Woodruff v. Lane

• Citation: 818 F.2d 1369
• Decision Date: 18 May 1987
• Docket Number: No. 85-2151,85-2151
• Parties: 23 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 111 John WOODRUFF, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Michael LANE, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 1369

818 F.2d 1369

23 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 111

John WOODRUFF, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Michael LANE, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 85-2151.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 11, 1986.

Decided May 18, 1987.

Laura L. Leonard, Sidley & Austin, Chicago, Ill., for petitioner-appellant.

Nathan P. Maddox, Office of the Atty. Gen., Springfield, Ill., for respondent-appellee.

Before CUDAHY and COFFEY, Circuit Judges, and GRANT, Senior District Judge. ^*

GRANT, Senior District Judge.

The State of Illinois charged Frank and John Woodruff with two counts of murder, one count of home invasion, and one count of home burglary. After a jury trial in state court, the Woodruffs were convicted on all counts and each was sentenced to three concurrent terms of imprisonment, made consecutive to previously imposed nine-year terms of imprisonment. The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed all the convictions. After the Supreme Court of Illinois denied permission to appeal, the Woodruffs sought habeas corpus relief in federal court, the Southern District of Illinois. Meanwhile, Frank Woodruff died and, upon notice, the district court dismissed his petition. United States Magistrate Gerald B. Cohn, acting under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 636(c), then entered an order denying John Woodruff's petition for habeas corpus. Woodruff v. Lane, 84-3174 (S.D.Ill.1985). An appeal was certified, and upon considering its merits we affirm the judgment of the district court and deny the petition.

I.

This petition for habeas corpus refers the Court back to the events of 1979 when a series of home invasions occurred in Decatur, Illinois, and back to 1980 when a jury trial resulted in convictions for the Woodruffs. From May 29 to June 12, 1979, at least four home invasions occurred in the area of Decatur. Over the course of two weeks a seemingly striking pattern developed to mark these invasions. The perpetrators entered at night to prey upon their elderly victims; they asked or looked for money; and before leaving, they tied the hands and feet of their victims with electrical cord, and sometimes gagged them with cloth. On the morning of June 13, 1979, a fifth elderly victim was found bound and gagged in a ransacked home. Elsie Cummins, however, was dead, asphyxiated by the gagging.

Meanwhile, the circumstances of the other home invasions began to fall in place. Mr. Kirkman was awakened in his home in the pre-dawn hours of May 29 by what he thought were three men asking him for money. Before leaving, the intruders tied Mr. Kirkman's hands and feet with electrical cord and laid him against the front door. Later, Mr. Kirkman identified Frank Woodruff at a lineup. Mr. and Mrs. Marvin were confronted in their home at 10:00 on the evening of June 6 by two men asking for money. They pulled the shades, searched the house, and before departing, the two men tied the Marvins with electrical cord to separate chairs. At a subsequent lineup, Mrs. Marvin identified John Woodruff and only tentatively identified Frank. At 10:00 in the evening of June 8, Mr. Walker was awakened from his sleep on the porch and ordered inside his home where two men asked for money. (Mrs. Walker, asleep upstairs, thought her clock read 1:10 A.M.) The men tied the hands and feet of Mr. and Mrs. Walker--electrical cord for him, phone cord for her--then tied them to the bed, gagged them and covered them with clothing. The intruders stole handguns with holsters, coins and other items. At 11:30 P.M. of June 12, two men entered the home of Mrs. McGlade, took money from her purse, tied her hands and feet with electrical cord, gagged her with sheet strips and covered her with a pillow and clothing. Mrs. McGlade identified both John and Frank Woodruff at a lineup, despite having told police on the night of the invasion that she did not believe she would be capable of identifying anyone.

The break-in at the McGlade residence occurred on the eve of the morning police officers found Elsie Cummins dead in her home. That same night of June 12, sometime before 10:00 P.M., police officers noticed the Woodruffs' Chevrolet parked near the Cummins home. At about 10:30, the officers observed the beam of the headlights. The car moved, stopped briefly, then the two passengers of the Chevrolet drove the car past the unmarked police car. The police lost the Chevrolet in traffic.

A short while later, close to 11:45, another set of officers stationed in a car outside the Woodruffs' apartment watched as the Chevrolet approached to park. However, after the passengers of the Chevrolet appeared to notice the undercover officers, the Chevrolet bolted at high speed, prompting a mini-chase through stop signs in a residential area. Just ten minutes later the Chevrolet pulled to the curb immediately when a marked squad car appeared in pursuit. Only John Woodruff emerged from the Chevrolet.

John's wife, Debbie Woodruff, proved to be a valuable trial witness for the State. She fit pieces of the investigative puzzle together by testifying that on the night of June 12, at about 1:30 A.M., Frank had arrived at the Woodruff apartment disclosing that he jumped out of the Chevrolet and made his way back to the apartment on foot. She also related that earlier on June 12 the three of them (John, Frank and Debbie) spent the afternoon driving around Lake Decatur, scanning the neighborhood for signs of elderly residents and jotting addresses down on an envelope. The State introduced in evidence an envelope bearing many addresses, including the address of Elsie Cummins. Debbie identified the envelope as authentic. Finally, Debbie said she had seen proceeds from earlier home invasions and described the paper sack used to store the proceeds.

On this appeal, John Woodruff contends the State of Illinois denied his constitutional right to a fair trial. Not only has he argued that the evidence was insufficient to establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for the crimes relating to the break-in of Elsie Cummins's home, but he also insists the admission into evidence of the details of other home invasions was erroneous and unduly prejudicial, and the prosecutor's unsubstantiated statements during opening and closing argument rendered the entire trial fundamentally unfair.

II.

The prosecution offered evidence of four home invasions to show modus operandi, that the invasion of the Cummins home was according to the pattern established by the other home invasions, and ultimately, that since the Woodruffs were identified as perpetrators of the prior invasions, their "mark"--the established pattern--identified them as perpetrators of the Cummins home invasion.

Although evidence of other crimes and wrongs is generally not admissible to show character and conduct in conformity with it, a balancing of undue prejudice and probative value controls whether prior crimes can be used for other purposes. Fed.R.Evid. 404(b). The Illinois courts allow evidence of other crimes to show modus operandi, People v. McDonald, 62 Ill.2d 448, 343 N.E.2d 489 (1975), but because of the prejudice likely to flow from evidence of other crimes, a court must not allow this evidence unless the crimes are "so nearly identical in method as to earmark them as the handiwork of the accused." People v. Emmett, 34 Ill.App.3d 167, 170, 340 N.E.2d 235, 238 (1975).

Primarily, Woodruff contests the finding that the other crimes are "so nearly identical" as to establish a pattern. Woodruff argues that the fact that these home invasions occurred at night and the victims were bound is of no significance since it is a scenario common to many home invasions. Woodruff contends that these home invasions had less similarity than the events considered in People v. Connors, 82 Ill.App.3d 312, 37 Ill.Dec. 771, 402 N.E.2d 773 (1980), where the Appellate Court of Illinois held that identical statements made to victims did not establish a sufficient pattern, because they were "not so distinctive as to earmark each as the conduct of the same perpetrator." 82 Ill.App.3d at 318, 37 Ill.Dec. at 776, 402 N.E.2d at 778.

Woodruff also argues that the trial court ignored the differences between the Cummins home invasion and the other offenses; the absence of any distinctive factor common to all the offenses foreclosed the inference of similarity, rendering erroneous the admission of the prejudicial evidence of four unrelated crimes. Woodruff cites a handful of differences: Elsie Cummins was bound by cloth strips, the other four victims were bound by electrical or telephone cords; Elsie Cummins was found in her bedroom covered with clothing, two of the other victims were found in different rooms of their homes and were not covered with clothing; the identifications offered by the victims failed to establish the number of persons involved; and the home invaders took nothing from the Cummins home, although guns were in plain view and a large sum of money was stashed away in a drawer that appeared to be searched. (This final allegation, if true, would seem critical considering the pursuit of money was central to the modus operandi of the home invaders. However, this remains a hotly contested matter since the police officer on the scene testified that the envelopes of money were hidden from view.)

Woodruff was tried and convicted for murder, home invasion and burglary. The evidence concerning other crimes was admitted to show modus operandi, to link Woodruff to the crime for which he was being tried. As the Appellate Court of Illinois related the similarities and other significant evidence:

The points of similarity include the following: (1) All of the victims were elderly; (2) all of the victims were bound in some manner, and in several instances, the method of binding the victims was almost identical to that of the decedent. The Walkers and Mrs. McGlade were all told to lie on the bed, their hands were tied behind their backs, their ankles were tied, and they were tied to...