People v. Sanchez , 431 Ill. Dec. 503 ( 2019 )

2019 IL App (3d) 160643
Opinion filed March 11, 2019
_____________________________________________________________________________
IN THE
APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS
THIRD DISTRICT
2019
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ) Appeal from the Circuit Court
ILLINOIS, ) of the 12th Judicial Circuit,
) Will County, Illinois,
Plaintiff-Appellee, )
) Appeal No. 3-16-0643
v. ) Circuit No. 16-DT-517
)
LUIS J. SANCHEZ, ) Honorable
) Chrystel L. Gavlin,
Defendant-Appellant. ) Judge, Presiding.
_____________________________________________________________________________
JUSTICE LYTTON delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.
Justice Carter concurred in the judgment and opinion.
Justice McDade dissented, with opinion.
_____________________________________________________________________________
OPINION
¶1 Defendant, Luis J. Sanchez, appeals his conviction for driving under the influence of
alcohol (DUI). Defendant argues that his conviction must be reversed because the State failed to
prove that defendant was intoxicated at the time he drove the vehicle under the corpus delicti
rule. We affirm.
¶2 I. BACKGROUND
¶3 Defendant was charged with DUI (625 ILCS 5/11-501(a)(2) (West 2014)) in that he was
in actual physical control of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.
¶4 The matter proceeded to a bench trial. Officer Robert Mau testified that at 9:11 p.m. on
the night of the incident, he responded to a vehicle that had crashed on the side of a bridge. Mau
arrived at the scene and observed that a vehicle had driven up a raised median separating the
roadway from the sidewalk. Mau was not on the scene when the collision occurred, and he did
not recall at what time the collision occurred. Mau looked up the vehicle’s registration number
and learned that the vehicle was registered to someone named Luis Sanchez who resided
approximately 3½ blocks from the site of the collision. Mau proceeded to the residence and
made contact with defendant.
¶5 Defendant told Mau that he was driving the vehicle involved in the collision. Defendant
said that he went home after the collision. Mau did not know what time defendant returned to
his house after the collision, and Mau did not know what defendant did at his house after the
collision. Mau testified that defendant’s eyes were glassy, his speech was slurred, he staggered
and stumbled when he walked, and a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emanated from his
breath. Based on Mau’s observations and defendant’s inability to articulate what happened, Mau
believed that defendant was intoxicated and was unable to safely operate a motor vehicle.
¶6 Mau drove defendant to the scene of the collision. Another officer was at the scene. The
officer asked defendant to take field sobriety tests. Defendant refused. Mau transported
defendant to the police station. Mau asked defendant to undergo chemical testing, and defendant
refused. Also, defendant did not consent to giving a breath sample.
¶7 Mau testified that the other officer’s squad car had a camera that captured an accurate
recording of defendant’s conversation with the other officer. Mau was present during the
conversation. A copy of the video recording was admitted into evidence. In the video recording,
defendant’s speech was slurred and difficult to understand. Defendant did not follow the
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officer’s directions. Initially, defendant said that he drove onto the median when he was
attempting to stop his vehicle because the bridge was being raised. However, defendant later
said that he drove onto the median because he was talking on his cell phone. Defendant said he
had consumed a bottle of wine and four to seven beers that day. Defendant was driving home
from the restaurant, Puerto, at the time of the collision. Defendant said he had been drinking at
Puerto. The video recording showed defendant handing his keys to a tow truck driver who was
at the scene.
¶8 The State introduced a certified copy of the registration for the vehicle involved in the
collision, which showed that defendant was the owner of the vehicle.
¶9 The court found defendant guilty of DUI. The court sentenced defendant to 12 months’
conditional discharge, the payment of $1500 in fines and costs, and 240 hours of community
service work.
¶ 10 II. ANALYSIS
¶ 11 Defendant argues that his conviction for DUI should be reversed because the State failed
to prove that he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the motor vehicle collision
under the corpus delicti rule. While defendant admits that there was sufficient corroborating
evidence that he drove the vehicle involved in the collision, he contends that the only evidence
that he consumed alcohol before driving the vehicle were his own uncorroborated statements on
the squad car video recording. We find that the State presented sufficient independent evidence
to corroborate defendant’s out-of-court statements such that the admission of these statements
did not violate the corpus delicti rule.
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¶ 12 To prove defendant guilty of the offense of DUI, the State was required to present
evidence showing that defendant drove or was in actual physical control of a vehicle while he
was under the influence of alcohol. 625 ILCS 5/11-501(a)(2) (West 2014).
¶ 13 “The corpus delicti of an offense is simply the commission of a crime.” People v. Lara,
2012 IL 112370, ¶ 17. In order to obtain a valid conviction, the State must prove both the
corpus delicti and the identity of the person who committed the offense. Id. “In general, the
corpus delicti cannot be proven by a defendant’s admission, confession, or out-of-court
statement alone.” Id. Rather, where a defendant’s confession is part of the proof of the
corpus delicti, the State must also provide independent corroborating evidence. Id.
¶ 14 Under the corpus delicti rule, “the independent evidence need only tend to show the
commission of a crime. It need not be so strong that it alone proves the commission of the
charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt.” (Emphasis in original). Id. ¶ 18.
“[T]he corpus delicti rule requires only that the corroborating evidence
correspond with the circumstances recited in the confession and tend to connect
the defendant with the crime. The independent evidence need not precisely align
with the details of the confession on each element of the charged offense, or
indeed to any particular element of the charged offense.” Id. ¶ 51.
¶ 15 Our supreme court has explained that “[t]he primary purpose of the corpus delicti rule is
to ensure the confession is not rendered unreliable due to either improper coercion of the
defendant or the presence of some psychological factor.” Id. ¶ 47. If a confession is sufficiently
corroborated under the corpus delicti rule, the trier of fact may consider the confession along
with the State’s other evidence to determine whether the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt
that a defendant committed the charged offense. Id.
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¶ 16 Here, the squad car video recording showed that defendant admitted that he drove onto
the raised median while driving home from Puerto, where he had been drinking. Defendant said
that he walked home after the collision. Defendant said that he had consumed a bottle of wine
and four to seven beers on the day of the collision. The evidence, independent of defendant’s
statements, showed that: (1) a vehicle registered to defendant was discovered driven onto a
raised median on a bridge; (2) Officer Mau located defendant at his residence, which was 3½
blocks from the site of the collision; (3) when Mau located defendant, defendant displayed signs
of intoxication, including glassy eyes, slurred speech, stumbling while walking, and a strong
odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath; and (4) defendant was in possession of the keys to
the vehicle involved in the collision.
¶ 17 We find that the independent corroborating evidence was sufficient to satisfy the
corpus delicti rule. While the independent evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt
that defendant committed the offense of DUI, the evidence corresponded with the circumstances
of defendant’s out-of-court statements and tended to connect defendant to the commission of the
offense of DUI. The vehicle involved in the collision was registered to defendant, and defendant
was in possession of the keys to the vehicle. The fact that defendant drove his vehicle onto a
raised median corresponded to the circumstances recited in defendant’s statements to the officer,
namely, that the collision occurred after defendant had been drinking. The fact that defendant
exhibited signs of intoxication when Mau located him also corresponded with the circumstances
of defendant’s out-of-court statements.
¶ 18 We reject defendant’s argument that the evidence that defendant was intoxicated when
Mau located him did not provide sufficient corroboration under the corpus delicti rule to
defendant’s statement that he had been drinking before the collision because the State did not
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establish when the collision occurred. While the evidence that defendant was intoxicated when
Mau located him did not prove that defendant was intoxicated at the time he drove his vehicle,
this evidence still corresponded to the circumstances of defendant’s out-of-court statements and
tended to connect defendant to the offense. Moreover, we note that “the State need not present
independent evidence corroborating every element of the charged offense before a defendant’s
statement may be used to prove the corpus delicti.” Lara, 2012 IL 112370, ¶ 65.
¶ 19 Because there was sufficient independent corroborating evidence to satisfy the
corpus delicti rule, defendant’s admissions were properly considered by the circuit court along
with the independent evidence. When viewed in the light most favorable to the State, a
reasonable trier of fact could find that this evidence was sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable
doubt that defendant drove a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.
¶ 20 III. CONCLUSION
¶ 21 The judgment of the circuit court of Will County is affirmed.
¶ 22 Affirmed.
¶ 23 JUSTICE McDADE, dissenting.
¶ 24 The law of corpus delicti that the majority relies on to affirm the conviction of defendant,
Luis J. Sanchez, for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) was not complied with in this
case and the alleged “independent corroborating evidence” does not support the majority
decision. For this reason, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 25 The known facts are that defendant was the owner of a vehicle found crashed and
abandoned on the side of a bridge in Will County. Defendant lived 3 ½ blocks from the bridge
in Will County. When Officer Mau went to defendant’s home, defendant was there and in an
obviously inebriated state. Mau returned defendant to the scene of the collision and defendant
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refused to take field sobriety tests. Mau then took defendant to the police station where he
refused additional testing. A video recording made at the crash site showed that defendant
exhibited physical signs of intoxication and told Mau that he had consumed a copious amount of
alcohol at Puerto that day.
¶ 26 Mau did not know when the crash had occurred or whether defendant was under the
influence of alcohol when it had occurred. The only way for the State to prove that the crime of
DUI had been committed was to present evidence that defendant was driving the car while under
the influence of alcohol. 625 ILCS 5/11-501(a)(2) (West 2014).
¶ 27 Defendant had told the police he had drunk a lot of alcohol before attempting to drive
home but that statement needed to be independently corroborated in order to prove a crime
actually occurred. People v. Lara, 2012 IL 112370, ¶ 17.
¶ 28 Defendant’s assertion is not corroborated by proof that he owned the vehicle, that he
crashed the vehicle, that he was drunk at his house an unknown amount of time after the vehicle
was crashed, or that he was unable to safely operate a motor vehicle at the time Officer Mau
observed and interacted with him. Securing the necessary independent corroboration would have
required nothing more taxing or complicated than interviewing people (employees and/or
patrons) at Puerto to determine if—and, if so, when—defendant had been drinking there and if
he had left in his vehicle. As it currently stands, there is no independent corroboration, and
therefore no proof, that a crime even occurred.
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