People v. Williams, 1-06-3463.

• Decision Date: 27 August 2008
• Docket Number: No. 1-06-3463.,1-06-3463.
• Citation: 385 Ill. App. 3d 359,895 N.E.2d 961
• Parties: THE PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sandy WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

895 N.E.2d 961

385 Ill. App. 3d 359

THE PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sandy WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-06-3463.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Third Division.

August 27, 2008.

Rehearing Denied October 14, 2008.

Patricia Unsinn, State Appellate Defender (Brian Carroll, Assistant Appellate Defender, of counsel), Chicago, IL, for Appellant.

Richard A. Devine, State's Attorney of Cook County (James E. Fitzgerald, Ashley Romito, Veronica Calderon Malavia, Amy Watroba Kern, of counsel), Chicago, IL, for Appellee.

Justice GREIMAN delivered the opinion of the court:

Following a bench trial that included inculpatory deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) evidence, defendant, Sandy Williams, was convicted of two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated kidnaping and aggravated robbery. He was subsequently sentenced to two concurrent terms of natural life imprisonment for the aggravated criminal sexual assault counts; a consecutive term of 60 years' imprisonment for the aggravated kidnaping count; and a concurrent term of 15 years' imprisonment for the aggravated robbery count. On appeal, defendant contends that the trial court erred in admitting the inculpatory DNA evidence because sufficient foundation was not established for the forensic scientist's opinion testimony on the matter. Defendant additionally contends that admission of the forensic scientist's opinion testimony violated defendant's confrontation rights according to Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). Defendant finally contends that the trial court erroneously ordered that his aggravated kidnaping sentence run consecutive to his sentence of natural life imprisonment for aggravated criminal sexual assault.

The evidence adduced at trial demonstrated that, on February 10, 2000, defendant grabbed the 22-year-old victim, L.J., as she was walked home from work, forced her into a car and repeatedly sexually assaulted her. Once finished, defendant took the victim's money and some of her personal belongings and fled. The victim immediately ran home and reported the incident.

The victim later went to the hospital, where she provided a blood sample and a vaginal swab for a sexual assault kit (kit). Doctor Nancy Schubert sealed the samples in the kit and placed it in a secured lock box in the emergency room. Early the next morning, Detective Michael Baker obtained the kit from the emergency room and inventoried it prior to sending the kit to the Illinois State Police crime lab (Crime Lab) for testing and analysis.

Prior to going to the hospital, the victim spoke to the police and described defendant as a black male, standing 5 feet 8 inches tall, wearing a black skullcap, black jacket and jeans and driving a beige station wagon. The police subsequently issued a "flash" message including that description. Pursuant to the "flash" message, two officers stopped an individual matching the perpetrator's description. The suspect, James McChristine, agreed to accompany the officers to the hospital where the victim was being treated. The victim first viewed McChristine's driver's license and stated that there was potential that he was her attacker; however, she asked to view him in person. As a result, the victim viewed McChristine in the hospital parking lot and there was conflicting evidence presented as to whether the victim positively identified McChristine at that time. Notwithstanding, the victim again viewed McChristine at a police station thereafter and confirmed that McChristine was not her offender.

Defendant was arrested on August 3, 2000, on an unrelated offense. While in custody, defendant was required to provide a blood sample for the police DNA database. John Duffy, an investigator for the State's Attorney's office, placed defendant's blood sample into a sealed envelope. Duffy then inventoried the sample and sent it to the Crime Lab for testing and analysis. In March 2001, a DNA "hit" was generated in the database linking defendant to the underlying offenses. As a result, on April 16, 2001, L.J. viewed a lineup and positively identified defendant as her attacker. Defendant was subsequently charged with the instant offenses.

Karen Kooi, a forensic scientist at the Crime Lab, testified that she received defendant's sealed blood sample on August 24, 2000, and performed a short tandem repeat (STR) analysis on a portion of the sample. Kooi obtained a DNA profile from the sample and entered it into the Crime Lab database, which is used to compare DNA profiles to blood samples from unsolved crimes. While extracting defendant's DNA profile from his blood sample, Kooi acted in accordance with the nationwide standards for DNA analysis.

Brian Hapack, a forensic scientist at the Crime Lab, testified that he received the victim's sealed kit on February 15, 2000, and performed two tests on the vaginal swabs in order to detect the presence of semen. First, Hapack conducted an acid phosphastase test and received the highest indication for semen, four plus positive. Next, Hapack conducted an Abacard test and again received a positive result for the presence of semen with two pink lines. Hapack guaranteed the accuracy of his results by working in a clean environment free from contamination and by ensuring that the tests functioned properly. Hapack did not perform any tests on the victim's blood sample. Thereafter, Hapack sealed both the vaginal swabs and the blood sample in envelopes and placed them in a secure freezer in order to secure the evidence for future testing, as was a common practice in the scientific community.

Sandra Lambatos, a forensic scientist at the Crime Lab, testified, as an expert in forensic biology and forensic DNA analysis, that a procedure known as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) enables forensic examiners to extract a male DNA profile from semen, which could then be compared to the DNA from a suspect's blood in order to garner a statistical probability that the DNA matched.

In particular to the instant case, Lambatos testified that the victim's kit was sent, in a sealed condition, to Cellmark Diagnostic Laboratory (Cellmark), an accredited crime lab in Maryland, for further analysis. According to Lambatos, at the time, the Crime Lab commonly sent evidence samples to Cellmark to expedite analysis. The samples were sent via Federal Express, which was a generally accepted manner of transporting DNA evidence in the scientific community. A Crime Lab shipping manifest indicated that the victim's kit was shipped to Cellmark on November 28, 2000, in a sealed condition; was received by Cellmark on November 29, 2000; and was returned to the Crime Lab on April 3, 2001. According to Lambatos, the Crime Lab shipping manifest was generated in the ordinary course of business and was kept in a secure area of the lab.

Lambatos further testified that she used the comparison method described earlier to conclude that the semen obtained from the victim's vaginal swabs, as identified by Hapack, and the male DNA profile produced from defendant's blood sample, as identified by Kooi, were a match. The probability of the match was 1 in 8.7 quadrillion unrelated black individuals, 1 in 390 quadrillion unrelated white individuals and 1 in 109 quadrillion unrelated Hispanic individuals.

On cross-examination, Lambatos admitted that she was unaware of what happened to the Federal Express package containing the victim's kit when it arrived at Cellmark. Lambatos further admitted that she did not examine or perform any physical testing of the samples herself; rather, she based her opinion, in part, on the results generated by Cellmark. In particular, Cellmark provided a DNA profile for the semen recovered from the victim's vaginal swabs using electropherograms and allele charts. Although she did not personally observe Cellmark perform the tests on the evidence at issue, Lambatos averred that, because Cellmark was an accredited laboratory, it was required to meet "certain guidelines to perform DNA analysis for the Illinois State Police and so all those calibrations and internal proficiencies and controls [of the equipment used] would have had to have been in place for them to perform the DNA analysis." Lambatos, however, admitted that Cellmark had different procedures and standards for results than the Crime Lab. Nevertheless, Lambatos maintained that Cellmark analysts generally performed proficiency tests that she personally developed.

According to Lambatos, Cellmark's electropherogram tests revealed a mixture of DNA profiles; therefore, Lambatos opined that Cellmark subtracted the victim's profile, as generated from the vaginal swab, from the sample in order to deduce the male's DNA profile, namely, defendant's. Lambatos admitted that Cellmark's results demonstrated a minor presence for unaccounted genetic material, which she described as "white noise." Lambatos then entered the retrieved male DNA profile into the Crime Lab database to search for a match. Lambatos admitted that it was possible to have a degraded evidence sample; however, she did not observe any evidence degradation in the instant case. According to Lambatos, she reviewed Cellmark's results; made her own interpretations; and formed her own opinion of the evidence.

On redirect examination, Lambatos clarified that the results demonstrating a mixture only produced DNA profiles for the victim and defendant. In her expert opinion, Lambatos stated that Cellmark's testing and analysis methods were generally accepted in the scientific community. Lambatos further testified that she routinely relied on results from Cellmark and she did not observe any problems with the chain of custody or contamination of the evidence at issue.

At the conclusion of Lambatos' testimony, defense counsel moved to exclude that portion of her testimony related to Cellmark's testing based upon Crawford and a lack of established...