People v. Whitfield , 2017 IL App (2d) 140878 ( 2017 )

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People v. Whitfield, 2017 IL App (2d) 140878Appellate Court THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.
Caption HEZEKIAH D. WHITFIELD, Defendant-Appellant.
District & No. Second District
Docket No. 2-14-0878
Filed March 3, 2017
Decision Under Appeal from the Circuit Court of Lake County, No. 12-CF-1269; the
Review Hon. Mark L. Levitt, Judge, presiding.
Judgment Affirmed.
Counsel on Michael J. Pelletier, Thomas A. Lilien, and Kerry Goettsch, of State
Appeal Appellate Defender’s Office, of Elgin, for appellant.
Michael G. Nerheim, State’s Attorney, of Waukegan (Patrick Delfino,
Lawrence M. Bauer, and Diane L. Campbell, of State’s Attorneys
Appellate Prosecutor’s Office, of counsel), for the People.
Panel JUSTICE SCHOSTOK delivered the judgment of the court, with
opinion.
Presiding Justice Hudson and Justice Spence concurred in the
judgment and opinion.
OPINION
¶1 In this direct appeal from his conviction of first degree murder, the defendant, Hezekiah
Whitfield, raises three arguments: (1) the trial court should have suppressed his unrecorded
custodial statement to police pursuant to section 103-2.1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of
1963 (Code) (725 ILCS 5/103-2.1 (West 2010)), which renders such statements presumptively
inadmissible in a murder trial; (2) the trial court erred in limiting his ability to present evidence
of other crimes committed by someone else who had been convicted of the same murder (a
conviction that was later overturned); and (3) the trial court should have allowed him to present
evidence explaining his travel to Indonesia shortly after the police obtained a DNA sample
from him. Although we agree with certain of these arguments, we affirm on the basis that the
trial court’s errors were harmless in light of the compelling DNA evidence against the
defendant.
¶2 I. BACKGROUND
¶3 On December 9, 1994, Fred Reckling was found dead in a Grand Appliance store in
Waukegan. His head had been beaten in. Four small droplet-type stains were found on the
carpet near the door. Pieces of the carpet containing the stains were removed and sent for
testing. Reckling’s car was recovered 10 days later in Chicago; there were stains on the
driver’s seat, the steering wheel, and the threshold between the door and the driver’s seat. Later
testing showed that all of the stains on the carpet pieces and the car were blood.
¶4 A little over a year later, James Edwards, who had been arrested for a series of robberies in
the Waukegan area, told Waukegan police that he had murdered Reckling. He was convicted
of the murder in 1996. However, in 2010, the supreme court granted Edwards’s request for
DNA testing of the blood evidence in the case. The DNA from the bloodstains did not match
either Reckling’s or Edwards’s DNA. Edwards was subsequently cleared of the charges
relating to Reckling’s death.
¶5 The DNA test ordered by the supreme court took place in May 2011. A comparison of this
DNA with the CODIS DNA database indicated a probable match with the defendant. On June
24, 2011, the Waukegan police pulled over the truck that the defendant was driving. Shamiya
Mathis, a woman whom the defendant had begun dating a few months earlier, was with him.
The police took the defendant to a hospital and obtained a DNA sample from him. They then
released him.
¶6 On April 13 of the following year, the Chicago police issued a warrant for the defendant’s
arrest in connection with an assault on a woman named Ebony, who appears to have been
known to Mathis. Four days later, on April 17, 2012, the Chicago police department received a
report of an assault involving the defendant and Mathis. Two patrol officers, Christopher
Erickson and his partner, Jacquelyn Spaargaren, responded. They found the defendant outside
in an alley with a wound to his head. He told them that Mathis had struck him in the head with
something heavy. Both he and Mathis were transported to the police station (the defendant was
taken first to a hospital for examination). The police questioned both Mathis and the defendant.
The circumstances of that questioning are disputed, and we will address them in depth later in
this opinion. Mathis and the defendant were then released.
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¶7 On May 2, 2012, the defendant was indicted for the murder of Reckling. He was arrested
on that charge on May 15, 2012. Trial was eventually set to start on April 21, 2014.
¶8 A. Motion in Limine to Bar Evidence of Defendant’s Statement
¶9 In January 2014, the defendant filed a motion in limine seeking to bar the State from
introducing any evidence regarding the defendant’s statement while in police custody on April
17, 2012. His motion was based on section 103-2.1 of the Code (recording statute), which
provided as follows:
“When statements by accused may be used.
(a) In this Section, ‘custodial interrogation’ means any interrogation during which
(i) a reasonable person in the subject’s position would consider himself or herself to be
in custody and (ii) during which a question is asked that is reasonably likely to elicit an
incriminating response.
In this Section, ‘place of detention’ means a building or a police station that is a
place of operation for a municipal police department or county sheriff department or
other law enforcement agency, not a courthouse, that is owned or operated by a law
enforcement agency at which persons are or may be held in detention in connection
with criminal charges against those persons.
In this Section, ‘electronic recording’ includes motion picture, audiotape, or
videotape, or digital recording.
(b) An oral, written, or sign language statement of an accused made as a result of a
custodial interrogation at a police station or other place of detention shall be presumed
to be inadmissible as evidence against the accused in any criminal [homicide]
proceeding *** unless:
(1) an electronic recording is made of the custodial interrogation; and
(2) the recording is substantially accurate and not intentionally altered.
***
(e) Nothing in this Section precludes the admission *** (ii) of a statement made
during a custodial interrogation that was not recorded as required by this Section,
because electronic recording was not feasible, *** (viii) of a statement given at a time
when the interrogators are unaware that a death has in fact occurred, or (ix) of any other
statement that may be admissible under law. The State shall bear the burden of proving,
by a preponderance of the evidence, that one of the exceptions described in this
subsection (e) is applicable. Nothing in this Section precludes the admission of a
statement, otherwise inadmissible under this Section, that is used only for
impeachment and not as substantive evidence.
(f) The presumption of inadmissibility of a statement made by a suspect at a
custodial interrogation at a police station or other place of detention may be overcome
by a preponderance of the evidence that the statement was voluntarily given and is
reliable, based on the totality of the circumstances.” Id.The defendant argued that, under the recording statute, his statement to police on April 17,
2012, was inadmissible in any murder trial against him because it was the result of custodial
interrogation at a police station and it had not been electronically recorded. The State did not
file any written response to the motion.
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¶ 10 The hearing on the motion commenced on March 27, 2014, and stretched over portions of
four days. The State presented three witnesses, all of them Chicago police officers: Erickson,
Spaargaren, and Juan Cardenas. Before testifying, all of the officers had reviewed
Spaargaren’s written report regarding her conversation with the defendant on April 17, 2012.
¶ 11 Erickson testified that he had been patrolling with Spaargaren at about 8:15 p.m. on the
evening of April 17, 2012, when they received a call regarding a domestic battery. He and
Spaargaren responded to the call. Cardenas and his partner also responded, arriving a few
minutes later.
¶ 12 Erickson found the defendant walking in an alley with a laceration on his head and blood
on his shirt. The defendant said that he had been hit in the head with a blunt object, and he
identified two women (Mathis and another woman) as having been involved. There was no
odor of alcohol on the defendant’s breath and, except for some agitation due to the assault, he
was calm. Cardenas took the defendant to a hospital to have his injuries examined, per police
protocol. Erickson and Spaargaren took Mathis to the police station.
¶ 13 Just before 9 p.m., the defendant was brought to the police station. Erickson described the
defendant’s manner as “normal, a little bit agitated,” because he was “in a police station with
the injuries still to his head.” The defendant was brought to the rear processing room, where he
was chained to a bench along one wall. (Mathis was not in that room at that point.) The room
was about 12 feet by 20 feet, with four desks and computers, and a holding cell that was about
8 feet by 8 feet. There was no video recording equipment in that room. Erickson believed that
there was “video in the back lock up area where offenders [were] fingerprinted” but not in any
of the rooms where offenders were processed.
¶ 14 Erickson sat at a desk and began entering an incident report regarding the assault upon the
defendant by Mathis. Spaargaren began questioning the defendant. She was sitting near
Erickson, “no more than five feet approximately” away from him. Erickson did not read the
defendant his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and he did not hear any
other police officer do that. Spaargaren did not say anything to Erickson about the defendant
being a suspect in a murder investigation.
¶ 15 In response to a question about when the defendant had last encountered the police,
Erickson heard him say something to the effect of “I was recently stopped by Waukegan” and
“something about DNA.” The defendant then said, “My lawyer said don’t talk about
anything.” Erickson did not hear the defendant say anything else. Erickson specifically denied
hearing the defendant say anything about leaving for Indonesia after being DNA tested, when
“they” were going to “find out that I did it,” or about being “safe because another guy [was]
doing the time.” Asked whether Erickson heard the entire conversation between Spaargaren
and the defendant that Spaargaren described in her written report, Erickson said that he did not;
he heard only the statement that he had described regarding the defendant being stopped by the
Waukegan police and his lawyer telling him not to talk about it.
¶ 16 Cardenas testified next. He and his partner also responded to the domestic battery call on
the evening of April 17, 2012, arriving after Erickson and Spaargaren. The defendant had a
laceration on his forehead and one on his hand; Cardenas believed that the latter was the source
of the blood on his shirt. Cardenas spoke with the defendant to see if he needed medical
assistance. The defendant’s responses were coherent, his demeanor was calm, and there was no
indication that he was under the influence of any alcohol or controlled substance. He did not
complain of being in pain. In fact, the defendant declined to go to the hospital, but Cardenas
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and his partner took him there anyway because police procedure required a medical evaluation
or a written refusal of medical service. At the hospital, he was observed by a doctor, who
signed off on the defendant’s refusal of medical treatment.
¶ 17 Cardenas then brought the defendant to the police station’s processing room. Cardenas
described the room as about 15 by 20 feet, with four computers and two benches. Erickson and
Spaargaren were in the room. Cardenas had not Mirandized the defendant. When he did
Mirandize suspects, he used preprinted forms that were provided to the officers. The defendant
was handcuffed to a bench. He remained conscious and did not complain of any pain or request
water, food, or to go to the bathroom.
¶ 18 Cardenas and his partner remained in the processing room for the next 10 to 15 minutes,
waiting to see if Erickson and Spaargaren needed them for anything else. Erickson was
entering a report into the computer and Cardenas was standing behind him. Spaargaren and the
defendant were seven to eight feet away, having a conversation. Cardenas saw them talking but
did not hear them. Cardenas thought Spaargaren and the defendant spoke for three to five
minutes.
¶ 19 Spaargaren testified that, when she responded to the domestic battery call on April 17,
2012, she saw Mathis and the defendant arguing in the alley behind Avenue M. She and
Erickson separated them. Both Mathis and the defendant claimed to have been the victim of
assault. The defendant was taken to the hospital. In the squad car, Mathis told Spaargaren that
the defendant was named as the perpetrator of an assault committed four days earlier, on April
13, 2012. Spaargaren said that she would look into that when they got to the police station.
Mathis also said that the defendant was wanted for a murder investigation in Waukegan. She
said that someone else was serving time for the murder, but the defendant was still wanted in
connection with the case.
¶ 20 When they got to the police station, Spaargaren looked up the defendant and found that he
had indeed been named as the perpetrator of a battery to a woman named Ebony four days
earlier. However, she found no record of a warrant or stop order or anything else indicating that
the defendant was wanted by police in connection with a murder.
¶ 21 Soon afterward, the defendant came into the processing room at the police station and was
handcuffed to a bench in the room. Spaargaren described the processing room as “13 by 12 or
14 by 14” with two computers in it. As she recalled, the only other officers in the room were
Erickson and Cardenas. She sat across from the defendant and had a conversation with him.
She estimated that she was about three feet away from him.
¶ 22 As she knew that he had been accused of an earlier battery, she Mirandized him. She did
this “off the top of [her] head,” telling him that he had the right to remain silent, that anything
he said could and would be used against him in a court of law, and that if he could not afford an
attorney one would be appointed for him. (Upon being asked, Spaargaren said that she had also
told him that he had the right to have an attorney present.) She then asked him if he understood,
and he said yes.
¶ 23 According to Spaargaren’s testimony, her interrogation of the defendant was as follows:
“A. [Spaargaren:] I said I had gotten some information you are wanted in a murder
case in Waukegan. He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Yes, you are wanted in a murder
investigation in Waukegan.’ He said ‘I was DNA tested for that, and when they were
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going to find out I did it, I fled to Indonesia. They can’t do anything to me anymore.
Someone else is serving time for that.’
Q. [State’s Attorney:] After he made that statement to you, what did you say to
him?
A. I said ‘Were you there at the scene? Do you know the person that is serving
time? How are you involved?’ He said ‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore.’ ”
Spaargaren said that she then stopped questioning the defendant.
¶ 24 On cross-examination, Spaargaren testified that she had not had the defendant sign a
statement of his Miranda rights; she just recited them verbally based on her 21 years of police
experience. In her written report of her interrogation of the defendant, she did not mention the
other questions she had asked him because she recorded only what he said, “not anything that
he did not say.”
¶ 25 The defendant was the final witness at the hearing. As to the events that occurred before the
police arrived at the scene on April 17, 2012, he said that Mathis had tried to stab him and had
hit him in the head with a pipe. He was taken to a hospital by one of the police officers.
However, when it became clear that he would have to wait a long time to be seen, he signed a
waiver of medical treatment so that he could leave. He was then taken to the police station and
handcuffed to the wall near a bench. The police gave him some paper towels because the
wound on his head had reopened. He sat there for about 10 minutes. Spaargaren then
approached him.
¶ 26 Spaargaren said that she had had a conversation with Mathis, who had told Spaargaren that
she was with the defendant earlier when he was stopped by the Waukegan police and was
asked to give a DNA sample. Spaargaren told him that Mathis had also said that he was wanted
for a murder and that, to escape being captured, he went to Indonesia. The defendant testified
that he did not say anything in response to these statements.
¶ 27 Spaargaren then asked the defendant if he was wanted for a murder. The defendant told her
that to his knowledge he was not wanted, and that if she wanted to confirm that by searching
the computers, he wasn’t going anywhere, as he was chained to the bench.
¶ 28 Spaargaren then asked the defendant how his blood had gotten into Reckling’s car. The
defendant responded that he had been told by his attorney not to answer or discuss the case
with anyone. The defendant denied ever telling Spaargaren that “I was DNA tested, and I left
to Indonesia when they found out I did it, but now I am safe because another guy is doing the
time.” During the questioning by Spaargaren, Erickson was five or six feet away at a desk. The
defendant thought there were four or five other officers in the room. It was sort of loud in there.
Spaargaren was talking in a normal tone of voice, loud enough for him to hear. There was one
other individual chained to the bench next to him. The defendant remained at the police
department until 7 a.m. the next morning.
¶ 29 On cross-examination, the State elicited some background on the defendant. He was 42
years old at the time of the questioning. He had finished three years of college. He had been
read his Miranda rights in the past. Asked if Spaargaren read him his Miranda rights, the
defendant said, “If she did, I didn’t hear her,” and said that he did not recall anyone else
reading him his rights, either. Spaargaren’s questioning of him was brief, lasting less than five
minutes, and neither she nor any other police officer threatened him in any way or used any
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physical force on him. He did not have any difficulty understanding Spaargaren’s questions.
He was not using drugs that day.
¶ 30 The State then questioned the defendant about his interaction with Mathis earlier that night.
The defendant said that he had last seen Mathis eight or nine months before then, on the day
that he was stopped by the Waukegan police. He had gone to Indonesia, leaving July 4, 2011,
and returning in September. He had not seen Mathis after he got back until the night of the
incident.
¶ 31 The defendant again denied ever telling Spaargaren that he had been DNA tested and left
for Indonesia when they found out he did it. The defendant testified that he had not been aware
that someone else had been convicted of the murder and had never heard James Edwards’s
name. When Spaargaren asked him about his blood being in Reckling’s car, he had not known
that it was. Spaargaren had not told him that she had spoken with Waukegan police.
¶ 32 On redirect, the defendant said that after he was released by the police he went back to the
hospital. He received five stitches to treat the cut to his forehead. Although he had not taken
any drugs, he had had a small amount of alcohol—“a quarter-pint”—not long before the
incident with Mathis.
¶ 33 Before hearing closing arguments at the hearing, the trial court noted that, although the
defendant’s motion had been titled as a motion in limine rather than a motion to suppress his
statement, much of the evidence presented was the same as would have been presented for a
hearing on suppression. The trial court asked the parties to address the issue of voluntariness in
addition to their other arguments.
¶ 34 In its closing argument, the defense noted that its motion was based on the failure of the
police to videotape the questioning of the defendant. According to the testimony, the police
had had that capability, and Spaargaren’s questioning of the defendant constituted “custodial
interrogation” under the recording statute. The defense also noted that there was no
corroboration for Spaargaren’s testimony that she had Mirandized the defendant before
questioning him: neither the defendant nor the other officers present nearby heard any Miranda
rights read to him, and there was no written waiver signed by the defendant. As to the
statement allegedly made by the defendant (regarding the defendant fleeing to Indonesia after
he was DNA tested and “they were going to find out I did it”), again there was no proof other
than Spaargaren’s word that he had made such a statement: the defendant denied it, and
Erickson did not hear any such statement. The defense argued that this was exactly the
situation the recording statute was enacted to prevent.
¶ 35 Regarding voluntariness, the defense reviewed the factors listed in People v. Slater, 228 Ill.
2d 137, 160 (2008) (as quoted in People v. Harper, 2013 IL App (4th) 130146, ¶ 20): “the
totality of the circumstances surrounding the statement, including: (1) the defendant’s age,
intelligence, education, experience, and physical condition at the time of the detention and
interrogation; (2) the duration of the interrogation; (3) the presence of Miranda warnings; (4)
the presence of any physical or mental abuse; and (5) the legality and duration of the
detention.” Of these factors, the defense conceded that many favored a finding of
voluntariness, but stressed the defendant’s head wound, his consumption of some alcohol
earlier that evening, and the evidence that he did not receive any Miranda warnings. The
defense also noted that the trial court must consider the separate factor of the reliability of the
statement and argued that the factors it had mentioned earlier indicated that the statement was
suspect.
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¶ 36 The State’s closing argument conceded that there had been custodial interrogation of the
defendant as defined in the recording statute and that the statement had not been recorded, and
thus the defendant’s statement was presumed inadmissible. The State argued that the statement
should nevertheless come in under two of the statutory exceptions: subsection (e)(viii), which
permits the use of statements “given at a time when the interrogators are unaware that a death
has in fact occurred”; and subsection (f), which provides that the presumption of
inadmissibility can be overcome by “a preponderance of the evidence that the statement was
voluntarily given and is reliable, based on the totality of the circumstances.” 725 ILCS
5/103-2.1(e)(viii), (f) (West 2010). As to the first exception, the State argued that Spaargaren
had not been able to confirm Mathis’s story regarding the Waukegan murder investigation by
the time she questioned the defendant, so she was not aware that a death had occurred. As to
the second exception, the Slater factors favored a finding of voluntariness—the defendant was
middle-aged, educated, and despite the lacerations to his head and perhaps his hand, he
understood the questions and answered them coherently. The recording statute was enacted to
prevent coercive tactics by the police, and here the defendant did not claim that any such
coercion occurred. The State also argued that Spaargaren’s testimony that she verbally gave
him Miranda warnings was “unimpeached.” Thus, the State argued, the defendant’s statement
was voluntary and reliable. In rebuttal closing, the defense noted that, in Harper (a case
involving the recording statute), the reviewing court had determined that the defendant’s
unrecorded statement was reliable based in part on a comparison with prior recorded
statements by the defendant, which corroborated the unrecorded statement. Here, however,
there were no such prior statements. Instead, the defendant had declined to make a statement,
but one police officer claimed that he did make one. Thus, there was no proof of reliability.
¶ 37 The trial court denied the motion in limine. It found that the police had taken the defendant
into custody. The police provided the defendant with the opportunity to be seen by a doctor,
but the defendant refused treatment. The court found that the defendant’s recall of the events of
that evening was detailed and indicated that he was not suffering the effects of any
intoxication. The court also stated that it found the defendant’s “recollection of events
certainly, in my view, and based upon what I observed during the course of this hearing,
slanted to his particular point of view and to what he perceives to be in his best interest.” The
court did not indicate which specific points of the defendant’s testimony it considered biased
by self-interest. The court repeated that the defendant “certainly indicated in great detail all of
the facts concerning his evening with the Chicago police.”
¶ 38 The trial court found that the defendant had been transported to a police station where he
was handcuffed “to a bar in an interrogation room.” It found that “[t]here were a number of
individuals that were present during the time that Mr. Whitfield was present along with the
police,” commenting that it found “the officer’s testimony on this point to be extremely clear
and credible.” It then continued, “It appears that Mr. Whitfield was Mirandized at that time;
and the officer engaged in some general questioning of Mr. Whitfield, which was extremely
short in duration.”
¶ 39 The trial court indicated that its ruling was based primarily on subsection (f) of the
recording statute, under which the presumption of inadmissibility can be overcome by
evidence that the statement was voluntary and reliable considering the totality of the
circumstances. It then reviewed the Slater voluntariness factors, finding that the defendant’s
age, intelligence, and education supported a finding that the statement was voluntary and that
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the defendant’s physical condition had not prevented him from understanding the situation
despite the fact that his forehead wound later required five stitches. The interrogation was brief
and, as the court had noted earlier, it found that the defendant had been Mirandized.
¶ 40 The court commented that, although voluntariness and reliability were separate inquiries,
they overlapped in terms of the evidence that it should consider. It concluded:
“Under these circumstances, based on all of those facts that I have enumerated;
based on the fact that I don’t find anything to indicate in the record that Mr. Whitfield
was either intoxicated, suffering from some type of physical disability, was subjected
to any type of undue coercion or any type of lengthy custodial interrogation that would
render his statements somehow involuntary or somehow trigger the fact that they
should be suppressed as being anything other than voluntary; I find the record simply
devoid of anything that would support that type of conclusion.
The only thing that remains is whether or not I find that this statement is sufficiently
voluntary and reliable such that it can be admitted or overcome the presumption of
inadmissibility.
I simply find that the State has overcome the presumption of inadmissibility by
establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that defendant’s statements were both
voluntary and reliable.
As a result, I find that Section 103-2.1 does not bar the State’s use of the statement.
I also find that given the totality of the circumstances; my view of all of the credible
testimony that was offered during the course of this proceeding; that Mr. Whitfield’s
statements were knowingly and voluntarily made after he was appropriately
Mirandized.”
¶ 41 B. Trial
¶ 42 The defendant had also filed a motion in limine to allow him to elicit information regarding
the other crimes committed by Edwards. This motion was heard prior to voir dire on the first
day of trial, April 21, 2014. The defendant argued that it would be important to present
evidence that Edwards not only confessed to Reckling’s murder but also confessed to
committing several other robberies and murders around the same time. The State
acknowledged that, under Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973), the defendant could
introduce evidence that Edwards had confessed to committing the same murder that the
defendant was charged with committing. However, it argued that any evidence regarding
Edwards’s other crimes was simply an attempt to show that Edwards was a robber and
murderer and thus that he had acted in conformity with his prior offenses and had killed
Reckling as well. The trial court indicated that it would defer ruling on the motion in limine
until the issue came up at trial.
¶ 43 The trial lasted five days. In its opening statement, the State emphasized the DNA evidence
linking the defendant to the murder: that evidence tied the defendant to blood found at the
scene of the murder (the four droplets on the carpet near the front door of the store) and in
Reckling’s car. The State also mentioned that it would present testimony by Mathis about the
defendant being upset after providing a DNA sample and going to Indonesia not long
afterward, and that Spaargaren would testify regarding the defendant’s statements along the
same lines. The State noted that Edwards had confessed to the murder, but it said that there was
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“no evidence to support that” confession; all the DNA matched the defendant. The defendant’s
opening statement conceded that the DNA from the blood in the car matched the defendant’s
DNA and that the DNA from the store rug was consistent with the defendant’s DNA, but
stressed various items of other evidence suggesting that the defendant was not the culprit: the
presence of a white man similar to a former Grand Appliance employee in the area of the store
on the night of the murder (the defendant was not white), and witnesses who saw a white man
changing the tire of Reckling’s car that night. The defense also suggested that Mathis’s
testimony was neither true nor reliable, as it was inconsistent with known facts and she had a
motive to lie about the defendant’s actions and statements.
¶ 44 The State’s witnesses testified as follows. Annie Love, a former Grand Appliance
employee, also worked part-time in the office of the church that Reckling attended. Reckling
was active in the church and was often there in the evening. On the evening of December 8,
1994, Reckling came by the church about 8:30 p.m. and Love spoke with him for about 45
minutes. He said that he was returning to the store. She saw him leave the church and get into
his black Lincoln Town Car. Reckling often worked at the store during the evenings, and he
would keep the front door locked when he did so. On cross-examination, Love testified that a
white man named Ian Duffy had worked at Grand Appliance but was let go. She did not know
why Duffy had been terminated or about his relationship with Reckling, but she gave the police
his name during the investigation because his termination occurred not long before the murder.
¶ 45 Stan Binning, a contractor who regularly bought appliances from Grand Appliance, arrived
at the store about 8:15 on the morning of December 9, 1994. The front door was unlocked, and
when he entered the store, he saw signs of a disturbance near the entrance (glass from a
shattered fluorescent light bulb and a ladder lying on the floor). He saw no one in the store, and
he proceeded to a counter near the back where he began to fill out paperwork for a dishwasher
he wanted to purchase. A store employee, Heidi Williams, arrived soon afterward. She noticed
that Reckling’s car was not in its usual place in the parking lot. Reckling usually arrived about
8 a.m. to open the store. It had snowed during the night before, and there were no tracks in the
snow. When she entered, the front door was unlocked, and she heard a faint alarm. There were
papers scattered on the floor. She called Mark Reckling, Reckling’s son and a co-owner of
Grand Appliance, who directed her to go see what the papers were. They were customers’
checks, credit card slips, and deposit slips of the type that Reckling would normally take to the
bank in a blue bank bag each evening. However, the bank bag was missing and there was no
cash on the floor. As she began to walk through the store and turn the lights on, she saw
Reckling lying motionless near the refrigerators with blood pooled under his head. She called
911 but was so upset that she had difficulty completing the call. Williams also testified that
Reckling had two sets of keys, as he kept his car keys separate from the business keys.
¶ 46 John Sivia, a delivery driver for Grand Appliance since 1992, testified regarding
Reckling’s business practices. Reckling arrived at the store by 8 a.m. each day. The store
closed at 8 p.m. each night and that was when Reckling would lock the front door. However,
Reckling often stayed late to do paperwork, and he would take the day’s deposits to the bank
on his way home. Reckling was concerned about his employees. Employees sometimes cut
themselves when moving the appliances; Sivia had cut himself on sheet metal or screws in the
past. If an employee was injured while at a customer’s house, Reckling would pick the
employee up and take him or her to the hospital. He also sometimes allowed employees to
drive his car. The defendant was never employed by Grand Appliance to Sivia’s knowledge,
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but he could have been a customer who came to the store; Sivia would not have known if he
was.
¶ 47 On December 8, 1994, the day before Reckling’s body was found, Sivia borrowed $20
from Reckling. He saw Reckling’s wallet then; it was full of cash and probably had several
hundred dollars in it. Reckling kept his wallet in his left rear pants pocket.
¶ 48 On December 9, 1994, Sivia drove by Reckling’s house at about 8 a.m. on his way to work.
Reckling’s Lincoln Town Car was not in the driveway, and the snow was undisturbed. When
Sivia arrived at the store, Reckling’s car was not there either, and again, there were no tracks in
the snow. Sivia waited for a few minutes but did not see anyone. He went back to Reckling’s
house and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He then returned to the store, where
he eventually saw Binning moving near the entrance to the store. He went into the store, where
Williams was trying to call 911. He described the scene at the store in the same way as Binning
and Williams. When he saw Reckling’s body, he saw that Reckling was wearing the same
clothing he had been wearing the day before. Reckling had a jacket on, as if he had been
preparing to leave the store.
¶ 49 Mark Reckling testified that his father was 71 years old at the time of his murder. Mark
co-owned Grand Appliance with his father. The company had three stores. The Waukegan
store was the main store, and his father oversaw that store. In 1994, an alarm was installed in
the Waukegan store, but Mark found out later that it was never hooked up to call the police
department because of a technical glitch. If the alarm went off, it would sound very loudly in
the store for about 15 minutes, and then it would switch to a quieter sound just to indicate that
it had been triggered.
¶ 50 On December 8, 1994, his father left the store about 6 p.m. to pick up Mark’s daughter
from her music lessons. His father brought her to Mark at the store and then went to church.
Mark left the store about 8 p.m. He turned the lights off and locked the front door but thought
he did not set the alarm because he knew that his that father would be returning.
¶ 51 An employee called Mark about 8:40 a.m. the next morning, wondering where his father
was. He eventually went to the store. When he arrived, the police were there and they would
not let him in at first. The police showed him checks that had been retrieved from the floor of
the store; the checks had been stamped on the back so that they were ready to be deposited. At
trial, Mark was shown deposit slips that had been gathered from the store on December 9,
1994. He identified them and testified that they indicated cash deposits of $1700. Mark
testified that his father also carried cash in his wallet and that his father wore his jacket only
when he was outside, not while he was working in the store. On cross-examination, Mark
testified that he occasionally drove his father’s car. He first testified that it was “very, very
rare” that anyone else drove that car, but he was impeached with prior testimony that “other
people drove the car quite often.” It was very possible that employees could get hurt and bleed
while working in the store, for instance while opening cartons, but Grand Appliance had never
employed the defendant.
¶ 52 Witnesses connected with the initial investigation testified as follows. Lou Moore, a
Waukegan police officer, responded to the scene and spoke with some of the witnesses. He
knew Reckling personally and was able to recognize him as the victim. Steven Jones, an
evidence technician with the Waukegan police, also responded to the scene. He secured the
scene and then began gathering evidence. He found no evidence of forced entry at the front
entrance to the store, although there was broken glass from a shattered fluorescent light bulb.
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He took fingerprints from the inside and outside of the front doors. Jones then moved to the
location of Reckling’s body. He observed wounds to Reckling’s scalp and head. He found
blood under Reckling’s head and also blood spatters on a nearby refrigerator door, along with
gouges in the door, which he believed were made by a metal object. Reckling’s clothing was
torn: his right pocket was inside out and had been torn away, and his jacket pocket had been
ripped. A set of keys was lying near the body.
¶ 53 Jones and another evidence technician crawled from the body toward the front entrance,
looking for blood and fibers. On a carpet near the front door, he found four “droplet-type”
stains that he believed could be blood. He cut out pieces of carpet containing the stains and
placed them into envelopes to take to the police station, where they would be allowed to dry
before being sealed in evidence envelopes.
¶ 54 Mark Witek, a forensic pathologist with the Lake County coroner’s office, performed
Reckling’s autopsy on December 9, 1994. He observed three sets of parallel lacerations on the
right side of Reckling’s head, a bruise near his right eye, and a bruise on his shoulder. An X-ray
revealed that both bones in Reckling’s left forearm were broken. The lacerations suggested
that Reckling had been struck three times with a heavy, somewhat irregular weapon with
squared sides. It could have been a gun, although the injuries were consistent with many
weapons. The autopsy of the skull showed fractures and depressions of the skull bones. There
was extensive bleeding into the brain on the right side and bleeding of the brain itself on both
sides. He found no foreign material such as wood splinters in the wound.
¶ 55 Margaret Miller testified that she lived on the north side of Chicago in 1994. On about
December 10, she noticed a black Lincoln Town Car parked in front of her house. She
observed it for the next week or two, during which time it was not moved. She could see
grocery bags through the back windows. Eventually, she called the police because she believed
that it had been abandoned.
¶ 56 James Moore worked for the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, doing highway
maintenance. On December 21, 1994, he was working with James Beake, cleaning debris from
the edge of the roadway in their assigned section, which was the stretch of I-94 from the
Wisconsin state line south to Lake Cook Road. Beake was driving while Moore looked for
debris from the passenger seat of their truck. He saw a wallet in the grass about 10 to 12 feet
from the side of the road near the ramp from Route 60. They stopped and he retrieved the
wallet. The wallet contained Reckling’s driver’s license. Moore had read of the murder and
recognized the name. He placed the wallet on the dashboard without looking through it any
further and called the Illinois State Police.
¶ 57 According to a stipulation read into the record at trial, if called to testify, Beake would state
that on December 9, 1994, he was picking up trash along southbound I-94 and found a tire, a
rim, a car jack, and jumper cables along the ditch line at the entrance ramp from Route 60. The
jumper cables were later identified as having been in the trunk of Reckling’s car, and the
remaining items were from the car as well. None of the items had any blood on them.
¶ 58 James McCarthy, a Waukegan evidence technician, was called to the murder scene on
December 9, 1994. He searched a two- to three-block radius around the Grand Appliance store
for evidence connected to the murder and also went up to the store roof to see if he could see
any evidence, but he did not find any. On December 19, 1994, he traveled to Chicago to
retrieve a black Lincoln Town Car. When he arrived, the car was locked. The right rear tire did
not match the other three tires and appeared to be a spare tire. The car was loaded onto a flatbed
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tow truck and taken to the Waukegan police department, where it was turned over to the
Northeastern Illinois Regional Crime Laboratory. Two days later, he and his team responded to
a report of a wallet, tire, and rim being found near an entrance from Route 60 onto I-94. His
team searched the entire area but did not find any additional evidence.
¶ 59 Waukegan police detective Donald Meadie was assigned to the murder and submitted the
request that all local law enforcement agencies in Lake, Cook, and McHenry counties be
notified of Reckling’s missing Town Car. On December 19, 1994, he went to Chicago to
retrieve the Town Car, which had been reported abandoned. He found it locked with a spare
tire on the right rear wheel. He could see grocery bags in the back. He later investigated and
found that the groceries came from Franklin Foods in Waukegan. Mark Reckling told him that
the victim shopped there and often bought those items. On December 21, 1994, Meadie went to
the intersection of Route 60 and I-94 because some tollway workers had found a wallet, tire,
rim, and tire jack alongside the road there. The tire and rim matched the other wheels of the
Town Car he had retrieved. Some jumper cables and a basket of clothes were also recovered
from the area. The next day he returned to the area. The police erected a roadblock and passed
out flyers asking for information regarding any sightings of a person changing a tire on a
Lincoln Town Car at that location on the night of December 8, 1994.
¶ 60 Jason Howell, a painter, testified that he was working at Hawthorn Mall on the night of
December 8, 1994. At about 11:30 p.m. or midnight, he drove home along Route 60 and took
the ramp onto southbound I-94. He passed two cars pulled over onto the shoulder, one behind
the other. The rear car was a black Lincoln. Someone wearing black clothes and a white hat
was bending over near the rear of it. Howell did not see the person’s features. The car in front
was a red compact car. As he passed, a white man in his thirties was getting out of that car.
¶ 61 William Wilson, a toxicologist working for the Cook County medical examiner, testified
as an expert. In 1994, he was working at the Northeastern Illinois Regional Crime Laboratory,
doing serology (the study of blood and bodily fluids) and work with firearms. In 1994, the lab
was not doing DNA testing. Rather, the lab performed tests that could identify blood type (A,
B, AB, or O) and the presence of certain genetic markers for blood enzymes. These types of
tests were still considered scientifically valid, but they had been surpassed by DNA testing,
which could identify as many as 70 variations instead of perhaps 3.
¶ 62 On December 19, 1994, Wilson and others from the lab traveled to the Waukegan police
department to examine a 1993 Lincoln Town Car that had been brought in. The car was locked,
and while they waited for a locksmith to arrive, they processed the outside of the car for
fingerprints and trace evidence. After the car was unlocked, they inventoried the contents of
the car, taking photos of the interior and trunk before and after the contents (grocery bags and
some debris) were removed. When they opened the trunk, Wilson saw that the spare tire was
not in its customary place; instead, it was mounted on the right rear wheel. The original tire and
the tire jack were missing.
¶ 63 Wilson saw stains that he thought might be blood in three locations: on the driver’s seat,
near the left edge; on the threshold (the floor between the driver’s side door and the seat); and
on the steering wheel. He found no blood in the trunk, on the spare tire, on the passenger seat,
on the cassette tapes found in the car, or on any of the contents of the car. He transferred the
stains he found onto cotton threads, creating several threads for each stain. He also transferred
non-stained areas onto threads for comparison purposes. Wilson detailed the manner in which
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the stains were transferred onto the threads and the chain of custody for the threads. The
envelopes containing the threads were sent to the crime lab for testing.
¶ 64 Wilson analyzed the threads in February 1995. Before then, he received additional
evidence: pieces of carpet collected from the murder scene. He transferred the stains from the
carpet onto threads in the same manner as the stains from the car. He also received blood from
Reckling and from Edwards, for comparison purposes. Wilson performed the same analysis on
all of the evidence, using only one of the threads from each stain and one comparison thread.
As to the various stains, he determined that they were all human blood, and he determined the
blood type and the genetic markers present. Through this analysis, he was able to conclude that
neither Reckling nor Edwards was the source of the blood. He stored the remaining threads for
future testing. On cross-examination, Wilson stated that he could not determine the age of any
of the stains in the car and that they could have been created after the murder, when the car was
in Chicago.
¶ 65 Jason Gutke, a detective with the Waukegan police department, testified that he was
assigned to Reckling’s murder case in 2011. The police were looking for the defendant
pursuant to a warrant to take a DNA sample from him, which was issued on June 20, 2011. In
trying to locate the defendant, Gutke visited the defendant’s aunt and uncle, who gave him the
defendant’s cell phone number. On June 24, 2011, he received information that the defendant’s
cell phone was within range of a cell tower near Route 41. Two Waukegan police officers,
Zupec and Ulloa, pulled over the truck that the defendant was driving. Gutke and his partner
were the backup. Gutke went to the passenger side window, where he saw a woman later
identified as Mathis. He asked her to get out and to get into the back of his police car; the
defendant was placed in the other police car. Both cars drove to a nearby hospital, where
Gutke, Zupec, and Ulloa accompanied the defendant in to have a buccal swab for DNA taken.
Gutke’s partner remained in the police car with Mathis. The police then returned the two to the
truck, which drove off. There was no warrant for the defendant’s arrest. Jeff Ferdina, a
Waukegan police evidence technician in 2011, testified as to the chain of custody of the buccal
swab taken from the defendant.
¶ 66 Kenneth Pfoser, the DNA technical leader at the Northeastern Illinois Regional Crime
Laboratory, also testified as an expert. He gave a lengthy explanation of how DNA information
was stored on the DNA chain, how DNA was extracted from samples, and how it was tested.
Pfoser analyzed the DNA from the stains in the car, the stains on the carpet, Reckling,
Edwards, and the defendant. There were 15 loci of DNA information. As to the car stains, he
was able to retrieve DNA information for all 15 loci from the stains on the driver’s seat and the
threshold. This DNA matched the defendant’s DNA. The odds of such a match occurring
randomly would be one in 22.3 sextillion African Americans, or the population of about one
trillion planet earths. The DNA from the carpet stains yielded information from 14 out of 15
loci. This DNA was consistent with the defendant’s DNA, and the chance of such a similarity
occurring randomly was astronomical, but Pfoser did not use the term “match” unless all 15 of
the loci were present and could be compared. As to the steering wheel stain, Pfoser was able to
obtain information from only two loci. The defendant could not be excluded as the source of
this DNA information, but the odds of a random match were higher, one in 145 African
Americans. Both Reckling and Edwards were excluded as the source of the DNA from the
carpet and the car stains.
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¶ 67 Spaargaren testified that she encountered the defendant and Mathis on the night of April
17, 2012, when she and her partner responded to a call of domestic battery. Mathis was brought
to the police station in their squad car. On the way, Mathis told Spaargaren that the defendant
was wanted for a murder in Waukegan. Spaargaren took Mathis to a processing room in the
police station. Mathis was no longer in that room when the defendant was brought in about 30
minutes later in handcuffs. Spaargaren had not spoken with any other police officers at that
point; she knew only what Mathis had said.
¶ 68 Spaargaren testified that, before she began questioning the defendant, she Mirandized him
“from memory,” and she recited what she had told him. The defendant said that he understood.
Spaargaren asked the defendant if he was wanted for a murder in Waukegan, and he said
“What?” She repeated the question. She testified that he then said, “they DNA tested me for a
murder in Waukegan, and when I found out they knew that I did it, I left out to Indonesia.” He
then said that he did not want to talk anymore and she stopped asking him questions. When she
questioned the defendant, he was about three feet away from her. There were other officers
nearby. The conversation lasted five or six minutes.
¶ 69 On cross-examination, Spaargaren stated that she had been trained in interrogation
techniques in 2008. She admitted that she did not videotape the defendant’s statement but
asserted that she was not legally required to do so because she was a patrol officer, not a
detective. During this exchange with the defendant’s attorney, Spaargaren nonresponsively
inserted the fact that the defendant was wanted for a battery when she questioned him.
Spaargaren conceded that, although she had prepared a report that evening in which she noted
the defendant’s statements, she did not write down her questions or the defendant’s statement
that he did not want to talk further. In her report, she wrote: “subject when questioned ***
stated ‘I was DNA tested and then left to Indonesia when they found out I did it.’ ” According
to Spaargaren, this was “word for word” what the defendant said. This written version of the
statement differed slightly from her earlier testimony regarding the statement.
¶ 70 The final State witness was Mathis. She testified that she began dating the defendant in
April 2011. He was a truck driver, and she would sometimes accompany him on his route. On
June 24, 2011, they were pulled over by the police, who took them to the hospital. The
defendant entered the hospital and was inside for 45 minutes to an hour. They were then driven
back to the truck. When the defendant got into the truck and resumed driving, he began
shaking, smoking cigarettes, and even crying. She asked him what was wrong.
¶ 71 According to Mathis, the defendant told her all of the following as he drove to Chicago. He
said that he had killed someone a long time ago, maybe 17 years ago. He had been doing heroin
that day and had been looking for someone to rob. At an appliance store in Waukegan, he
robbed a man and hit him on the head with a gun three times. The defendant got a cut on his
hand. The man was 71 years old. He took the man’s wallet, the man’s car, and some cash that
was in a register. He drove off toward Chicago but he got a flat tire. He had to stop and flag
someone down to help him change it. He later abandoned the car. Mathis testified that, after he
told her all of this, he drove the truck to a Jewel and left it in the parking lot, where he had
someone pick him up. Mathis left separately.
¶ 72 The defendant called Mathis three days later and asked her to check the Internet to see if he
was wanted for the murder. She “told him no.” He called her a couple of weeks later and asked
her the same thing. She checked the Internet and did not find anything.
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¶ 73 In July 2011, he called her and said that he was in Indonesia. After that, she went to the
police to report what he had told her. (Asked why she had waited, she said that she was afraid
to contact the police before then.) On July 19, 2011, she met with two Waukegan police
officers, Detectives “Andy” and Zupec, and told them what the defendant had said. They asked
her to write out a statement, which she did. They also showed her photos and she identified
someone. At some point, she looked up the crime on the Internet and found out that an old man
had been robbed at a store.
¶ 74 She did not see the defendant again until April 2012, when she saw him in Chicago, in the
evening. The police were called, and she went with a female police officer to the police station.
She told the officer that the defendant was wanted for murder.
¶ 75 On cross-examination, Mathis agreed that she had told the Waukegan police officers that
the defendant said that on the day of the murder, he took a bus to Waukegan after getting off
work. At that time, he lived and worked in Evanston. The defendant also told her that he had a
gun wrapped in a cloth. Mathis gave contradictory testimony about whether the defendant had
boarded the bus with the gun, saying first that he had not and then that he had. She repeated that
the defendant had told her that the victim was 71 years old and that the defendant had hit him
three times, although she did not report those facts in her written statement to the police. (In her
police statement, she stated that the defendant had said he struck the man twice on each side of
the head.) She stated that she told the police that the defendant abandoned his truck after the
June 2011 DNA test, although that was not in her statement either. Mathis testified that she did
not find out that the defendant had married a woman in Indonesia until after she spoke with the
Waukegan police. However, she was impeached with her written statement, which indicated
that she had found out earlier that day about the marriage through a Facebook post. Her written
statement also indicated that she had looked up the crime on the Internet before contacting the
police.
¶ 76 During the April 2012 altercation between herself and the defendant, she hit him in the
head with a pipe because he had tried to cut her. At the police station, she told the woman
police officer “out of self-defense” that the defendant was wanted for murder, even though she
did not know whether that was true. The woman officer told her that they did not “have
anything on him.” At that point, Mathis had already read the information about the case.
Mathis told the officer to check the Internet and told her about the defendant having “blood”
taken for a DNA test.
¶ 77 Before resting, the State read various stipulations into the record. The parties stipulated that
the murder scene, the checks and deposit slips recovered at the scene, Reckling’s car, and the
items associated with the car were all checked for fingerprints. One fingerprint of evidentiary
value was recovered from each of the following items: the checks and deposit slips, the car,
and the jumper cables recovered from the side of the highway. None of these three fingerprints
matched the defendant, Reckling, Edwards, or Duffy (the former Grand Appliance employee).
Of the fingerprints having evidentiary value from the murder scene, three matched Reckling,
and none matched the defendant, Edwards, or Duffy.
¶ 78 The defense presented the testimony of Michael Wales. On December 8, 1994, he was
working at the Deerpath Inn in Lake Forest, with his then-girlfriend, Holly, now his wife. He
left work about 10:30 that evening, with Holly following in a separate car. He drove toward his
home along Route 60 and then turned onto the ramp for southbound I-94 at about 10:45. He
saw a black car pulled over onto the shoulder. It was the only car on the shoulder. The only
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person he saw was a white male wearing a hoodie, who was by the trunk. He did not see the
passenger’s side of the car or any flat tires.
¶ 79 When Wales received the subpoena to testify at the trial, he recognized the defendant’s
name. They had been in culinary school together in Evanston in 1993. Wales had not seen or
heard from the defendant since then. Wales was positive that the person he had seen near the
car in 1994 was not the defendant; the person he saw was white and the defendant was not.
Holly Wales then testified consistently with Wales about seeing a “dark nice car, a larger style”
on the shoulder of the I-94 ramp as they drove home on December 8, 1994.
¶ 80 After the Waleses testified, there was a lengthy discussion out of the presence of the jury
regarding whether the defense could elicit evidence of the other crimes committed by
Edwards, in the course of presenting evidence about Edwards’s statement that he murdered
Reckling. The defense argued that it should be permitted to introduce the other-crimes
evidence as part of showing how Edwards came to be in police custody. The State argued that
the other-crimes evidence was irrelevant and would improperly dispose the jury to find that
Edwards in fact murdered Reckling based upon his criminal propensities. The trial court
permitted the defense to elicit evidence of Edwards’s confession but not of Edwards’s other
crimes, finding that they were not similar or relevant to the charges against the defendant.
¶ 81 Michael Quinn, a Waukegan police officer, testified that in January 1996 the police had a
man named James Edwards in custody. Quinn and his partner, Mark Tkadletz, read Edwards
his Miranda rights at about 10:45 p.m. on January 4, 1996, and began questioning him “about
several different matters.” When they brought up the Grand Appliance murder, Edwards said,
“You’re talking death penalty,” and steered the discussion to other things. The questioning
continued until about 2:30 a.m. At that point, Edwards said that he was tired. He put his head
down on a table and napped for an hour. The police questioned him further after that. About
4:30 a.m., Edwards was allowed to go to a cell to sleep. The police knew that Edwards was a
drug addict. About 9 a.m. that morning, other detectives began questioning Edwards.
¶ 82 Quinn and Tkadletz began questioning Edwards again at about 6 p.m. that day. Quinn went
to speak with Edwards’s wife at one point, and she then called Edwards. After Quinn returned
to the station, Edwards said that he “needed a few minutes” and then told Quinn and Edwards
that he had killed Reckling on December 8, 1994, by hitting him with a wooden table leg. He
had been looking for a place to rob and saw Reckling going into a business, leaving his car
running. Edwards said that he followed Reckling and hit him on the head. He took between
$1300 and $1600, leaving the money bag, and left in Reckling’s car. He drove the car toward
Chicago but the car was messed up and he had to change the tire. He left the car in Chicago
“near Flukey’s.”
¶ 83 On cross-examination, the State elicited inconsistencies between Edwards’s confession
and the evidence at the murder scene. For instance, Edwards said that he saw keys in the
entrance door to the store; that he hit Reckling “in the face”; that he struggled with Reckling in
the back of the store, not in the front near the refrigerators; that he threw the murder weapon, a
table leg, out the window of the car while he was driving on Grand Avenue in Waukegan; and
that he left the car parked in a parking lot, not on the street, near Flukey’s, a restaurant that had
been located at 86th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago but had closed 10 years
earlier. Quinn testified that he did not know that all of these statements were contradicted by
the evidence in the case. On redirect, Quinn agreed that a black eye such as the one noted in
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Reckling’s autopsy would qualify as an injury to the face. The defense also called Tkadletz,
who testified similarly to Quinn about Edwards’s questioning and his statement.
¶ 84 Truman Prewitt testified that in December 1994 he worked in a Verlo mattress store two or
three blocks away from the Grand Appliance store where the murder occurred. On December 8
at about 7:45 p.m., a white male walked past the mattress store and appeared to be “casing” it
as if he wanted to rob it, looking into both windows and the door, and then walking the other
way and doing it again. Prewitt saw the man from about 30 feet away. The incident made
Prewitt nervous, so he locked the door even though there were still 15 minutes until closing
time. The next day, when he heard about Reckling’s murder, he called the police to report the
incident. They came by and showed him some photos, and he picked one out.
¶ 85 Out of the presence of the jury, the defense advised the court that it wished to call William
Amattey as a witness. Amattey was an attorney whom the defendant had contacted about filing
a petition for the defendant’s Indonesian wife to obtain a visa to enter the United States. The
defense wished to elicit the information that, although the defendant’s first visit to Amattey’s
office occurred in December 2011 (after the defendant returned from Indonesia), the defendant
had first contacted Amattey about one year earlier, in December 2010. The defense argued that
this evidence was important to rebut the inference that the defendant’s travel to Indonesia
showed consciousness of guilt, when in fact the trip was preplanned. The State argued that the
testimony would be hearsay. The defense agreed not to elicit the substance of any of the
conversations between the defendant and Amattey. The trial court accepted the State’s
argument and ruled that it would not permit Amattey’s testimony. The defense then rested its
case.
¶ 86 In its closing argument, the State once again emphasized the DNA evidence, which showed
that the blood on the store carpet and inside Reckling’s car matched the defendant’s DNA. It
ridiculed the theory that a 25-year-old man who lived in Evanston would have traveled on
some other occasion to the Grand Appliance store in Waukegan where he was cut and bled on
the carpet, and then broke into Reckling’s car when it was parked in Chicago (without any
signs of forced entry) and bled some more in the car. Noting the defendant’s statements to
Mathis and Spaargaren, the State then argued that there were “two confessions and the flight to
Indonesia” that also showed that the defendant committed the murder. Finally, the State
downplayed Edwards’s confession to the murder, noting that Edwards’s DNA did not match
any of the blood found at the scene or in the car.
¶ 87 The defense emphasized various inconsistencies in the State’s case, including the
witnesses who saw a white man, not an African American like the defendant, changing the tire
of the Town Car on the night of the murder, and evidence suggesting that the murderer knew
Reckling and knew that he kept two sets of keys. As for the DNA, there was no evidence as to
how old it was or when it was deposited in the store or the car. Notably, there was no blood or
fingerprints on the items the murderer would have handled that night, including the rim, the
spare tire, and the tire jack, and the State evidently did not feel confident enough of the DNA
evidence to issue a stop request or a warrant after the police took the defendant’s DNA sample
in June 2011. The defense argued that Mathis was biased against the defendant and had the
opportunity to research the known facts of the case before she spoke with the police. There
were no telephone records to show that the defendant ever in fact called her. Spaargaren was
not credible, either, as her unrecorded interrogation of the defendant was “sloppy” and there
were inconsistencies between her account and Mathis’s testimony. Finally, Edwards had
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confessed to Reckling’s murder. In rebuttal, the State argued that the white male seen near the
Town Car on the night of the murder was the person who had stopped to help.
¶ 88 During deliberations, the jury sent out a note asking, in pertinent part: “Can we see
Spaargaron’s [sic] informational report? The one where she quotes him as admitting.
Also—she referenced another report during her testimony, can we see that one too?” The
defense attorney suggested that the jury be told that they had all of the information they
needed. The trial court sent back the message, “You have all of the evidence. Please continue
to deliberate.” The jury convicted the defendant of first degree murder, finding that he was
over the age of 18 and that the killing occurred in the course of another felony. The jury also
found that the victim was over 60 years old. The trial court denied the defendant’s motion for a
judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial and sentenced the defendant to life in
prison. Following the denial of his motion to reconsider the sentence, the defendant filed this
appeal.
¶ 89 II. ANALYSIS
¶ 90 On appeal, the defendant raises two issues. First, he contends that the trial court erred in
denying his motion in limine to bar evidence of his supposed statement to Spaargaren pursuant
to the recording statute. Second, he contends that certain of the trial court’s other evidentiary
rulings—denying his request to introduce evidence of Edwards’s other crimes and barring the
testimony by Amattey as hearsay—unfairly prevented him from presenting his defense and
were an abuse of discretion. We take each argument in turn.
¶ 91 A. The Recording Statute and Defendant’s Statement
¶ 92 As noted above, the recording statute bars the use in a murder trial of any statement by the
defendant made during custodial interrogation (as that term is defined in the statute) that was
not electronically recorded. The State concedes that the defendant’s purported statement to
Spaargaren was made during custodial interrogation and was not recorded. Thus, under the
recording statute, the statement is “presumed to be inadmissible” in any criminal homicide
proceeding. 725 ILCS 5/103-2.1(b) (West 2010). However, the State argues that the statement
was properly admitted under two statutory exceptions: subsection (e)(ii), which states that a
statement is admissible if it was not recorded “because electronic recording was not feasible”;
and subsection (f), which provides that the presumption of inadmissibility can be overcome if
the evidence shows that the statement “was voluntarily given and is reliable, based on the
totality of the circumstances.” 725 ILCS 5/103-2.1(e)(ii), (f) (West 2010). The State bore the
burden of proving the applicability of these exceptions. 725 ILCS 5/103-2.1(e) (West 2010);
People v. Harris, 2012 IL App (1st) 100678, ¶ 61.
¶ 93 We may easily dispose of the State’s argument that recording the statement was not
feasible. As an initial matter, we note that the State did not raise this argument before the trial
court. Hytel Group, Inc. v. Butler, 405 Ill. App. 3d 113, 127 (2010) (generally speaking, a
reviewing court will not consider an argument that was not presented to the trial court). The
State asserts that a party may defend the trial court’s ruling on any ground supported by the
record as long as that ground is not contrary to its previous arguments. People v. Denson, 2014
IL 116231, ¶ 17. We acknowledge this rule but its application here is doubtful. Spaargaren
testified that she did not record the statement because she believed that, as she was a patrol
officer and not a detective, the recording statute did not apply to her questioning of the
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defendant. The clear implication of this testimony is that, even if there had been recording
equipment in the processing room where Spaargaren questioned the defendant, she would not
have used it. Thus, the State’s feasibility argument is fundamentally at odds with Spaargaren’s
testimony. Under these circumstances, Denson does not support the State’s ability to raise the
feasibility argument for the first time on appeal.
¶ 94 Even if we were to consider the argument, however, we would find it meritless. As the
State concedes, the testimony at the hearing on the motion in limine established that there was
recording equipment in the police station where the defendant was questioned by Spaargaren,
even if there was none in the processing room itself. We interpret the term “not feasible” in the
statute to mean that there was no functioning recording equipment in the police station where
the interrogation occurred. Any other interpretation would run counter to the legislative
purpose in enacting the recording statute. It would be absurd to imagine that the General
Assembly sought to require the electronic recording of all homicide-related questioning “that
is reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response” (725 ILCS 103-2.1(a) (West 2010)),
but intended to allow police to avoid this requirement by simply conducting the questioning in
a room that does not have recording equipment. Solon v. Midwest Medical Records Ass’n, 236
Ill. 2d 433, 441 (2010) (in construing statutes, courts “presume that the legislature did not
intend absurd, inconvenient, or unjust consequences”). Accordingly, we reject the State’s
argument that it was not feasible for Spaargaren to record her questioning of the defendant
about the Waukegan murder.
¶ 95 The State’s more substantial argument is that the presumption against admissibility was
overcome by evidence that the defendant’s statement “was voluntarily given and is reliable,
based on the totality of the circumstances.” 725 ILCS 5/103-2.1(f) (West 2010). The State bore
the burden of proving this by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. In reviewing the trial court’s
determination of voluntariness and reliability, we apply the same standard of review that
governs the suppression of evidence in other contexts: “We review a trial court’s factual
findings using a manifest-weight-of-the-evidence standard but apply a de novo standard of
review to the ultimate question of whether the evidence should be suppressed.” Harper, 2013
IL App (4th) 130146, ¶ 10.
¶ 96 The factors to be considered in evaluating whether a defendant’s statement was voluntary
are the familiar factors from Slater: the defendant’s age, physical condition, and other factors
affecting his ability to understand the proceedings and the consequences of his choice to give a
statement; and the circumstances of the detention and interrogation, including their duration,
the giving of Miranda warnings, and any indications of physical or mental abuse. Slater, 228
Ill. 2d at 160. As the defense conceded during the hearing on the motion in limine, many of
these factors favor a finding of voluntariness in this case.
¶ 97 The issue of reliability must be considered separately from voluntariness, however. Harris,
2012 IL App (1st) 100678, ¶ 66 (emphasizing that whether the defendant’s statement is
reliable “is a separate inquiry from whether it was voluntary”). This factor addresses the
possibility that a statement that was voluntarily given might nonetheless be unreliable or false.
The reviewing court in Harper outlined some of the factors that can affect the reliability of a
statement:
“A person who is developmentally disabled or a person who is actively delusional may
give a statement of his or her own free will, but the voluntary statement may not be
reliable because of the mental impediments suffered by the individual. Further, the
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statements of a person deprived of food, water, or sleep also may not be reliable
because that person may be inclined to say anything in order to have those deprivations
terminated. Hypnosis-induced statements have also been found unreliable.” Harper,
2013 IL App (4th) 130146, ¶ 22.
¶ 98 In this case, the trial court found the defendant’s statement, as reported by Spaargaren, to
be both voluntary and reliable. In reaching this conclusion, the trial court focused primarily on
the voluntariness factors. When commenting on the reliability inquiry, it noted that the relevant
factors overlapped somewhat with the voluntariness factors. It stated that there was no
indication that the defendant was “intoxicated, suffering from some type of physical disability,
[or] was subjected to any type of undue coercion” (factors that could affect the reliability of a
statement), but it then returned to the issue of voluntariness, stating that there had not been
“any type of lengthy custodial interrogation that would render his statements somehow
involuntary or somehow trigger the fact that they should be suppressed as being anything other
than voluntary.”
¶ 99 We are somewhat troubled by the trial court’s difficulty in keeping the issue of reliability
separate from that of voluntariness. Further, this case presents a different question from most
of the case law relating to the recording statute: that case law involves only situations in which
the defendant admitted making the statement but argued that it should nevertheless be
excluded. See, e.g., People v. Clayton, 2014 IL App (1st) 130743, ¶ 14 (defendant testified that
she was interviewed twice in the same room; the first interview was not recorded while the
second one was); Harper, 2013 IL App (4th) 130146, ¶ 19 (“Everyone agrees defendant
voluntarily made the statements in question,” which were recorded; issue was whether audio
malfunction in certain parts of the recording rendered the remaining portions of the recording
unreliable); Harris, 2012 IL App (1st) 100678, ¶ 17 (defense did not argue that the defendant
did not make the statements testified to by the police; issue was whether she was “in custody”
at the time of the questioning).
¶ 100 Here, by contrast, the defendant denies making the statements at issue (that he had been
“DNA tested” and subsequently went to Indonesia). According to the defendant, he did not
answer Spaargaren’s initial questions about DNA testing and merely said, in response to
further questioning, that he did not believe that he was wanted for murder and that he had been
told by his attorney not to answer questions. Thus, the initial issue confronting the trial court
was whether the defendant made the statements attributed to him by Spaargaren. The evidence
on this point was conflicting. Spaargaren testified that the defendant did make these
statements; the defendant denied that. Erickson, Spaargaren’s partner who was seated near her,
also denied hearing these statements; he heard only something about the defendant “being
stopped by Waukegan” and “about DNA,” and that the defendant’s lawyer had told him not to
talk about anything. Cardenas, who was also present, did not hear any of the interview.
(Spaargaren also testified that she Mirandized the defendant prior to questioning him, while
Erickson, Cardenas, and the defendant all testified that they did not hear any Miranda
warnings.)
¶ 101 The reliability inquiry outlined in Harris and Harper is not a perfect fit for a case such as
this, where the existence of the statement itself is challenged. In Harper, the leading case on
reliability, the defendant sought to exclude his statement under the recording statute because,
although the statement was recorded, portions of the recording were inaudible, through no fault
of the State. In concluding that the statement was reliable despite the missing portions, the
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reviewing court considered the portions of the recording that were audible, finding that they
were consistent with other admissible statements by the defendant. Harper, 2013 IL App (4th)
130146, ¶ 23. The court also considered the fact that the State did not contend that the
defendant said anything inculpatory during the inaudible portions; rather, the State simply
wished to present the audible portions as evidence. Id. ¶ 29. Here, by contrast, the State sought
to present evidence of an inculpatory statement allegedly made by the defendant that was
unrecorded. Further, there were no other statements by the defendant to support either the
existence or the reliability of the purported statement. We believe that both of these facts, when
coupled with the lack of corroboration of Spaargaren’s testimony, weigh in favor of a
conclusion that the State did not meet its burden under the recording statute to show that the
presumption against admitting the purported statement was overcome. However, we need not
determine conclusively whether the trial court erred in denying the motion in limine because,
even if it did, that error was harmless.
¶ 102 An evidentiary error is harmless “if it appears beyond a reasonable doubt that the error at
issue did not contribute to the verdict obtained” (In re Kenneth W., 2012 IL App (1st) 101787,
¶ 75) or when no reasonable probability exists that the jury would have acquitted the defendant
absent the error (In re E.H., 224 Ill. 2d 172, 180 (2006)). The defendant argues that his
supposed statement to Spaargaren was clearly important to the resolution of the case, and thus
its admission was not harmless: the State drew attention to the statement in its closing
argument, and Spaargaren’s account of the statement was the subject of the note sent out by the
jury. We agree that the defendant’s purported statement was almost certainly considered by the
jury, along with the other evidence in the case. Nevertheless, the likelihood that excluding the
statement would have changed the outcome of the trial is virtually nil.
¶ 103 By far, the most damning evidence against the defendant was DNA evidence: the evidence
that the DNA from the blood found on the carpet at the murder scene and the blood found in
Reckling’s car matched the defendant’s DNA, a match that was astronomically unlikely to
occur randomly. The jury was faced with overwhelming evidence that the defendant shed
blood both at the entrance to the store and inside Reckling’s car. Although the defense elicited
evidence suggesting that the defendant’s blood could possibly have been shed in those places if
he had been a Grand Appliance customer or an employee, all of the evidence was contrary to
this possibility having actually occurred: the defendant did not live or work near Grand
Appliance, other Grand Appliance employees testified that the defendant was never employed
by the company, and there was no evidence that the defendant was ever a customer.
¶ 104 Further, Mathis testified to an even more detailed confession by the defendant to the
murder. Although Mathis’s testimony was impeached in some regards, it corroborated other
evidence in the case. In light of the compelling nature of the DNA evidence, the lack of any
nonhypothetical explanation for the defendant’s DNA being found at the murder scene and
inside Reckling’s car, and Mathis’s testimony regarding the defendant’s detailed confession to
her, we conclude that there is no reasonable probability that the jury would have acquitted the
defendant even if the motion in limine had been granted.
¶ 105 B. Other Evidentiary Rulings
¶ 106 The defendant’s second argument on appeal is that he was denied his constitutional right to
present a complete defense by certain other evidentiary rulings by the trial court, barring him
from presenting (1) evidence of the other crimes committed by Edwards and (2) testimony of
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Amattey that would have rebutted the inference that the defendant’s travel to Indonesia was
motivated by a desire to avoid being arrested for the murder. “[W]hen a party claims he was
denied his constitutional right to present a complete defense due to improper evidentiary
rulings, the standard of review is abuse of discretion.” People v. Burgess, 2015 IL App (1st)
130657, ¶ 133. A trial court abuses its discretion when its ruling is arbitrary, fanciful, or
unreasonable, or when no reasonable person would take the view adopted by the trial court, or
when its ruling rests on an error of law. People v. Olsen, 2015 IL App (2d) 140267, ¶ 11.
¶ 107 1. Evidence of Edwards’s Other Crimes
¶ 108 As is required by the due process clause of the United States Constitution (see Chambers v.
Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 302 (1973)), the defendant was permitted to introduce evidence that
someone other than him—Edwards—confessed to the murder of Reckling. However, the
defendant wished to go further and introduce evidence of other crimes committed by Edwards,
such as the series of robberies that initially led to Edwards’s arrest and questioning.
¶ 109 When this matter arose at trial, the State argued that Edwards’s robberies were not similar
to the Grand Appliance robbery. For instance, Edwards was initially apprehended as he fled
from a robbery at the Roberts Roost motel. In that robbery, he used a replica of a gun to
demand cash, forced the employees into the basement, and pushed a sofa against the basement
door. Thus, the State argued, Edwards’s other robberies were irrelevant to the murder of
Reckling.
¶ 110 The defense responded that the State would introduce evidence that Edwards did not
confess to murdering Reckling until almost 24 hours after he was arrested, which would create
a false impression in the minds of the jurors that he was questioned at length solely about the
murder. The defense argued that it needed to be able to counter this false impression. The trial
court agreed with this assertion. The State suggested a compromise, in which the police
witnesses involved in Edwards’s interrogation would testify that he was questioned at first in
connection with “other matters,” without specifying what those matters were.
¶ 111 The trial court ruled that evidence of Edwards’s other crimes was not relevant to the
defendant’s trial because, based on the arguments presented, those other crimes were
dissimilar and there was no indication that the investigation of the other crimes was
intertwined with Reckling’s murder. However, it cautioned that the State must not elicit
evidence suggesting that Edwards had been questioned solely regarding the murder. The
defense then presented the testimony of Quinn and Tkadletz, who stated that Edwards was
questioned at length about “other matters” prior to giving a statement about Reckling’s
murder.
¶ 112 On appeal, the defendant notes that the State was permitted to introduce evidence of
Edwards’s other crimes (three armed robberies) in its trial against Edwards, and this court
upheld the admission of that evidence on the ground that Edwards’s criminal history tended to
show that his confession to Reckling’s murder had not been fabricated by police. People v.
Edwards, 301 Ill. App. 3d 966, 980-81 (1998). The defendant argues that he should have been
permitted to introduce that same evidence at his own trial, for the same reason—to substantiate
Edwards’s confession to Reckling’s murder. The defendant notes that, in the State’s opening
statement, it asserted that there was “not one shred of evidence that links Mr. Edwards to this
case,” but in fact there was such evidence—Edwards’s confession. In support of his argument,
the defendant cites People v. Tenney, 205 Ill. 2d 411 (2002), which stated that “ ‘if it is the sort
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of evidence that prosecutors regularly use against defendants—then defendants are entitled to
use it for their own purposes.’ ” (Emphasis in original.) Id. at 440 (quoting Lee v. McCaughtry,
933 F.2d 536, 537 (7th Cir. 1991)).
¶ 113 The State responds that its comment regarding “not one shred of evidence” was made in the
context of referring to the DNA evidence of the defendant’s presence at the murder scene and
in Reckling’s car, and thus was understood to mean that no physical evidence linked Edwards
to the crime. It further notes that Chambers created a narrow category of hearsay declarations
of culpability that are admissible for reasons of due process, a category that does not include
collateral evidence such as the other-crimes evidence that the defendant sought to elicit here. It
contends that the evidence of Edwards’s other crimes would simply have created an improper
inference in the minds of the jurors that Edwards had a propensity to commit crimes. Finally, it
argues that the defendant was able to adequately present a defense, not only introducing the
fact of Edwards’s confession but also casting doubt on the identity of the person who changed
a flat tire on Reckling’s car and raising alternate possibilities as to the identity of the murderer,
such as the former employee Duffy.
¶ 114 In considering this issue, we are mindful that evidentiary issues are the province of the trial
court, which is uniquely positioned to determine the relevancy of proffered evidence to the
proceedings at hand. Here, the trial court resolved this issue only after a careful weighing of
competing considerations. We must review that ruling deferentially, finding error only if the
trial court abused its discretion. People v. Sutton, 349 Ill. App. 3d 608, 615 (2004). We note
that the Chambers exception to the general hearsay rule barring the introduction of third-party
declarations of culpability is narrow, applying only where there is “considerable assurance of
their reliability.” Chambers, 410 U.S. at 300; see also Tenney, 205 Ill. 2d at 435 (characterizing
the Chambers exception as narrow). The defense argues that the requisite assurance of
reliability exists here, given our ruling in Edwards that the other-crimes evidence was
admissible. We stress that the admission of evidence in one proceeding is no indication that it
should be admitted automatically in a different proceeding. Accordingly, our decision in
Edwards is not dispositive of the issue raised here.
¶ 115 Moreover, Chambers involved only a third party’s direct statement of culpability for a
crime, not collateral evidence such as the other-crimes evidence at issue here. The cases relied
upon by the defendant are similarly distinguishable. Lee involved a fugitive’s statement that he
had killed the victim and that the defendant had had no part in it, and the reviewing court held
that the trial court had correctly concluded that there were not sufficient indicia of reliability to
bring the statement within the Chambers exception. Lee, 933 F.2d at 538. And while Tenney
mandated the admission of evidence of an inculpatory statement by someone who was initially
convicted of the murder at issue but whose conviction subsequently was vacated, it does not
address the admission of collateral other-crimes evidence. Tenney, 205 Ill. 2d at 441-42.
¶ 116 The case most helpful to the defendant’s argument is People v. Cruz, 162 Ill. 2d 314(1994), in which the supreme court held that it was reversible error to exclude evidence
regarding the other crimes committed by a third party (Dugan), because those crimes were
similar in significant respects to the murder at issue and thus were relevant to show that
Dugan’s confession to the murder at issue was reliable. Id. at 354. However, the similarity
between the other crimes and the murder was essential to the supreme court’s holding. Id. at
352 (the other-crimes evidence “was admissible to corroborate [Dugan’s] statements about the
Nicarico murder” because “[t]he requisite degree of similarity [had] been established”). Here,
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the trial court found that the other crimes that the defense wished to introduce were not similar
to the Grand Appliance robbery and murder, and the defendant has not argued that this finding
was erroneous. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in barring evidence of
Edwards’s other crimes.
¶ 117 2. Amattey’s Testimony
¶ 118 The defendant also contends that he was unable to fully present his defense because the
trial court erroneously excluded the testimony of Amattey, the attorney whom he contacted
regarding his Indonesian wife’s entry into the United States. The defendant contends that this
testimony was crucial to rebut the inference that his travel to Indonesia was motivated by a
consciousness of guilt following the taking of his DNA sample. We agree that the trial court
erred in excluding this testimony on hearsay grounds. However, as with the erroneous
admission of the defendant’s unrecorded statement, we conclude that this error was harmless
in light of the overwhelming evidence against the defendant.
¶ 119 When this issue arose at trial, the defense made an offer of proof, stating that it wished to
elicit testimony from Amattey that he had filed a visa petition for the defendant’s Indonesian
wife. Further, although the defendant first came in to see Amattey on December 8, 2011, the
defendant had first contacted Amattey a year earlier seeking information about how to obtain a
visa. This evidence, which would not go into the substance of the defendant’s conversations
with Amattey, would show that the defendant pursued information relating to his trip to
Indonesia well before the DNA sample was taken: “I’m not asking for any comments,
statements or anything. All I would simply be asking is *** Mr. Whitfield contacted you a year
prior to December 8th, 2011? Yes. He retained you for immigration purposes? Yes. That’s it.”
The State objected to allowing Amattey to testify, arguing that it would permit the defendant to
“testify” about his motives for going to Indonesia through Amattey’s testimony, without taking
the stand himself. The State also argued that any testimony about why the attorney was
retained would be hearsay.
¶ 120 The trial court refused to permit Amattey to testify on the ground that all of the evidence
the defendant sought to present would be hearsay, including the date of the defendant’s first
contact with Amattey and the tasks that Amattey performed for the defendant. This
determination was error.
¶ 121 Hearsay is an out-of-court statement that is offered to establish the truth of the matter
asserted. Ill. R. Evid. 801(c) (eff. Jan. 1, 2011); In re Estate of DeMarzo, 2015 IL App (1st)
141766, ¶ 19. Much of Amattey’s proffered testimony was not hearsay, as it consisted of facts
personally known to him, not statements made to him. The date on which the defendant first
contacted him, the date of the defendant’s first office visit, and a broad description of the work
that Amattey performed at the defendant’s request (such as the fact that Amattey filed a visa
petition for the defendant’s wife) are all matters that are not hearsay. Indeed, on appeal, the
State does not offer any argument as to why Amattey’s testimony on these matters would have
been hearsay, instead suggesting that it might have been difficult for the defense to elicit the
testimony without delving into the substance of Amattey’s conversations with the defendant.
This is mere speculation, however, and any such difficulty would have been more
appropriately addressed through objections to specific questions, not the wholesale barring of
testimony. Further, as part of his fundamental right to present a defense, the defendant had a
right to present evidence tending to prove that he did not flee from consciousness of guilt.
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People v. Manion, 67 Ill. 2d 564, 576 (1977). Thus, the trial court’s refusal to permit Amattey
to testify was an abuse of discretion.
¶ 122 Nevertheless, this error was harmless in light of the other evidence against the defendant.
Even if the defendant had been wholly successful in countering the State’s argument that his
travel to Indonesia constituted a flight from justice that indicated a consciousness of guilt (see
People v. Lewis, 165 Ill. 2d 305, 349 (1995)), the evidence of the defendant’s commission of
the murder was overwhelming, including the DNA evidence as well as Mathis’s account of the
defendant’s confession to her. People v. Harmon, 2015 IL App (1st) 122345, ¶ 103 (even trial
errors that encroach on constitutional rights do not require reversal where they are harmless
beyond a reasonable doubt).
¶ 123 III. CONCLUSION
¶ 124 Although the trial court erred in failing to exclude the defendant’s purported statement to
Spaargaren and in barring the testimony of Amattey, those errors were harmless beyond a
reasonable doubt and there is virtually no likelihood that, had these errors not occurred, the
jury would not have convicted the defendant of first degree murder. Accordingly, we affirm
the judgment of the circuit court of Lake County.
¶ 125 Affirmed.
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