The People Of The State Of Ill. v. Shelton

• Decision Date: 14 May 2010
• Docket Number: No. 1-07-3386.,1-07-3386.
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee,v.Linda SHELTON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

401 Ill.App.3d 564
929 N.E.2d 144
340 Ill.Dec. 840

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Linda SHELTON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-07-3386.

Appellate Court of Illinois,
First District, Fifth Division.

May 14, 2010.

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Anita Alvarez, State's Attorney, Alan J. Spellberg, Marie Quinlivan Czech, of counsel, County of Cook, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee The People.

Linda Shelton, Oak Lawn, IL, pro se.

Justice LAVIN delivered the opinion of the court:

To paraphrase Tolstoy, happy litigants are all alike, but every unhappy litigant is unhappy in her own way. Most litigants express displeasure with the legal process in exceedingly civil ways. They might complain in private to their lawyer, vent with their family, or take it out on some unsuspecting store clerk. Some flash occasional signs of anger that might seem unsettling. A few allow their temperament to become deranged enough to cause disturbances during court proceedings and wind up in our correctional institutions. In this appeal, we consider the rather strident and entirely misplaced arguments of a habitually contumacious physician whose obstreperous conduct while on trial for Medicaid vendor fraud justly earned her some Cook County jail time for direct criminal contempt. The events that led to her confinement and the tragicomic happenings while in jail will be punctiliously elucidated below; but in a nutshell, she chose to use some of her jail time to physically confront a supervisor in the facility, which led to an indictment for aggravated battery, for which she received a two-year sentence in the Department of Corrections. She raises 18 meritless arguments in this pro se appeal from that conviction. We affirm.

BACKGROUND Litigation Background

Defendant, Linda Shelton, M.D., was charged in 2004 with Medicaid vendor fraud. Although she was ultimately exonerated by a jury of that charge in February of 2009, defendant proved to be a very

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disruptive presence during pretrial proceedings. The contretemps seem to have been generated by her proclamation that she wanted to represent herself. The trial judge granted this request, which was ineluctably followed by a request for a standby attorney that the judge denied on the basis that the case did not appear to be unduly complex. After a number of court appearances, defendant's ardor for self-representation seemed to wane, particularly after she served three weeks in custody for failing to appear at a court hearing. At one point, private counsel appeared for defendant and handled the case without incident for several months. Inevitably, defendant began to have conflicts with her attorney, which played out in a number of court appearances. She was at turns complimentary to her counsel, saying he was “the best there is,” and then bizarrely dismissive, claiming he was “too concerned about being nice to judges and prosecutors.”

Taking another turn on the representation front, defendant informed her counsel that she wanted to represent herself, triggering his motion to withdraw. This attorney informed the court that he believed defendant would be making a big “mistake” if she represented herself. This led defendant to request that her lawyer appear only as standby counsel. During a hearing on her attorney's request to withdraw, defendant began a lengthy diatribe that sought to establish her bona fides in the pro se area, including a claim that she had won more than a dozen cases with standby counsel. She peppered her remarks with attacks against various elected officials, including a Cook County commissioner, the Attorney General, and the Governor of the State of Illinois. Months later, two other private attorneys filed appearances on defendant's behalf, which only prompted defendant to reiterate at the next hearing that she wanted to represent herself.

It is against this checkered background of back-and-forth representation issues in the Medicaid fraud case that the events leading to the finding of direct criminal contempt occurred. At a particularly contentious hearing in the fraud case, defendant verbally accosted the trial judge, who gave all appearances of attempting to control his courtroom in the face of a wildly inappropriate litigant who repeatedly accused him and his judicial colleagues of running a criminal enterprise. Ultimately, defendant's words and actions proved to be too much for the rather tolerant judge, who found defendant in contempt and sentenced her to 30 days in the Cook County jail.

Regrettably, defendant did not seem to accept the message that the contempt citation was designed to give. While in jail, she continued to be an irritant to all personnel, ultimately leading to a physical confrontation with a supervisor in the jail in which she struck the man. Curiously enough, the instrument that she chose for the alleged battery was a wheelchair that she claimed to need as a result of weakness brought on by a hunger strike and an underlying medical condition.

The Jailhouse Battery Case

Defendant was charged with two counts of aggravated battery pursuant to section 12-4(b)(6) of the Criminal Code of 1961 (720 ILCS 5/12-4(b)(6) (West 2004)). At the grand jury hearing, the State presented one witness, Investigator Sofus of the Cook County sheriff's police gang crime narcotics unit, jail enforcement team. Investigator Sofus testified that she investigated an aggravated battery to a correctional police officer that occurred on May 16, 2005. At that time, defendant was an inmate of the Cook County department of corrections. Sergeant Salemi, the alleged

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victim, was an officer with the Cook County sheriff's department assigned to the department of corrections. Sergeant Salemi was on duty and in uniform. Sergeant Salemi was called to defendant's cell because defendant was flooding her toilet. When Sergeant Salemi neared her cell, defendant, sitting in a wheelchair, threatened to leave if he opened the door. Sergeant Salemi opened the door, defendant rammed her wheelchair into him, striking his shins. While Sergeant Salemi attempted to control defendant, she kicked him in the chest. The grand jury returned an indictment charging defendant with two counts of aggravated battery.

At trial, the State called two witnesses: Sergeant Salemi and nurse Ogali. Sergeant Salemi testified that he knew defendant prior to May 16, 2005, because of her long history of incidents with security and medical staff. On May 16, 2005, he was notified by Officer Hall that defendant was yelling and flooding her cell. Sergeant Salemi and Officer Hall approached defendant's cell, looked through a window on the cell door, and observed defendant yelling while sitting on a wheelchair in the middle of the room. Officer Hall unsecured the door, which opened outward, then returned to her desk per Sergeant Salemi's instructions.

Sergeant Salemi stepped “not even six inches” into the room with his back to the door. Defendant rolled toward Sergeant Salemi and rammed the wheelchair foot pegs into his shins. Sergeant Salemi pushed her back. Defendant leaned back in the chair and kicked him in the chest. Sergeant Salemi went backwards and defendant fell to her side onto the floor because there were no arms on the wheelchair. Sergeant Salemi handcuffed her and took the wheelchair out of the room. Sergeant Salemi noticed his legs were bleeding, so he went to the emergency room to receive treatment. Through Sergeant Salemi's testimony, the State introduced photographs of defendant's cell and photographs of the cuts and scrapes on his legs.

On cross-examination, Sergeant Salemi testified that he had been in contact with defendant earlier that day. He was made aware that defendant had asked for a pen, according to Officer Hall's notes, but did not independently remember defendant yelling about a pen and paper. Sergeant Salemi stated that if the wheelchair had been broken, it would not have been in use. There was no evidence of any injury to his chest.

The State next called nurse Ogali, a registered nurse at the Cook County jail. Nurse Ogali testified that on May 16, 2005, at approximately 4 p.m., she noticed that the hallway was flooding from defendant's cell, and defendant was banging on the cell door. She observed Sergeant Salemi from her nursing station as he and a female guard opened defendant's door. After the door was opened, she observed defendant move forward. Sergeant Salemi bent down to take the wheelchair, and defendant fell down. She was aware that defendant was flooding her cell, banging on the door, cussing, and screaming. When she ran in to assist defendant, defendant was screaming, “I need to call my lawyer. I'm suing! I need to call my lawyer! I'm suing!” Defendant told nurse Ogali to leave her alone. Nurse Ogali then observed the bleeding from Sergeant Salemi's legs.

The defense called eight witnesses during its case-in-chief. Dr. Vern was a neurologist who first came into contact with defendant on May 31, 2005, when she was admitted to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation and for certain neurological complaints. Dr. Vern testified that defendant suffered from a permanent disability

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as a result of spinal stenosis. He opined that it was not physically feasible for defendant to have leaned back in the wheelchair and kick Sergeant Salemi because she could not raise both legs to the level of one's chest and kick out.

The defense next called Dr. Briller, a cardiologist who began treating defendant on July 1, 2005. She treated defendant for a variety of heart problems, including frequent fainting spells, arrhythmia, and a history of valve problems. Dr. Briller stated that both dehydration and hunger would affect one's energy and strength. With...