People v. Generally ( 2018 )

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Appellate Court Date: 2018.02.09
12:22:32 -06'00'
People v. Generally, 2017 IL App (5th) 140489
Appellate Court THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.
Caption GARNELL GENERALLY, Defendant-Appellant.
District & No. Fifth District
Docket No. 5-14-0489
Rule 23 order filed October 18, 2017
Motion to
publish granted December 12, 2017
Opinion filed December 12, 2017
Decision Under Appeal from the Circuit Court of Madison County, No. 85-CF-618;
Review the Hon. Neil T. Schroeder, Judge, presiding.
Judgment Affirmed.
Counsel on Michael J. Pelletier, Jacqueline L. Bullard, and John M. McCarthy, of
Appeal State Appellate Defender’s Office, of Springfield, for appellant.
Thomas D. Gibbons, State’s Attorney, of Edwardsville (Patrick
Delfino, David J. Robinson, and Sharon Shanahan, of State’s
Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor’s Office, of counsel), for the People.
Panel JUSTICE MOORE delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.
Justices Chapman and Overstreet concurred in the judgment and
opinion.
OPINION
¶1 The defendant, Garnell Generally, appeals the order of the circuit court of Madison County
that denied the defendant’s request to file a successive postconviction petition. For the
following reasons, we affirm.
¶2 FACTS
¶3 The facts necessary to our disposition of this appeal follow. The defendant was convicted
of, inter alia, murder for his involvement in the 1985 beating death of Harold Wayne Staton.
At the time he beat the victim to death, the defendant was 17 years old but already had a history
of violent behavior. For his conviction of the offense of murder, the defendant was sentenced
to natural life in prison with no possibility of parole. After he exhausted the direct appeal
process, the defendant filed multiple postconviction petitions. He was unsuccessful in each of
these attempts to challenge both his conviction and his life sentence. In April 2014, he filed a
motion to file a successive postconviction petition, claiming his discretionary sentence of
natural life in prison with no possibility of parole violated the decision issued by the United
States Supreme Court in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012). In a four-page, typewritten
order, the circuit court of Madison County denied the defendant’s request to file a successive
postconviction petition, finding the defendant failed to demonstrate the prejudice needed to
qualify to file such a petition because, inter alia, his sentence was discretionary rather than
mandatory and therefore did not violate Miller and because the sentencing judge “carefully
considered the sentence in this matter, including the defendant’s youth and aspects of his
childhood.” The court subsequently denied the defendant’s motion for reconsideration. This
timely appeal followed. Additional facts will be provided as necessary below.
¶4 ANALYSIS
¶5 On appeal, the defendant contends the trial court erred for two reasons: (1) the defendant
demonstrated prejudice and (2) the defendant’s natural life sentence is unconstitutional. The
parties agree that our review of the circuit court’s denial of a defendant’s request to file a
successive postconviction petition is de novo. See, e.g., People v. McDonald, 405 Ill. App. 3d
131, 135 (2010). Moreover, “[w]hether a statute is unconstitutional is a question of law, which
is reviewed de novo.” People v. Davis, 2014 IL 115595, ¶ 26. With regard to the merits of the
defendant’s appeal, on September 21, 2017, the Illinois Supreme Court issued its decision in
People v. Holman, 2017 IL 120655. Therein, the court held that a discretionary sentence of life
in prison with no possibility of parole that is rendered to a juvenile defendant is not
unconstitutional if, at the juvenile defendant’s original sentencing hearing, the trial judge,
“after considering the defendant’s youth and its attendant characteristics,” determined “that the
defendant’s conduct showed irretrievable depravity, permanent incorrigibility, or irreparable
corruption beyond the possibility of rehabilitation.” Id. ¶¶ 46-47. The Holman court explained
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that the “attendant characteristics” to which it was referring “include, but are not limited to,”
the factors that follow:
“(1) the juvenile defendant’s chronological age at the time of the offense and any
evidence of his particular immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and
consequences; (2) the juvenile defendant’s family and home environment; (3) the
juvenile defendant’s degree of participation in the homicide and any evidence of
familial or peer pressures that may have affected him; (4) the juvenile defendant’s
incompetence, including his inability to deal with police officers or prosecutors and his
incapacity to assist his own attorneys; and (5) the juvenile defendant’s prospects for
rehabilitation.” Id. ¶ 46 (citing Miller, 567 U.S. at 477-78).
¶6 The Holman court also noted that when a court revisits a juvenile defendant’s discretionary
life sentence with no possibility of parole, “the only evidence that matters is evidence of the
defendant’s youth and its attendant characteristics at the time of sentencing,” and that the
reviewing court “must look at the cold record to determine if the trial court considered such
evidence at the defendant’s original sentencing hearing.” Id. ¶ 47. The Holman court then
analyzed what happened at the defendant’s original sentencing hearing in that case, in terms of
what information was available to the trial judge and was considered, and in light of the
defendant’s youth and the attendant characteristics listed above, as well as in relation to the
arguments raised on appeal by the defendant. Id. ¶¶ 48-50. The Holman court concluded that
the defendant’s sentence passed constitutional muster and that the trial court correctly denied
the defendant’s motion for leave to file a successive postconviction petition. Id. ¶¶ 50, 53.
¶7 In this case, we reach the same conclusion for this defendant. The defendant’s original
sentencing hearing was held on April 4, 1986, before the Honorable P.J. O’Neill. In this
appeal, the defendant argues that Judge O’Neill “attempted to consider [the defendant’s] youth
as a mitigating factor” but nevertheless violated Miller because Judge O’Neill stated that he
believed the defendant had “reached the age of reason” by the time he murdered Staton.
According to the defendant, Judge O’Neill’s statement demonstrates that the defendant “was
sentenced at a time [that] predates modern understanding of adolescent brain development and
its Eighth Amendment implications.” The defendant argues that Judge O’Neill’s statement
distinguishes this case from Holman because in Holman no such erroneous finding was made
by the trial judge. The defendant also argues that his sentence is unconstitutional under both
the United States Constitution and the Illinois Constitution, as applied to him, because the
psychological evaluation of him that was presented to Judge O’Neill prior to sentencing
contained “no clear evidence that [the defendant] is incorrigible.” Therefore, according to the
defendant, his sentence “dismisses the reality that he could outgrow his impulsive violent
tendencies.”
¶8 The State responds to each of the defendant’s arguments. First, the State aptly notes that at
trial, the defendant’s brutality toward Staton, a victim chosen at random who begged for mercy
as the defendant beat him to death with a tire jack, was manifestly clear and that, at sentencing,
two other witnesses testified to separate, unprovoked violent attacks on them by the defendant
in the weeks and months preceding Staton’s murder. At sentencing, Judge O’Neill also had
before him and considered the defendant’s presentence investigation, which included the
victim impact statement and the aforementioned psychological report. Judge O’Neill also
considered the extensive evidence of the defendant’s history of violence; his difficult
upbringing; attempts to intervene and help the defendant (including via psychiatric treatment);
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a probation officer’s assessment that the defendant’s greatest weakness was his failure to learn
from his past mistakes; evidence of other paranoid and antisocial traits and tendencies, such as
blaming others and shirking his own responsibility for his actions; and the fact that the murder
was committed while the defendant was on probation for another offense. Both the State and
the defendant presented Judge O’Neill with extensive argument in support of their positions. In
particular, counsel for the defendant focused on the defendant’s youth, noting his troubled
upbringing but stressing the defendant’s potential for rehabilitation and asking Judge O’Neill
for a sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment.
¶9 Judge O’Neill noted the factors argued by the parties and stated that he would consider
them. He also noted recent United States Supreme Court law that dictated that the defendant’s
“troubled youth is a matter which this court should consider in mitigation and I do consider that
and those factors that you have mentioned.” He noted that the murder was committed at a time
when the defendant was still quite young—a month shy of his eighteenth birthday—and stated
that he had considered the defendant’s character and history, both as a very young child and as
a teenager. He concluded that the danger the defendant presented to society and the likelihood
of the defendant committing other crimes was “so great” that it outweighed “whatever
rehabilitative potential” existed within the defendant. He again noted that attempts to
rehabilitate or treat the defendant “not only have not met with any success, but [defendant’s]
reaction to them is such that the court concludes that [defendant has] rejected them.” Judge
O’Neill added:
“I think a severe sentence is justified by the record for punitive purposes. I think it is
justified for deterrent purposes. And as I have said, the potential for rehabilitation is so
limited that the court cannot realistically see any hope for it. I try as a judge, Mr.
Generally, to temper justice with mercy. I also in imposing sentence must consider
society as well as you, and I have made those considerations and tried to balance them.
And it is the finding of this court that a sentence of natural life in the penitentiary is the
appropriate sentence.”
¶ 10 With regard to the defendant’s argument that Judge O’Neill’s sentence violates Miller
because Judge O’Neill stated that he believed the defendant had “reached the age of reason” by
the time he murdered Staton, the State aptly points out that Judge O’Neill was using a legal
term of art—“age of reason”—that widely has been cited in cases spanning half a century as
meaning “seven years old” and that accordingly the judge was referring to the period of the
defendant’s life when he was sexually abused by an acquaintance of his family and was
verbally abused and harassed by people at the school he attended until after third grade and was
not insinuating that the defendant was fully capable of adult reasoning. We agree, and note that
this conclusion is consistent with what Judge O’Neill actually said: “I must also consider your
history and character as it pertains to what you have done since attaining the age of reason and
through your teenage years.” It would make no sense for Judge O’Neill to first mention the age
of reason, and then follow that with “and through your teenage years,” if he was not referring
to the age of reason as a time before the defendant’s teenage years. It is not reasonable to
construe Judge O’Neill’s statement as implying that he believed the defendant was fully
capable of adult reasoning, particularly when viewed within the context of Judge O’Neill’s
entire statement at sentencing.
¶ 11 We also agree with the State that Judge O’Neill’s statement that “[b]y the age of eighteen,
individuals have already formed in some cases indelibly the attitudes and outlook toward life
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that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives” does not demonstrate that Judge
O’Neill violated Miller in sentencing the defendant. We stress that Judge O’Neill did not make
a blanket statement about youth and adolescent brain development. To the contrary, he stated
that in some cases individuals have formed such indelible attitudes by the age of 18. Moreover,
he did not even state that the defendant was such an individual. In addition, when this passing
comment is viewed within the context of Judge O’Neill’s extensive pronouncements at
sentencing, it cannot reasonably be viewed as prejudicial in any way or as indicative, as the
defendant urges, of a misapprehension of the relationship between youth, adolescent brain
development, and the eighth amendment.
¶ 12 The State is also correct that at the defendant’s original sentencing hearing, Judge O’Neill
properly considered the defendant’s youth and the attendant characteristics set forward in
Miller and reiterated in Holman. See Holman, 2017 IL 120655, ¶ 46 (citing Miller, 567 U.S. at
477-78). As explained in detail above, Judge O’Neill explicitly considered the defendant’s
chronological age at the time of the murder, as well as the assessments made available to him
of the defendant’s particular immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and
consequences, as well as the defendant’s family and home environment, his role as the
instigator and lead participant in Staton’s murder, any evidence of familial or peer pressures
that may have affected him, and his prospects for rehabilitation. With regard to the defendant’s
incompetence, including his inability to deal with police officers or prosecutors and his
incapacity to assist his own attorneys, after considering the totality of the evidence before him,
Judge O’Neill concluded that nothing in the reports in the record indicated that the defendant
was mentally ill, and he was “certainly not insane.” One of the reports Judge O’Neill
considered was the psychological evaluation conducted by Dr. Lawrence Taliana at the request
of the defendant. Therein, Dr. Taliana opined that the defendant had “at least high borderline or
low average intellectual functioning,” and that he showed “some greater potential than the
obtained Full Scale IQ of 79 as it relates to the ability to form verbal concepts, more within the
average range.” Dr. Taliana concluded that the defendant was “able to read simple material and
comprehend language at a basic communication level compared to the general public,” which
“would not reflect an impairment related to competency.” One of his ultimate conclusions was
that the defendant “is certainly competent in the legal sense.”
¶ 13 Finally, the defendant argues that his sentence is unconstitutional under both the United
States Constitution and the Illinois Constitution, as applied to him, because the psychological
evaluation of him that was presented to Judge O’Neill prior to sentencing contained “no clear
evidence that [the defendant] is incorrigible.” Therefore, according to the defendant, his
sentence “dismisses the reality that he could outgrow his impulsive violent tendencies.”
However, we agree with the State that, as required by People v. Bartik, 94 Ill. App. 3d 696, 702
(1981), in cases in which a defendant raises such an argument, the record in this case shows
that Judge O’Neill considered both the seriousness of the crime and the defendant’s
rehabilitative potential. In fact, as discussed above, Judge O’Neill considered both factors
extensively, taking great pains to balance the rights of the defendant with the rights of society
and to craft an appropriate sentence. Based upon the information available to him at the time of
the defendant’s original sentencing hearing, Judge O’Neill did not err in this case.
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¶ 14 CONCLUSION
¶ 15 For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the defendant did not demonstrate the
prejudice necessary to entitle him to file a successive postconviction petition because the
defendant’s sentence is not unconstitutional pursuant to the test put forward by the Illinois
Supreme Court in Holman, 2017 IL 120655, nor is it otherwise unconstitutional as applied to
him. Accordingly, we affirm the order of the circuit court of Madison County that denied the
defendant’s request to file a successive postconviction petition.
¶ 16 Affirmed.
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