.

March 31, 2016.

Michael J. Pelletier, Alan D. Goldberg, Patricia Mysza, and Todd T. McHenry, all of State Appellate Defender's Office, Chicago, for appellant.

Anita M. Alvarez, State's Attorney, Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, Mary P. Needham, and Margaret G. Lustig, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

OPINION

Justice CUNNINGHAM

delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Defendant-appellant Lawrence Wideman appeals the circuit court's denial of his motion seeking leave to file a successive petition for relief under the Post–Conviction Hearing Act (Act) (725 ILCS 5/122–1 et seq.

(West 2012)). For the following reasons, we conclude that the defendant did not establish his right to obtain leave to file the successive postconviction petition, and thus we affirm the judgment of the circuit court of Cook County.

¶ 2 BACKGROUND

¶ 3 In a 2004 jury trial, the defendant was convicted of first degree murder and armed robbery in connection with the death of 51–year–old Howard Thomas on August 6, 1999. Thomas died of blunt trauma injuries after being beaten by group of teenaged individuals that allegedly included the defendant, Frad Muhammad, Gregory Reed, and Marvin Treadwell.

¶ 4 The defendant was arrested in connection with Thomas' death on February 19, 2000. The following day, he signed a statement in which he described his participation in the attack on Thomas.

¶ 5 Prior to trial, the defendant filed a motion to quash arrest. At the December 2001 hearing on that motion, Chicago police officer Sergeant Charles E. Williams testified that witnesses to the crime provided information leading to the arrest of Muhammad and Reed, both of whom told police that a person known as “Red” participated in the crime. Reed identified the defendant's residence as where “Red” lived, and Reed and Muhammad subsequently identified a photograph of the defendant. The trial court denied the motion to quash the defendant's arrest.

¶ 6 Separately, the defendant filed a motion to suppress his statement as involuntary. In that motion, he asserted that the police interrogated him over the course of 35 hours despite his repeated requests to speak with an attorney, and that he was subject to physical and mental coercion before he signed the statement. After a hearing on the motion to suppress, which included testimony from the assistant State's Attorney who had interviewed the defendant and prepared the statement that he eventually signed, the trial court denied the motion to suppress on February 25, 2004.

¶ 7 The defendant's jury trial on the charges of first degree murder and armed robbery commenced on October 19, 2004.

¶ 8 A number of witnesses testified at the defendant's trial, although only one of those witnesses (whose affidavit forms the basis for this appeal) specifically identified the defendant as one of Thomas' assailants.

¶ 9 The trial witnesses included Derek Barnes and his brother Ronald, both of whom lived in the same building at the time of the attack. Derek testified that shortly after midnight on August 6, 1999, he saw a group of “about four” teenagers walk past his residence. Derek did not recognize any of the individuals. Shortly thereafter Derek was talking to his brother when he heard “the noise of a person cracking some type of instrument on something” and “a guy hollering.” Derek recalled that approximately five houses down the block he saw the group of teenagers and heard someone saying something to the effect of “Stop. Don't kill me.” Derek testified he saw “one or two” of the teenagers “swinging, like they were hitting something on the ground.” Derek recalled “one person swinging and two people kicking” but could not say whether all of the members of the group were involved in the attack.

¶ 10 Ronald Barnes also testified that he was with Derek when he saw a man being beaten by a group approximately 50 yards away. Ronald “heard cracking of a bone” and heard the victim ask his attackers not to kill him. Ronald could not recall exactly how many people were in the group but estimated it was “[m]ore than two, three.” Ronald recalled that certain members of the group were kicking and that one person swung an object toward the victim. Ronald could not identify any of the attackers.

¶ 11 The State next called Jori Garth, who testified that in August 1999 she was 14 years old and lived at 7324 S. Calumet with her mother. At the time Garth had a boyfriend, Anton Williams, who was 16 years old.

¶ 12 Garth testified that she and Williams were talking on the porch at her mother's house on the night of the attack, when a group of five or six individuals approached her house. She recognized certain of the individuals. However, Garth did not testify that she recognized the defendant as a member of the group.

¶ 13 Garth stated that Reed walked up to the porch and spoke with her and Williams for a time, while the others in the group stayed in front of the house talking among themselves. At one point, someone in the group said “There goes that mother * * * right there” and the members of the group “ran off.” Garth then saw three members of the group fighting with a man about two houses south of her residence. She saw “two people that were physically engaged with him, as far as kicking and hitting him” and saw another individual, Muhammad, swing a baseball bat at the man. She testified that the man was “thrown into [a] car,” after which members of the group continued to kick and “stomp” on the victim as he lay on the ground, and another person “continued to beat him with the bat.” Eventually the group walked away from the scene.

¶ 14 Garth testified that she spoke to detectives later that evening, but did not tell them what she had seen because she was “scared” and “didn't want to get involved.” She also did not tell police that Williams had been with her at the time of the incident. It was not until February 2000, after her father brought her and Williams to the police station, that she told the police what she knew about the incident.

¶ 15 Following Garth, Williams also testified that he had been with Garth on the porch of her residence when “four or five” guys walked up. Among those individuals, Williams testified that he recognized the defendant, whom he knew as “Red,” as well as Muhammad, Treadwell, and Reed. Williams testified that Reed spoke with him and Garth on the porch, while the other individuals remained in the front yard talking amongst themselves.

¶ 16 Williams saw a man walking down the street carrying a bag. The group attacked the man. Williams testified that the defendant and Muhammad “rushed” the man and “start[ed] beating on him,” after which other members of the group joined in the attack. Williams recalled that Muhammad used a baseball bat to hit the victim, while other members of the group continued to punch and kick him. The victim was thrown into the side of a car, and one of the attackers “stomp[ed]” him while others continued to punch and kick him. Williams estimated that the attack lasted five or six minutes, after which the group walked away.

¶ 17 Williams did not speak to the police on the night of the beating, testifying that he had been afraid for his and Garth's safety. He first told police about the incident at the police station on February 16, 2000. Williams acknowledged that he subsequently viewed a lineup in which he identified the defendant as a participant in the attack.

¶ 18 Sergeant Charles Williams also testified that Garth's father brought Garth and Williams to the police station on February 16, 2000, which led the police to arrest Muhammad, Reed, and Treadwell. Sergeant Williams testified that information from Reed led to the defendant's arrest, and that Anton Williams later identified the defendant in a lineup.

¶ 19 Following Sergeant Williams, Assistant State's Attorney Victoria Ciszek testified that she became involved in the case on February 20, 2000. On that date, the defendant agreed to speak with her about the attack on Thomas after she him informed of his Miranda rights. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966)

. Ciszek testified that she informed him of “several different options in which we could document or memorialize his statement” and that he agreed to submit a handwritten statement, whereby Ciszek would “write out what he was telling me what happened.”

¶ 20 Later that evening, Ciszek recorded the defendant's statement in the presence of another officer, Detective Howard. After ascertaining his understanding of his Miranda rights, Ciszek proceeded to write down the defendant's responses to her questions about the attack on Thomas. Ciszek testified that she reviewed the entire statement with the defendant, who had an opportunity to make changes to the statement. The defendant, Ciszek, and Detective Howard signed at the bottom of each page of the statement after the defendant reviewed it.

¶ 21 The defendant's signed statement was published to the jury. In the statement, the defendant recalled that on the night of the attack he was with Muhammad, Reed, Treadwell and another individual. According to the statement, the group went to a liquor store on 75th Street and “while they were walking toward the liquor store * * * they were talking about robbing someone” “so that they could get money for liquor.”

¶ 22 After they purchased liquor, the group “stopped at a house in the 7300 block of Calumet because they saw some girls and guys on a porch.” According to his statement, “they were there for a while when [the defendant] saw [Treadwell] fighting with a man,” after which the defendant “joined in to get the man off of [Treadwell].” The defendant “grabbed the man from behind and the man wrestled away from him.” The defendant then “hit the man with his...