People v. Malcolm

39 N.E.3d 98

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Anthony MALCOLM, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 1–13–3406.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, First Division.

Aug. 10, 2015.

Law Offices of Chicago–Kent College of Law, Chicago (Daniel T. Coyne, Matthew M. Daniels, Michael R. Johnson, and Deborah Brown Lee, of counsel), for appellant.

Anita M. Alvarez, State's Attorney, Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, Peter Fischer, and Kathleen Warnick, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

OPINION

Justice CUNNINGHAM delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Following a bench trial, the circuit court of Cook County found defendant, Anthony Malcolm, guilty of first-degree murder and robbery. Subsequently, the defendant was sentenced to 22 years for first-degree murder and 8 years for robbery to be served consecutively. On appeal the defendant argues: (1) the trial court erred in finding the defendant guilty of first-degree murder and robbery based on the accountability theory; (2) the trial court erred in considering a nontestifying co-defendant's statement as substantive evidence as a basis for the finding of guilt; (3) the trial court erred in sentencing the defendant to more than the minimum sentencing standards. For the following reasons, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court of Cook County.

¶ 2 BACKGROUND

¶ 3 On July 14, 2012, at approximately 9:20 a.m., the defendant was placed under arrest by Detective Morales and his partner, Detective Taraszkiewicz of the Chicago Police Department, at his residence at 5549 North Broadway, Chicago, Illinois. This was done after co-defendant, Malik Jones (Jones), identified the defendant as the person holding a cellular telephone and recording the assault of the victim, Delfino Mora. The defendant was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and one count of robbery. 720 ILCS 5/9–1(a)(1), (a)(2), (a)(3), 18–1(a) (West 2012).

¶ 4 On March 25, 2013, a motion was filed to sever the defendant's trial from Jones and another co-defendant, Nicolas Ayala (Ayala), which the trial court granted. On May 23, 2013, the trial court conducted defendant's bench trial.

¶ 5 Chicago police officer Collazo (Officer Collazo) testified that on July 10, 2012, he was initially assigned to investigate a man down in the alley of 6308 North Artesian. Upon arriving at the scene, he noticed a red truck and a man lying face up on the ground next to a dumpster. Officer Collazo testified that the man was breathing, but had blood and vomit coming from his mouth and he was unresponsive. Sulton Shaikh was also at the scene and had initially found the man lying on the ground. Officer Collazo called for an ambulance and then attempted to identify the victim. No identification was found on the victim.

¶ 6 After the ambulance took the man to the hospital, Officer Collazo went to the red truck that was parked on the right side of the alley and found the victim's name and address from his vehicle registration. From there, Officer Collazo went to the victim's home and notified his family of the incident. He then returned to the police station to write his reports.

¶ 7 Chicago police detective Mancuso testified that on July 10, 2012, he was assigned to investigate a man found in the alley at 6308 North Artesian. Upon arriving at the scene, he was informed that the victim was taken to St. Francis Hospital and he then canvassed the area around the alley. Specifically, he also spoke with Aron Rios (Rios). Detective Mancuso testified that he believes that Rios said that he heard people laughing and having fun in the alley. The crime scene report was introduced into evidence by the defense as Defendant's Exhibit Number 1. In the crime scene report, nothing is mentioned about Rios saying he heard people laughing. Detective Mancuso also testified as to what the scene of the incident looked like and identified photograph exhibits of the alley and the dumpster area where the victim was found. After he canvassed the area, he went to St. Francis Hospital and found out that the victim was in critical condition and had been taken into surgery.

¶ 8 Rios testified that on July 10, 2012, between 5 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., he left his Chicago apartment at 2442 West Rosemont through the alley between Artesian and Campbell to go to work. On his way down the alley, he saw a couple of individuals at the end of the alley in front of Rosemont Street. In his testimony at trial, Rios noted that the individuals laughed and commented about someone snoring.¹ Rios also noted that there were two people with another one behind them and he did not notice anyone with a backpack.

¶ 9 Maria Mora (Maria) testified that she had been married to the victim for 41 years and had 12 children. The victim did not have a job at the time of his death, but had collected metal scrap and cans to raise money for his family. On July 10, 2012, at approximately 5 a.m., the victim left his home at 6014 North Washtenaw in Chicago to collect scrap metal. He was 62 years old and left his home with his wallet, cellular telephone, and cap in a red Ford truck.

¶ 10 At approximately 8:30 a.m., an officer arrived at Maria's door and told her that the victim had passed out and had been taken to St. Francis Hospital. Maria then went to the hospital and found him in critical condition. The victim never opened his eyes or spoke again. On July 11, 2012, at approximately 3:30 p.m., the victim died. When Maria was able to see the victim's belongings, there was no wallet or cellular telephone with them.

¶ 11 Dr. Lauren Woertz (Dr. Woertz), the medical examiner for Cook County, testified that she preformed the autopsy on the victim on July 13, 2012. The autopsy report was admitted into evidence along with photos of the victim's face postmortem, his head showing the suture incision from the craniotomy, and a picture of his brain. Dr. Woertz noted there were bruises on the right eye, on the right and left side of Mora's chest, and on the left forearm. There was also a scrape on the left side of the victim's back. Dr. Woertz reviewed medical records that accompanied the body, which noted evidence of right subdural hematoma, intraventricular hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, with contusions to the brain, multiple facial fractures and a diffused hemorrhage under the scalp. After her internal investigation, she confirmed the presence of a right subdural hematoma, an intraventricular hemorrhage of the brain, a subarachnoid hemorrhage of the brain, bruises on the brain's temporal lobes, and bruises on the tongue. Dr. Woertz determined that the cause of death of the victim was craniocerebral injuries resulting from blunt head trauma sustained from an assault. Dr. Woertz testified that her opinion was within a reasonable degree of forensic, scientific certainty as to the manner of the victim's death.

¶ 12 Emmanuel Mora (Emmanuel), the victim's 21–year–old son, testified that he received a call on July 10, 2012, around 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., from a co-worker, Mirena, to let him know that she was sorry for what happened to his father. Two to three hours later, he received a second call from Mirena. Mirena told him on this call that her boyfriend viewed the Facebook page of Jones and saw a video of a man being punched. Mirena and her boyfriend recorded the Facebook video and met Emmanuel at the police station to speak with detectives. At this time, Emmanuel saw the video for the first time and identified the man in the video to be his father. The video was approximately one minute long, was admitted into evidence and played for the trial court during Emmanuel's testimony.

¶ 13 On July 14, 2012, a woman came to the victim's home and gave the family a wallet that she had found. Denise Shaeffer (Shaeffer) testified that she found the wallet in the alley behind the fence of her yard. She was taking the garbage to the cans in the alley of the 6200 block of North Campbell, when she found a brown wallet that was wet and dirty lying on the ground. She picked up the wallet and opened it to find the identification and address of the victim. There was no cash in the wallet. She then returned the wallet to the victim's family who notified her that the victim had passed away. The next day, Shaeffer called the police and let them know she found the victim's wallet.

¶ 14 Detective Juan Carlos Morales (Detective Morales) testified that on July 14, 2012, shortly after 2 a.m., he and his partner, Detective Taraszkiewicz were assigned to investigate the victim's death. At this time, they were looking for Jones as a subject related to the crime. At approximately 2:45 a.m., both detectives went to 8849 West 167th Street in Orland Hills, Illinois, where they located Jones and arrested him. They recovered a cellular telephone in Jones' possession. The address of 8849 West 167th Street was the home of Sanchez Guzman. Vaneece Lew (Lew) was also present at this address and agreed to accompany the detectives to the police station.

¶ 15 Detective Morales testified that upon arrival at the police station, Jones was placed in an interview room and Detective Morales had a conversation with him. After this, the detectives looked for two other suspects: Ayala and the defendant. Lew assisted with the identification and the detectives located pictures of the two suspects on the internet.

¶ 16 At approximately 9:10 a.m. on July 14, 2012, the detectives arrested Ayala at 6306 North Tallman Avenue, in Chicago. At approximately 9:20 a.m., the detectives arrested the defendant at 5549 North Broadway, in Chicago. A video recording known as an electric recording interrogation system (ERI) was made of the defendant's interview. Three clips (2 minutes, 10 minutes, and 20 minutes) from the videotaped interrogation were introduced as evidence and played for the trial court during Detective Morales' testimony. Detective Morales made an in-court identification of the defendant at trial. Detective Morales...