People v. Coleman

236 N.E.3d 461

2023 IL App (1st) 210263

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Dedrick COLEMAN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-21-0263

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, First Division.

Filed March 6, 2023

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County. No. 89 CR 11750, The Honorable Angela M. Petrone, Judge Presiding.

Nate Nieman, of Rock Island, for appellant.

Kimberly M. Foxx, State’s Attorney, of Chicago (Enrique Abraham, Joseph Alexander, Daniel Piwowarczyk, and Gina Savini, Assistant State’s Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

OPINION

PRESIDING JUSTICE LAVIN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Following a jury trial, defendant Dedrick Coleman was found guilty of the 1989 first degree murders of Lance Hale and Avis Welch, armed robbery, and home invasion. While initially sentenced to death for the murders, that sentence was later commuted to natural life imprisonment by the Illinois governor. Defendant was also sentenced to a total term of 90 years’ imprisonment for the home invasion and armed robbery convictions. Defendant now appeals from the denial of leave to file his second successive petition under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act (Act) (725 ILCS 5/122-1 et seq. (West 2018)), contending his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to present an allegedly exculpatory witness. Defendant also asserts the State used perjured testimony. We affirm.

¶ 2 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 3 We recite only those facts relevant to the issues on appeal, as the details of defendant’s case have been set forth at length in previous appeals. See, e.g., People v. Coleman, 158 Ill. 2d 319, 198 Ill.Dec. 813, 633 N.E.2d 654 (1994). Trial evidence established that, in the early morning hours on April 26, 1989, defendant went to a Southside drug house, where he shot both Hale and Welch. Later that morning, defendant relayed to his cousin the specific events:

"Defendant went up to the window of the drug house and asked for $8 worth of cocaine. When the man behind the window [(Hale)] turned his back, defendant shot him through the window. *** Defendant then climbed into the drag house through the window and went to the front room where he found the female victim [(Welch)]. This woman begged for her life but defendant ordered her to get down on the floor. Defendant then shot her in the head. Defendant took $400 from the male victim, as well as three rings and a gold chain from the drag house." Id. at 327-28, 198 Ill.Dec. 813, 633 N.E.2d 654.

Defendant showed these items to his cousin. Id. at 328, 198 Ill.Dec. 813, 633 N.E.2d 654.

¶ 4 Defendant relayed some version of the above-stated events to three other people, thereby confessing. Furthermore, the upstairs resident of the drug house, Aldene Lockett, tentatively identified defendant as being of the same height, complexion, and physical build of the person.

¶ 5 In addition, five days after these murders, on May 1, 1989, defendant shot and killed Alex McCullough, his employer in an illegal drug operation. McCullough also happened to operate the drug house where defendant had murdered Hale and Welch. Defendant admitted to killing McCullough, but the State ultimately nolprossed those charges, yet presented evidence as to McCullough at the double-murder trial involving Hale and Welch. Several trial witnesses, for example, identified defendant’s gun as the same used in the McCullough murder. Defendant also displayed that gun just prior to the double drag house murders. Moreover, evidence showed the bullet that killed Hale had the same characteristics as the bullet that killed McCullough, which it was established, came from defendant’s gun.

¶ 6 Relevant to this appeal, all this evidence corresponded with defendant’s pretrial confession about the double murder to his Cook County jail cellmate Herbert Arch, a repeat criminal and one of the three individuals referenced immediately above who testified at defendant’s trial. See supra ¶ 5. Defendant told Arch that he killed his boss McCullough because McCullough owed him money. He also told Arch that he shot two people in the head on the Southside at a drug house and the gun used to kill McCullough already had two to three murders on it. Many of the details defendant told Arch reflected those that defendant told his cousin. Ultimately, the inmate Arch was released from jail after a court found no probable cause in his drag possession case, and shortly thereafter, Arch told an assistant state’s attorney what he had learned from defendant. At trial, the parties noted that Arch had previously testified against another fellow jail inmate, Emanual (Manny) Vazquez, involved in a gang-related murder, and Vazquez was convicted. In exchange for his testimony against Vazquez, a year was knocked off Arch’s sentence. However, as to defendant’s case, Arch specifically testified that he did not receive anything in exchange.

¶ 7 After the State rested, the defense presented its case. Defendant’s theory was that someone else had committed the murders at the drag house and that it was McCullough who was the aggressor in their relationship. Among other witnesses, defendant called Vazquez in an effort to impugn Arch’s reliability and truthfulness. Vazquez testified that he was serving a 40- year prison sentence for first degree murder following his 1985 conviction and that he also had met Arch in jail while awaiting trial. Vazquez testified that Arch basically urged him to do a sketch and write some details about the murder he was accused of, and Vazquez believed Arch would help him by testifying that Vazquez was not the shooter. Instead, Arch turned the papers over to the State’s Attorney’s office and testified against Vazquez at his murder trial.

¶ 8 Notwithstanding this evidence offered to paint Arch as an unreliable witness, as set forth, the jury ultimately found defendant guilty, and the court sentenced him accordingly. Defendant filed several pro se posttrial motions alleging ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct. In those pro se motions, however, defendant neglected to raise the factual bases underlying his present ineffective assistance and prosecutorial misconduct claims, as delineated further below.

¶ 9 Defendant’s convictions were subsequently affirmed on direct appeal by the Illinois Supreme Court, even in the face of 14 claims of error, including for ineffective assistance of trial counsel. See Coleman, 158 Ill. 2d 319, 198 Ill.Dec. 813, 633 N.E.2d 654; Coleman v. Illinois, 513 U.S. 881, 115 S.Ct. 215, 130 L.Ed.2d 143 (1994) (denying certiorari); see also United States ex rel. Coleman v. McAdory, No. 03 C 7318, 2004 WL 783173 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 12, 2004) (denying defendant’s petition for writ of habeas corpus). In 1995, defendant filed an initial postconviction petition, which he later amended, alleging that he was denied a fair trial, due process, and effective assistance of trial counsel, and that the State used perjured testimony.¹ While this petition proceeded to a third-stage evidentiary hearing, it was ultimately denied, and the supreme court affirmed that denial. See Coleman, 158 Ill. 2d 319, 198 Ill.Dec. 813, 633 N.E.2d 654, cert. denied, 513 U.S. 881, 115 S.Ct. 215, 130 L.Ed.2d 143; People v. Coleman, 206 Ill. 2d 261, 276 Ill.Dec. 380, 794 N.E.2d 275 (2002), cert. denied, 538 U.S. 1017, 123 S.Ct. 1939, 155 L.Ed.2d 857 (2003). Defendant’s ensuing collateral challenges, including his first successive postconviction petition wherein he asserted ineffective assistance of trial counsel for failure to present an exculpatory witness, were also unsuccessful. See Coleman, 206 Ill. 2d 261, 276 Ill.Dec. 380, 794 N.E.2d 275; Coleman, 2004 WL 783173 (denying habeas corpus relief); People v. Coleman, 384 Ill. App. 3d 1085 (2008) (table) (unpublished order under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23).

¶ 10 Defendant then filed the instant pro se second successive postconviction petition on November 19, 2018, arguing he had established both cause and prejudice for the petition to be granted. Private counsel subsequently filed an appearance on defendant’s behalf and apparently rested on the pro se petition. The petition itself is 224 pages, but together with the exhibits, it is 467 pages. In relevant part, defendant alleged that another jail inmate, Anthony Williams, would attest that Arch’s trial testimony against defendant was fabricated. As set forth, Arch was one of the four witnesses to whom defendant confessed; defendant told him about the double murders in the drug house when they were in jail together pretrial.

¶ 11 Specifically, in his successive petition, defendant once again alleged that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to present an exculpatory witness—this time, Williams. Defendant attached an affidavit from Williams, who noted that he was the "North Side Rapist" and was "all over the news in 1987." Williams averred that he had met a "Vice lord named Fox," also known as Herbert Arch, in the jail bullpen in 1989. While there awaiting court, Arch told Williams that a way to "get around" cases was to "find a goofy (inmate) with a murder case, try to get cool with him," and essentially have the inmate divulge details about his crime. Arch would add his own "spin or twist" to this information and relay it to the State’s Attorney’s office in exchange for help and reduced time. Arch told Williams that he had done this before with a Spanish Cobra named Gordo (apparently, the above-referenced Emanuel Vasquez), and the State dropped Arch’s previous rape case down a notch after he testified against Vasquez.

¶ 12 Per the affidavit, given concern for his safety following his testimony, Arch reached out to the State’s Attorney’s office when he arrived in jail. Prosecutors then met with him and offered to help Arch if he in turn helped them solve a murder investigation. Specifically, the state’s attorney officers said that if Arch obtained good information, the...