People v. Douglas

1

2024 IL App (1st) 211415-U

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JERMAINE DOUGLAS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-21-1415

Court of Appeals of Illinois, First District, Third Division

June 28, 2024

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 Cook County. No. 16 CR 18439-03 Honorable Geary W. Kull, Judge, presiding.

JUSTICE VAN TINE delivered the judgment of the court. Justices Lampkin and D.B. Walker concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

VAN TINE JUSTICE

¶ 1 Held: The circuit court did not abuse its discretion in finding that certain evidence was properly authenticated and had proper foundation. The court also did not err in admitting cell site location information under the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. The court did not abuse its discretion in admitting grand jury testimony at trial. The State presented sufficient evidence to meet its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed first degree murder.

¶ 2 A jury found Jermaine Douglas guilty of first degree murder. On appeal, Douglas argues that the court's evidentiary rulings denied him a fair trial. He also contends that the State did not adduce sufficient evidence to meet its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Douglas committed first degree murder. For the following reasons, we affirm.

¶ 3 BACKGROUND

¶ 4 The State charged Douglas and his co-defendants, Comfort Robinson and Dejuyon Johnican, with several counts of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the shooting death of Michael Smith, who had agreed to testify for the State in a separate criminal case pending against Robinson. Additionally, the State charged Douglas with first degree murder for personally discharging the firearm. Prior to trial, the circuit court granted Douglas's motion to sever his trial from his co-defendants, so the case proceeded to trial on four counts of first degree murder against Douglas only.

¶ 5 The State adduced the following evidence at trial. Chicago police officer Eleanor Diggs testified that around 4 a.m. on March 8, 2015, she responded to a call at a night club in Chicago. When she arrived, multiple night club security guards waved her down. One of those guards was Michael Smith. The guards directed Diggs to Robinson, who was then taken into custody and charged with a gun offense. That case ultimately proceeded to trial. On January 27, 2016, Diggs and Smith were in court for Robinson's case, but Smith did not testify that day. Smith drove to his home in Brookfield Illinois after court adjourned.

¶ 6 Jack Battaglia, Smith's neighbor who lived across the street, testified that, at approximately 12 p.m. on January 27, he observed a blue hatchback vehicle pull up next to a vehicle parked in front of Smith's home. After hearing a "number of shots go off', he yelled to his wife and they both exited their home to see a person slouched over in the parked vehicle, appearing to be dead. Battaglia approached the vehicle and confirmed that the person in the parked vehicle was Smith, and was indeed dead.

¶ 7 Around the same time, Michael Fahey, an attorney who lived across the street from Smith, was working in his home office when he heard "five or six *** pops." He then looked out the window to observe a man enter the passenger's side of a blue hatchback vehicle and noticed a person in the driver's seat of the same car. The blue vehicle then sped southbound away from the scene. Fahey exited his house to observe Smith lying in the driver's seat of his vehicle and glass strewn about the scene.

¶ 8 Brookfield police officer Daniel Roche responded to a call of shots fired. Upon arrival, Roche observed a deceased White male with multiple gunshot wounds sitting in the driver's seat of a gray sedan. He also observed multiple shell casings, including brass casings on the street, and one in the vehicle on the passenger's seat. Roche also testified that Fahey had told him that he observed a White or Hispanic male, 5'8" to 5'10", mid-twenties, with some facial hair, standing next to a blue sedan firing into a gray Mercury vehicle.

¶ 9 Brookfield police officers Kevin Hartnett and Brian Jelinik arrived at the scene after Roche and interviewed Battaglia and Fahey. Battaglia and Fahey described the vehicle as a blue Hyundai hatchback. Fahey remembered the first three characters of the license plate as "Z21". Hartnett and Jelinik were involved in the investigation throughout and were called to testify at trial.

¶ 10 Illinois State Police (ISP) officer Daniel Garcia conducted a crime scene investigation, the results of which were consistent with the above description of the crime scene. Garcia also attended Smith's autopsy on January 28, at which Dr. Matthew Fox recovered six fired projectiles from Smith's body. Dr. Fox determined that the victim suffered six gunshot wounds to various parts of his body, and he concluded that the cause of death was a homicide.

¶ 11 The State introduced video surveillance footage from a nearby intersection depicting a blue Hyundai hatchback with the license plate Z248616 at 11:50 a.m. on January 27. The video showed the blue Hyundai pull into a White Castle parking lot. Shortly thereafter, a black Cadillac with the license plate S945962 also turned into the lot. The black Cadillac was registered to a Kellyn Gillespie. The two cars were parked next to each other and left the lot at approximately the same time. Police located and questioned Gillespie, which led them to search for Johnican. The police later located Johnican, who was driving Gillespie's Cadillac, and interviewed him. They recovered a cell phone from him with the number 312-792-8630 (312 number) and released him.

¶ 12 After the interview with Johnican, the investigators went to a Walmart about five miles from the White Castle to acquire video surveillance. The video, which begins at approximately 12:10 p.m. on January 27, 2016, was published to the jury and depicted the following. Two Black males entered the Walmart. Hartnett identified a photograph of Robinson and testified that one of the two males appeared to be Robinson while the other appeared to be Johnican. In the video, the man who appeared to be Johnican is seen receiving a phone call at 12:20 p.m., and then handing the phone to Robinson. Robinson returns the phone to Johnican and the two men exit the Walmart.

¶ 13 During the investigation, Hartnett also learned that the registered owner of the blue Hyundai was Douglas's ex-girlfriend, Dovonna Daniels. On January 29, Jelinik interviewed Daniels at the police station, and they went through her phone together. While going through her phone with the number 773-971-0894 (773 number), they came across a contact named "Krazii" with the phone number 270-316-7259 (270 number). Hartnett recovered her phone, and he obtained call detail records for the 312, 773, and 270 numbers.

¶ 14 On January 30, the ISP recovered and processed her blue Hyundai, which revealed an insurance card in the center console that listed Jermaine Douglas as a named insured. Garcia swabbed various parts of the vehicle, including the steering wheel, gear shift, and interior driver's door handle. Forensic analysis determined that the driver's door area in the vehicle either contacted or was in the environment of a firearm when the firearm was discharged.

¶ 15 Following a high-speed chase on November 15, 2016, police arrested Douglas. Police arrested Johnican on the same day, and Robinson was arrested on November 18. Greg DiDomenic from the ISP's Forensic Science Center performed DNA analysis and determined that based on a buccal swab of Douglas, he was "included as a source of the DNA profile obtained from [the interior driver's door handle]."

¶ 16 Douglas's uncle, Lamont Robertson, testified before a grand jury that he had a conversation with Douglas about the homicide. According to Robertson's grand jury testimony, Douglas told him that he had performed a "hit" for a drug dealer on the west side for $10,000. Robertson relayed the same information to two FBI agents, who recorded the interview at Robertson's home, as well as to Assistant State's Attorney Daniel Crone. At the time of trial, however, Robertson stated he could not recall the substance of the conversation with Douglas, about which he had testified to the grand jury. He also did not recall speaking with the two agents, going to the grand jury with one of the agents, and giving a statement to Crone.

¶ 17 Dovonna Daniels, Douglas's ex-girlfriend, testified that she owned a blue Hyundai Excel with license plate Z248616 on January 27, 2016. She also identified Douglas in court. Daniels was shown a screenshot of messages indicating the name "Krazii" at the top, and the 270 number next to that name. The exchange was between that number and the 773 number, but Daniels could not, at time of trial recall whether the 773 number was hers in January 2016. However, on January 29, 2016, Daniels gave an electronically recorded interview in which she confirmed that the 773 number was indeed hers at the time. A text message sent from the 773 number phone to the 270 number phone on January 25, 2016, reads "Krazii, love you Jermaine." During that prior interview, she also told police that "Krazii" was "Darrow Carter", and his number was the 270 number. "Darrow Carter" appears to be a pseudonym for a "Jermaine", as the Facebook Messenger data extracted from the 773 number phone showed a message from a "Dovonna Dora Daniels" Facebook account to a "Darrow Carter" Facebook account, stating "Wat Jermaine" on September 26, 2015. Kyle Young, an FBI special...