People v. Coffey

1

2023 IL App (4th) 190592-U

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. RICHARD COFFEY, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 4-19-0592

Court of Appeals of Illinois, Fourth District

March 1, 2023

This Order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Coles County No. 19CF30 Honorable James R. Glenn, Judge Presiding.

PRESIDING JUSTICE DeARMOND delivered the judgment of the court. Justices Cavanagh and Zenoff concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

DeARMOND, PRESIDING JUSTICE

¶ 1 Held: The appellate court affirmed in part reversed in part, and remanded for a new sentencing hearing holding (1) defendant's trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to object to claimed inadmissible prior consistent statements of the victim, request a modified Illinois Pattern Jury Instruction, and seek redaction of video evidence; and (2) the trial court erred in considering defendant's now-vacated, invalid, prior aggravated-unlawful-use-of-a-weapon conviction at sentencing.

¶ 2 After a four-day trial, a jury found defendant guilty of unlawful restraint, criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual assault with a dangerous weapon, and aggravated criminal sexual assault with bodily harm. The trial court sentenced defendant to 36 years' imprisonment for aggravated criminal sexual assault with a dangerous weapon, merging all other counts for conviction and sentence purposes.

¶ 3 Defendant appeals, arguing (1) he was denied the effective assistance of trial counsel and (2) the trial court erred when it "expressly considered [defendant's] invalid prior conviction for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon in aggravation at sentencing." For the following reasons, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.

¶ 4 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 5 A. The State's Charges

¶ 6 In January 2019, by way of information, the State charged defendant with multiple counts, including: aggravated criminal sexual assault with a dangerous weapon, a Class X felony punishable by 6 to 30 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections with a mandatory 10-year enhancement (count I) (720 ILCS 5/11-1.30(a)(1), (d)(1); 730 ILCS 5/5-4.5-25(a) (West 2018)); unlawful restraint, a Class 4 felony punishable by 1 to 6 years' incarceration due to extended term sentencing based on a prior Class 2 aggravated-unlawful-use-of-weapon (AUUW) conviction (720 ILCS 5/10-3(a); 730 ILCS 5/5-4.5-45(a) (West 2018)); and criminal sexual assault, a Class 1 felony punishable by 4 to 15 years' incarceration (count III) (720 ILCS 5/11-1.20(a)(1); 730 ILCS 5/5-4.5-30(a) (West 2018)). Six months later, the State charged defendant with an additional count of aggravated criminal sexual assault with bodily harm also a Class X felony, punishable by 6 to 30 years' incarceration (count IV) (720 ILCS 5/11-1.30(a)(2); 730 ILCS 5/5-4.5-25(a) (West 2018)).

¶ 7 B. Jury Trial

¶ 8 The State's charges against defendant arose from a series of contacts between defendant and the victim, T.G over several days in January 2019, as T.G. tried to obtain methamphetamine for her drug habit. In June 2019, defendant's jury trial commenced. The following facts were established at trial through witness testimony and physical evidence.

¶ 9 1. The Setup

¶ 10 Brooke Rieck, T.G.'s friend and fellow drug user, told T.G. about someone called "J" from whom they could buy drugs. At Rieck's direction, T.G. accompanied two friends of Rieck, who drove her to purchase drugs. Instead, after taking her money, the two left T.G. at a local pharmacy, stranding her with no way to get home. A man, whom T.G. later identified as defendant, approached her, and she informed him of her situation. He identified himself as "J" and agreed to give her a ride. They exchanged cellphone numbers and discussed her possible purchase of drugs from him later. Driving what T.G. later described as a "maroon Buick grandma car," defendant took her first to where she met Rieck earlier. T.G. introduced defendant as "J" to Rieck and identified him as a possible new drug "connection." Defendant then took T.G. to where she was staying.

¶ 11 From January 14, 2019, to January 16, 2019, defendant and T.G. traded text messages, consisting of a series of conversations involving T.G.'s attempts to obtain methamphetamine and defendant's attempts to get her to "come and party" with him. The series of texts between defendant and T.G. were read into the record by T.G., who described the conversations as "[r]eally just me trying to get some drugs and one-sided flirting from him." Defendant referred to T.G. as "Luv" and asked if they could "smoke a blunt" together, or if he could come over. In one instance, defendant told T.G., "[w]ish I could hold you and cuddle." T.G. asked defendant how much methamphetamine she could purchase from him, when she could obtain it, and what it would cost. The last time T.G. used methamphetamine before those three days was the evening of January 13. She also admitted using methamphetamine for "a little over a year" before her most recent 44-day period of sobriety by the time of trial.

¶ 12 Apparently not having any methamphetamine at the time, defendant first provided T.G. with $25 worth of cannabis on January 14. According to T.G., she began using cannabis around the ages of "12 or 13," and she admitted she smoked cannabis with defendant during the three-day period between their meeting and defendant's assault of her. Eventually, T.G. purchased what she thought was methamphetamine for $50, but she suspected it to be carpet freshener after injecting it. On January 16, after texting defendant to complain, T.G. agreed to go with him to get her money back from the source. When defendant arrived to pick her up, he was again driving the same maroon vehicle she observed earlier.

¶ 13 2. The Attack

¶ 14 Defendant drove T.G. around the northwest side of Mattoon, Illinois for "[m]aybe 15, 20 minutes" and eventually backed into a driveway where he told T.G. they would be "waiting on his guy." T.G. could tell the house they were parked next to was vacant because it was empty inside and there were no blinds on the windows. T.G. said defendant then began hitting her "in the side of [her] head and [her] face, [her] eye[ ]" approximately "six to eight times." While hitting her, defendant told her to stop screaming, eventually putting his hand over her mouth. T.G. said she bit his gloved hand when he put it over her mouth, but she stopped screaming because she feared what might happen if she did not. Defendant then held her head down in the seat while he drove away from the vacant house. When she confronted defendant, asking why he was doing this, defendant gave several responses, including that her ex-boyfriend paid him to do it.

¶ 15 According to T.G., after defendant drove for "probably around five to ten minutes" and made "a lot of turns," defendant eventually stopped the car and told T.G. "he heard [she] was working with the police, so he was going to check [her] for wires." Defendant then removed her coat and sweater, putting the sweater over her head and telling her to put her hands behind her back. T.G. could partially see through the sweater's large weave. T.G. said defendant secured her hands with duct tape and then put duct tape over her mouth by wrapping it around her head. Defendant proceeded to sexually assault T.G. from behind, penetrating her vagina with his penis. T.G. testified the assault lasted anywhere from 45 to 90 seconds. Before the assault, T.G. believed she felt the blade of the knife from her purse being held against her back by defendant. T.G. feared being killed because defendant told her, "You'll be lucky if I let you go" when he beat her earlier. Although she initially resisted, T.G. eventually "figured if [she] just complied with what he was saying, then maybe he would let [her] go."

¶ 16 T.G. described how defendant put her clothes back together after the sexual assault, leaving the sweater over her head. He then drove again for approximately five minutes before letting her out of the car. He made her promise not to tell anyone, saying she needed to leave town and that someone would be watching her house. Defendant returned T.G.'s phone, kept her purse and its contents, and cut the duct tape binding her wrists at her request. He then told her to wait 15 seconds before removing the sweater from her head and drove off. When asked to estimate, T.G. believed she was in defendant's car for a total of "maybe two hours."

¶ 17 3. Immediate Aftermath

¶ 18 Once she was able to see, T.G. recognized where she was and knew she was within several blocks of a former boyfriend's parents' house. She ran to the house knocked on the door, and rang the doorbell while yelling "[I]t's me, [T.G.] let me in, please let me in." The parents, Russell and Allethia Shoot, let her in because they could see she was visibly injured and not wearing a coat. Specifically, the Shoots testified they found T.G. at their door on the night of January 16, 2019, "freezing cold" with "blood on her face and in her hair, her shirt." They could see she had duct tape "around both her wrists and around her neck" and her face was "really swollen." They tried to give her aid and called the police, who arrived within "maybe five minutes, if that." During her trial testimony, T.G. identified photos taken of her by the police before the ambulance transported her to the hospital, which revealed the pieces of duct tape still attached to her wrists and around her neck. Allethia Shoot likewise identified People's Group Exhibits 6-A through 6-F as the photographs of T.G. taken by the police at her residence that...