People v. Crumble

2020 IL App (5th) 170323-U

• Court: Appellate Court of Illinois
• Decided: November 10, 2020
• Docket: 5-17-0323
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOTICE 2020 IL App (5th) 170323-U NOTICE Decision filed 11/10/20. The This order was filed under text of this decision may be NO. 5-17-0323 Supreme Court Rule 23 and changed or corrected prior to may not be cited as precedent the filing of a Petition for IN THE by any party except in the Rehearing or the disposition of limited circumstances allowed the same. under Rule 23(e)(1). APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS

FIFTH DISTRICT ______________________________________________________________________________

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, ) Appeal from the ) Circuit Court of Plaintiff-Appellee, ) St. Clair County. ) v. ) No. 14-CF-685 ) MONTEZ CRUMBLE, ) Honorable ) Jan V. Fiss, Defendant-Appellant. ) Judge, presiding. ______________________________________________________________________________

JUSTICE OVERSTREET delivered the judgment of the court. Presiding Justice Welch and Justice Wharton concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

¶1 Held: Where the circuit court did not err in denying the defendant’s motion for the suppression of statements or in denying his motion for a Franks hearing, and where the trial evidence was sufficient to establish the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and no argument to the contrary would have merit, the defendant’s appointed attorney in this appeal is granted leave to withdraw as counsel, and the judgment of conviction is affirmed.

¶2 A jury found the defendant, Montez Crumble, guilty of possession of a controlled substance

with intent to deliver, and the circuit court subsequently sentenced him to a four-year period of

probation. The defendant appeals from the judgment of conviction. His appointed attorney in this

appeal, the Office of the State Appellate Defender (OSAD), has concluded that this appeal lacks

merit, and on that basis it has filed with this court a motion to withdraw as counsel, along with a

brief in support thereof. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967). OSAD provided the

1 defendant with a copy of its Anders motion and brief. This court gave the defendant ample

opportunity to file a written response to OSAD’s motion, or a memorandum, brief, etc., explaining

why this appeal has merit, but the defendant has not taken advantage of that opportunity. This

court has examined OSAD’s Anders motion and brief, as well as the entire record on appeal, and

has determined that this appeal does indeed lack merit.

¶3 BACKGROUND

¶4 On January 22, 2014, Joshua Hunt, a special agent with the Collinsville Police Department,

who was assigned to the Illinois State Police Metropolitan Enforcement Group of Southwestern

Illinois (MEGSI), appeared before a judge of the circuit court of St. Clair County and sought a

warrant to search a particular house on Gaty Avenue in East St. Louis, Illinois. In his sworn

complaint for search warrant, Hunt described three occasions, on three different days in January

2014, when a confidential source purchased crack cocaine from the defendant at the Gaty Avenue

residence. According to Hunt, the confidential source was familiar with the defendant, and each

of the three controlled buys was made as police watched from some distance. Also in the

complaint, Hunt stated that he had “conducted a criminal history search” on the defendant, and he

had found that (1) in two different St. Clair County felony cases commenced in 2004, the defendant

was convicted of the manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance, and he was sentenced to

probation and jail; (2) in December 1995, East St. Louis police arrested the defendant for

possession of cannabis; (3) in two different St. Clair County felony cases commenced in 1995, the

defendant was convicted of two counts of delivering 10 to 30 grams of cannabis, and he was

sentenced to probation; and (4) in May 2005, St. Louis County (Missouri) police arrested the

defendant for disturbing the peace and for manufacturing or delivering a controlled substance.

Based on Hunt’s sworn complaint, the judge issued a search warrant for the Gaty Avenue

2 residence. Two days after the search warrant was sought and issued, police officers executed the

warrant.

¶5 In May 2014, the defendant was charged with possession of 1 gram or more but less than

15 grams of a substance containing cocaine with intent to deliver (720 ILCS 570/401(c)(2) (West

2014)) plus a firearm offense. Eventually, the two counts were severed, and the State proceeded

on the cocaine charge, which is the subject of the instant appeal. (The firearm charge is the subject

of an appeal in People v. Crumble, No. 5-18-0014, but the firearm charge will not be mentioned

again in this order.)

¶6 In August 2015, the defendant filed, by his public defender, a motion to suppress statements

that he had made during a videotaped police interrogation. The motion alleged that the police

provided the defendant with Miranda warnings (see Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)) in

a hasty and incomplete manner, that the defendant was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at

the time of the interrogation, and that the defendant’s statements were the product of

“psychological coercion” and improper inducement.

¶7 The court scheduled a hearing on the defendant’s suppression motion for August 17, 2015.

Apparently, the suppression hearing was held. However, the record on appeal does not include a

transcript of the hearing. On August 26, 2015, the circuit court entered a written order denying

the suppression motion. The court found that the defendant “was not grossly intoxicated” at the

time of the police interrogation, and that he therefore “retained the capacity” to waive his rights.

The court further found that the State had met its burden of showing that the defendant’s waiver

of Miranda rights was “knowing, intelligent, and voluntary.”

¶8 The record on appeal lacks a transcript of the suppression hearing, but it does include a

DVD of the police interrogation that was the subject of the suppression motion. The interrogation

3 took place in a police vehicle, apparently upon completion of the search of the Gaty Avenue

residence. Throughout the interrogation, the camera was squarely on the defendant; no one else

was visible on the video. At the start, the principal interrogator, the aforementioned Joshua Hunt

of the Collinsville Police Department and MEGSI, informed the defendant of his Miranda rights,

albeit quickly, and the defendant indicated his understanding of those rights, both orally and by

initialing and signing a waiver form. The defendant certainly did not appear to be under the

influence of alcohol or drugs during the interrogation, though he became somewhat emotional at

times. He was coherent and responsive to questions, though he sometimes seemed evasive or

nervous. No police coercion, intimidation, or improper inducement was apparent. The defendant

told police that he had made “a stupid choice *** to bring drugs into [his home]” and that he had

sold crack cocaine “off and on” for a year, in response to financial straits. He admitted that the

bedroom in which police had found the crack was his bedroom, and he admitted that the crack was

his. He said that he had bought the crack, along with some powder cocaine, the previous day for

$600.

¶9 In August 2016, the defendant filed a “motion for a Franks hearing in order to quash the

search warrant and suppress evidence illegally seized,” i.e., a motion for an evidentiary hearing

pursuant to Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978). In his motion for a Franks evidentiary

hearing, the defendant alleged that false statements had been included in the January 2014 search-

warrant complaint, whether knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth, and he further

alleged that without those false statements, probable cause for the search of the Gaty Avenue

residence could not be established. More specifically, the defendant alleged that the search-

warrant complaint (1) inflated the defendant’s criminal history and (2) described the facts and

circumstances of the three alleged undercover drug purchases in a manner that was wholly

4 inconsistent with the content of a surveillance video that the State had provided to the defense.

According to the defendant’s Franks motion, the St. Clair County probation department in May

2014 prepared a criminal history of the defendant, and the history showed only one entry for the

defendant—a conviction for delivery of a controlled substance in a St. Clair County felony case

commenced in 2004. In addition, the defendant stated that the two 1995 St. Clair County felony

cases mentioned in the search-warrant complaint related to someone other than the defendant, who

had falsely given the defendant’s name at the time of arrest. In short, the defendant alleged in his

Franks motion that of all the criminal-history items mentioned in the search-warrant complaint,

only one of those items truly related to the defendant.

¶ 10 The State filed a response to the defendant’s Franks motion, asking the court to deny the

motion. The State stated, inter alia, that any incorrect criminal-history information included in

the complaint was not included intentionally, knowingly, or with a reckless disregard for the truth,

and that probable cause for the search existed even if all the incorrect information were set aside.

In regard to the alleged discrepancy between the search-warrant complaint’s description of three

controlled buys versus the contents of a surveillance video, the State stated that the three controlled

buys were separate and apart from the activity captured in the surveillance video.

¶ 11 In August 2016, the court held a hearing on the defendant’s motion for a Franks evidentiary

hearing. Both sides presented arguments. The defendant’s attorney noted that the Franks motion

addressed “two problems with the search warrant.” According to counsel, the more serious of the

two problems was that the search-warrant complaint inflated the defendant’s criminal history.

Specifically, the search-warrant complaint listed only one conviction that actually related to the

defendant; none of the other listed convictions or arrests actually related to the defendant, and one

of those convictions actually related to the defendant’s cousin, who sometimes used the

5 defendant’s name as an alias. The second problem described in the Franks motion, counsel noted,

was that “the [search-warrant complaint’s] description of the three controlled buys” was

inconsistent with the content of a surveillance video that the State had provided to the defense.

During his argument to the court, counsel requested leave to add to the motion a third reason for

holding a Franks evidentiary hearing—the need to determine whether it was the defendant or the

defendant’s cousin who sold drugs to the confidential source during the three controlled buys

described in the search-warrant complaint.

¶ 12 The State, for its part, argued that the defendant had alleged merely that the search-warrant

complaint included “errors and mistakes,” and that the defendant thus failed to make a substantial

preliminary showing that a false statement was included in the complaint intentionally, knowingly,

or with reckless disregard for the truth. The State presented the court with a certified copy of the

record in St. Clair County case No. 95-CF-61, People v. Cortez Brown, a/k/a Montez Crumble,

and stated that the police officer who prepared the search-warrant complaint could easily and

innocently have concluded from the court record that the conviction in that case belonged to the

defendant. The State added that even if the inaccurate criminal-history information were excluded

from the search-warrant complaint, the complaint would nevertheless contain enough information

to establish probable cause for the search warrant. As for the alleged discrepancy between the

search-warrant complaint’s description of the three controlled buys versus the content of a

surveillance videotape that had been turned over to the defense, the State stated that the search-

warrant complaint did not contain any mention of, or reference to, surveillance recordings, and

that “[t]he search warrant that was issued by this court was not based on that video. It wasn’t

based on the events depicted in that video.” The State asked the court to deny the motion for a

Franks hearing, because “[t]he search warrant *** was based on three controlled buys from a

6 reliable source” and those buys were corroborated by police officers’ observations. At the end of

the hearing, the court granted the defendant time to file an amended motion for a Franks

evidentiary hearing, and it granted the State time to respond thereto.

¶ 13 The day after the hearing, the defendant filed an amended motion for a Franks hearing.

The amended Franks motion was the same as the original Franks motion except that it included a

paragraph alleging that the defendant had a cousin named Cortez Brown, who resembled the

defendant, had an extensive criminal record, and frequented the area surrounding the defendant’s

Gaty Avenue residence, and further alleged that the police or the confidential source could have

mistaken Cortez Brown for the defendant, rendering unreliable the identification of the defendant

as the drug seller.

¶ 14 The State did not file a response to the amended Franks motion. It rested on its response

to the original Franks motion and the arguments that it presented at the August 2016 hearing

thereon.

¶ 15 On October 5, 2016, the circuit court entered a written order denying the amended motion

for a Franks hearing. The court found that the defendant had failed to make a preliminary showing

that the police officer intentionally, knowingly, or with reckless disregard for the truth included

false statements in his search-warrant complaint, and that the defendant therefore was not entitled

to a Franks hearing.

¶ 16 In April 2017, the cause proceeded to trial by jury. Joshua Hunt, the Collinsville police

officer, testified that on January 22, 2014, while he was assigned to MEGSI, he obtained a warrant

permitting police to search a particular house on Gaty Avenue in East St. Louis for controlled

substances and any items indicative of the sale or distribution thereof. On January 24, 2014, Hunt

and other police officers executed the search warrant. Upon their arrival at the house, they detained

7 a man who was standing near a car that was idling in front of the house; this man was later

identified as the defendant. Then, officers entered the house and began their search. In the

southeast bedroom, on a nightstand, they found two small plastic baggies; one of the baggies

contained suspected crack cocaine (State’s exhibit #10), and the other contained suspected powder

cocaine (State’s exhibit #11). A small digital scale was found on that same nightstand. Also in

the bedroom, inside a dresser, police found $1872 in cash. The search did not yield any

paraphernalia typically possessed by a drug user, such as syringes or a crack pipe.

¶ 17 After the search, Hunt informed the defendant of his Miranda rights, which the defendant

appeared to understand. According to Hunt, he did not threaten or coerce the defendant or promise

him anything. Hunt proceeded to question the defendant, as the two sat in a police vehicle parked

near the residence that had been searched. The defendant, Hunt thought, seemed comfortable

while speaking with him. A DVD recording of the interrogation was played for the jury. This

court has described the interrogation supra.

¶ 18 Marla Spangler, a forensic scientist with the Illinois State Police crime lab in Belleville,

who specialized in drug chemistry, testified that she weighed the suspected crack cocaine (State’s

exhibit #10) and analyzed it with a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer. The “off-white chunky

substance” weighed 5.9 grams, and her analysis led her to conclude, to a reasonable degree of

scientific certainty, that it contained cocaine. Spangler also weighed the suspected powder cocaine

(State’s exhibit #11); the substance plus the baggie that it was in weighed 7.7 grams. Spangler did

not perform chemical testing on the suspected powder cocaine.

¶ 19 Joseph Beliveau, a master sergeant with the Illinois State Police, testified that in January

2014, he was the director of MEGSI. He also was the officer in charge of the search of the Gaty

Avenue residence on January 24, 2014. Beliveau observed that the baggie of suspected crack

8 cocaine (State’s exhibit #10), found in a bedroom of the residence, contained 60 or more “one-

tenth and two-tenth pieces.” Based on his years of experience with narcotics investigations,

including his many arrests of narcotics users and dealers, Beliveau testified that users of crack

cocaine—as opposed to dealers in crack cocaine—“very rarely” possess more than two or three

“one-tenth or two-tenth pieces” of crack cocaine at any one time, for reasons that included crack

users’ tendency to smoke their crack within a short time after procuring it. The digital scale found

during the search appeared to have a “residue” indicating that it had been used to weigh cocaine.

¶ 20 At the close of the State’s case, the defendant moved for a directed verdict, arguing that

the State had failed to prove an intent to deliver. The court denied the motion. After an appropriate

admonishment and questioning by the court, the defendant chose not to testify. The defense rested

without presenting evidence. The jury, after deliberations, found the defendant guilty of unlawful

possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, as charged.

¶ 21 The defendant filed a posttrial motion. He alleged, inter alia, that the State had failed to

prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the circuit court had erred in denying the

defendant’s motion to suppress statements and his motion for a Franks hearing.

¶ 22 In July 2017, the court held a hearing on the defendant’s posttrial motion. After hearing

the arguments of counsel, the court denied the motion. Proceeding to sentencing, the court

sentenced the defendant to probation for a period of four years. In August, the defendant filed

through counsel a timely notice of appeal from the judgment of conviction, thus perfecting the

instant appeal.

¶ 23 ANALYSIS

¶ 24 In its Anders brief, OSAD raises three potential issues in this appeal, viz.: whether the

circuit court erred in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress statements, whether the circuit

9 court erred in denying the defendant’s motion for a Franks evidentiary hearing, and whether the

State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of the drug offense for which

he stood trial.

¶ 25 In its Anders brief, OSAD suggests that the circuit court’s denial of the defendant’s motion

to suppress statements was not against the manifest weight of the evidence (see People v. Glass,

232 Ill. App. 3d 136, 150 (1992)), and any argument to the contrary would lack merit. This court

agrees with OSAD’s suggestion. In his motion to suppress statements, the defendant alleged that

the police provided the defendant with Miranda warnings in a hasty and incomplete manner, that

the defendant was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time the police interrogated him,

and that the defendant’s statements were the product of “psychological coercion” and improper

inducement. The videotaped interrogation, which this court has described in some detail supra,

does not support any of the allegations contained in the suppression motion. Indeed, the

videotaped interrogation refutes those allegations. This court does not have any way of knowing

what other evidence, if any, was presented at the suppression hearing, because the record on appeal

does not include a transcript of that hearing. This court presumes that the circuit court’s decision

was aligned with whatever evidence was admitted at the hearing. See, e.g., People v. Lopez, 229

Ill. 2d 322, 344 (2008).

¶ 26 OSAD also suggests that the defendant cannot make any meritorious argument that the

circuit court erred in denying his motion for a Franks evidentiary hearing. See Franks v.

Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978). This court agrees. Franks gives a criminal defendant a right,

under limited circumstances, to a hearing where he may challenge the veracity of an affidavit

supporting a search-warrant complaint. People v. Voss, 2014 IL App (1st) 122014, ¶ 16. The

purpose of a Franks hearing is to provide some protection against perjurious warrant applications.

10 People v. Lucente, 116 Ill. 2d 133, 150 (1987). The affidavit supporting a search warrant is

presumed valid, but if a defendant makes a substantial preliminary showing that a false

statement—and, moreover, a false statement necessary for the finding of probable cause—was

included in the affidavit intentionally, knowingly, or with reckless disregard for the truth, the

defendant will be granted an evidentiary hearing. Franks, 438 U.S. at 171. Appellate review of a

ruling on a motion for a Franks evidentiary hearing is de novo. People v. Chambers, 2016 IL

117911, ¶ 79. (In its Anders brief, OSAD did not suggest a standard of review for this issue.)

¶ 27 In his Franks motion, as detailed supra, the defendant alleged that the sworn search-

warrant complaint included an inflated criminal history for the defendant, attributing to the

defendant various convictions and arrests that did not actually pertain to him. As the State

conceded in the circuit court, the search-warrant complaint did in fact include inaccurate

information about the defendant’s criminal history. However, some of the inaccurate information

appears to have resulted from an understandable confusion between the defendant’s criminal

history and the criminal history of the defendant’ cousin, Cortez Brown, who appears to have used

the defendant’s name as an alias. The defendant did not proffer any actual evidence that the

inaccurate criminal-history information was included intentionally, or knowingly, or with a

reckless disregard for the truth. Furthermore, even if all of the inaccurate criminal-history

information in the search-warrant complaint were set aside and disregarded, there was enough

information in the complaint to establish probable cause for the search of the Gaty Avenue

residence. The complaint detailed three then-recent controlled buys of crack cocaine at the

residence, each involving a confidential source who was familiar with the defendant and who was

under police surveillance. The defendant did not make any specific allegation of deliberate

falsehood or of reckless disregard for the truth in relation to the accounts of those controlled buys.

11 In short, the defendant failed to make the type of showing that would entitle him to a Franks

evidentiary hearing.

¶ 28 Finally, OSAD suggests that there would be no merit to an argument that the State failed

to prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This court agrees with OSAD’s

assessment. The defendant stood trial for possession of 1 to 15 grams of a substance containing

cocaine with intent to deliver. During the search of the defendant’s residence, the police found, in

the defendant’s bedroom, a baggie containing approximately 60 “pieces” of crack cocaine,

weighing 5.9 grams, along with a digital scale and $1872 in cash. The amount of crack was

unusually large for a mere user. The scale and the substantial sum of cash also evidence

engagement in drug sales. During police interrogation, the defendant admitted to purchasing the

baggie of crack cocaine, plus some amount of powder cocaine, the previous day, and he admitted

to selling crack “off and on” for a year. This evidence was sufficient to permit a rational trier of

fact to find the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, and therefore any

challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence would fail. See People v. Smith, 185 Ill. 2d 532, 541

(1999).

¶ 29 CONCLUSION

¶ 30 None of the three potential issues discussed by OSAD in its Anders brief has any merit.

Furthermore, this court has not found any significant error in the entire record on appeal.

Accordingly, OSAD is granted leave to withdraw as the defendant’s counsel on appeal, and the

judgment of conviction is affirmed.

¶ 31 Motion granted; judgment affirmed.