People v. Williams

• Decision Date: 17 October 1991
• Docket Number: No. 65249,65249
• Citation: 167 Ill.Dec. 853,588 N.E.2d 983,147 Ill.2d 173
• Parties: , 167 Ill.Dec. 853 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Dennis WILLIAMS, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 983

588 N.E.2d 983

147 Ill.2d 173, 167 Ill.Dec. 853

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Dennis WILLIAMS, Appellant.

No. 65249.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 17, 1991.

Rehearing Denied March 30, 1992.

Charles L. Glick and Martha J. Burns, Chicago, and Scott R. Shepherd, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for appellant.

Neil F. Hartigan, Atty. Gen., Springfield, and Cecil A. Partee, State's Atty., Chicago (Terence M. Madsen, Asst. Atty. Gen., Chicago, and Renee Goldfarb, Asst. State's Atty., and Maureen A. Harton, Special Asst. State's Atty., of counsel), for the people.

Justice FREEMAN delivered the opinion of the court:

Following a jury trial in the circuit court of Cook County, defendant, Dennis Williams, was convicted of murder, aggravated kidnapping, and rape. Defendant was sentenced to death for the murders and to concurrent extended terms of 60 years for each of the remaining offenses. We affirmed over defendant's contention, inter alia, that he had been denied the effective assistance of counsel. During the pendency of defendant's petition for rehearing, this court became aware of matters relevant to the claimed ineffective assistance of counsel. We allowed defendant's petition for rehearing, and determined that the interests of justice required the granting of a new trial. People v. Williams (1982), 93 Ill.2d 309, 67 Ill.Dec. 97, 444 N.E.2d 136.

Following a second jury trial in the circuit court of Cook County, defendant was convicted of two counts of murder, one count of rape, and two counts of aggravated kidnapping. Defendant waived jury sentencing and was sentenced by the trial court to death and concurrent terms of 30 years. The death sentence was stayed (134 Ill.2d R. 609(a)), pending direct appeal to this court (Ill. Const.1970, art. VI, § 4(b); 134 Ill.2d R. 603). For reasons which follow, we affirm.

Defendant raises numerous issues on appeal. We will address each, in turn.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On Thursday, May 11, 1978, at 12 a.m., Larry Lionberg began his job as an attendant at a Clark Oil service station, at 180th Street and Halsted, in Homewood, Illinois.

[167 Ill.Dec. 859] Sometime after Lionberg began his work-shift, his fiancee, Carol Schmal, joined him at the station. Sometime during the early morning hours, Peter Wonder and Sharon Macciaro, friends of both Lionberg and Schmal, visited the station for approximately 25 or 30 minutes. According to Macciaro, she and Wonder left at about 2:15 a.m.

At about 6:30 a.m., Clemente Morales, the manager of the Clark service station, drove past it and noticed that no one was on duty. Morales investigated and discovered that the station was in disarray and Lionberg was missing. Morales immediately called police.

On the following day, Lionberg's body was found in a grassy area near Deer Creek, in East Chicago Heights. Lionberg had been shot twice in the back of the head, once in the back, and was found laying face down. Schmal's body was discovered on the second floor of a nearby abandoned building located at 1528 Cannon Lane. Schmal was found laying face down, wearing a blouse and knee socks. Her pants and panties had been removed and were found lying beside her. She had been shot twice in the back of the head.

Later that day, police arrested defendant and Verneal Jimerson near the crime scene. The arrest was based upon a tip provided by an unidentified informant, later revealed to be Charles McCraney. Police subsequently took Kenny Adams and Willie Rainge into custody as well. Jimerson, Adams, and Rainge, however, were later released that evening, but defendant remained in custody.

The following day, McCraney went to the Homewood sheriff's police station. After speaking with McCraney, police officers went to the home of Paula Gray and spoke with her. That evening, Gray and her family went to the police station where Gray was interviewed at length in the presence of her mother. Once again, police took Jimerson, Adams and Rainge into custody.

Gray subsequently testified before the Cook County grand jury, implicating defendant, Jimerson, Willie Rainge and her boyfriend, Kenny Adams, in the crimes. According to Gray's grand jury testimony, she had been present in the abandoned building when Schmal had been successively raped by defendant, Adams, Jimerson, and Rainge, made to lie on her stomach, and shot twice in the back of the head by defendant. Gray testified that she had also been present at the grassy area near the creek when Lionberg was made to lie on his stomach, shot twice in the back of the head by defendant and once in the back by Rainge. According to Gray, defendant subsequently threw the gun used to kill both Schmal and Lionberg into the creek. Gray further testified that defendant had threatened to kill her and her family if she told the police. On both the nights preceding and following her grand jury appearance, Gray stayed at motels in police protective custody allegedly at the request of her mother.

When Gray later returned to her home, she discovered that her family had moved into defendant's mother's home. Two days later, on May 19, 1978, Gray was examined in the emergency room of St. James Hospital because she was exhibiting "bizarre" behavior. The following day, Gray was examined by Dr. Robert Watkins, a family practitioner, in his private offices. On May 21, 1978, she was again examined by Dr. Watkins, who admitted her to St. James Hospital where she remained for two days until discharge.

At some point after discovering that her family had moved into defendant's mother's home, Gray, herself, moved into the home and resided there with her family throughout the summer. During this period, Gray was called by defendant's counsel, Archie Weston, to testify at defendant's preliminary hearing. At the hearing, Gray recanted her entire grand jury testimony. She either failed to respond to questioning or simply repeated, when referred by defense counsel to each of her previous statements before the grand jury, "[T]hat is a lie," "[I] don't know nothing," or "[I] didn't see nothing." Defendant, Adams, and Rainge were subsequently charged by information with murder, rape, and aggravated kidnapping.

Shortly thereafter, Gray was indicted for her participation in the crimes, and for perjury. She was subsequently arrested and taken into custody. At a suppression hearing in her own case in October 1978, Gray repeated her recantation. Gray was tried simultaneously with defendant, Adams, and Rainge, although a separate jury was empaneled to hear Gray's case. Attorney Weston, defendant and Rainge's defense counsel represented Gray, following her indictment, at every hearing wherein she recanted her grand jury testimony (her suppression hearing and trial, defendant's first trial and sentencing hearing), although neither Gray nor her family hired him.

At her trial, Gray claimed that the authorities had forced her to lie before the grand jury and continued to flatly deny that defendant, Adams, and Rainge raped Schmal. Defendant, Adams, Rainge and Gray were subsequently convicted of murder, rape and aggravated kidnapping. Gray was also convicted of perjury.

Defendant successfully appealed his conviction and death sentence and was granted a new trial. (See People v. Williams, 93 Ill.2d 309, 67 Ill.Dec. 97, 444 N.E.2d 136.) Gray served 6 years of a 50-year term before an appeal resulted in the granting of a new trial. (United States ex rel. Gray v. Director, Department of Corrections (7th Cir.1983), 721 F.2d 586.) At the time of Gray's testimony at defendant's second trial, her new trial remained pending. Following defendant's second trial, Gray pleaded guilty to perjury and was sentenced to two years' probation. All other charges against her were dropped.

TRIAL

McCraney's Testimony

McCraney testified that during the early morning hours of Thursday, May 11, 1978, he was in the living room of his home, a second-story townhouse apartment, located at 1533 Hammond Lane, in East Chicago Heights (fairly five miles or more on thoroughfares from the Clark service station). McCraney, a jazz musician, was playing his guitar and composing a song. The front of McCraney's apartment faced a courtyard and the back faced Hammond Lane. Throughout the evening, McCraney would periodically interrupt his playing to go upstairs and look through a back bedroom window to check on his two newly upgraded autos parked below on Hammond Lane.

McCraney testified that at about 3 a.m., he looked through a back bedroom window and saw two cars, a blue Chevrolet and a beige Toyota parked outside. Several persons, including Paula Gray, Kenny Adams, and Verneal Jimerson, were sitting in the cars, walking about, and playing music. Adams was the driver of the beige Toyota, and Gray sat in his car as well as in a blue Chevrolet. During the two weeks that McCraney had lived there, these activities had occurred every night and it was not unusual for these various individuals to come and go many times from the vicinity during the day and evening. After looking out the window, McCraney went downstairs to the living room and resumed his guitar-playing.

After about 13 to 15 minutes, he returned to the upstairs bedroom window and again looked outside. This time, he saw a red Toyota backing up beside the beige Toyota. McCraney's sighting of this red Toyota was not unusual, however, because it had appeared daily near 1528 Hammond Lane during the two weeks that McCraney and his family had lived in the apartment. In fact, by McCraney's estimate, since 9 p.m., that evening, when he began looking out the upstairs window, the red Toyota had driven to and departed from the parking area several times. Seeing nothing unusual, McCraney once again returned to his living room and resumed playing.

Within 10 to 15 minutes, however, McCraney, was again at the upstairs window because he felt that "something wasn't right" since the cars had "backed in." In addition to the...