People v. Garry

2024 IL App (5th) 230535-U
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedNovember 7, 2024
Docket5-23-0535
StatusUnpublished

This text of 2024 IL App (5th) 230535-U (People v. Garry) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Garry, 2024 IL App (5th) 230535-U (Ill. Ct. App. 2024).

Opinion

NOTICE 2024 IL App (5th) 230535-U NOTICE Decision filed 11/07/24. The This order was filed under text of this decision may be NO. 5-23-0535 Supreme Court Rule 23 and is changed or corrected prior to not precedent except in the the filing of a Petition for IN THE limited circumstances allowed Rehearing or the disposition of under Rule 23(e)(1). the same. APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS

FIFTH DISTRICT ______________________________________________________________________________

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, ) Appeal from the ) Circuit Court of Plaintiff-Appellee, ) Macon County. ) v. ) No. 21-CF-209 ) TYRECO S. GARRY, ) Honorable ) Thomas E. Griffith Jr., Defendant-Appellant. ) Judge, presiding. ______________________________________________________________________________

JUSTICE MOORE delivered the judgment of the court. Justices Welch and McHaney concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

¶1 Held: The plain-error doctrine does not apply where no error was committed by the trial court in fashioning the defendant’s sentence for armed violence. Accordingly, the defendant cannot prevail on his claim that counsel was ineffective for failing to file a motion to reconsider sentence.

¶2 The defendant, Tyreco S. Garry, appeals his sentence, following a bench trial in the circuit

court of Macon County, Illinois, for the offense of armed violence. For the following reasons, we

affirm.

¶3 I. BACKGROUND

¶4 The facts necessary to our disposition of this timely appeal set forth that on February 22,

2021, the defendant was charged by information with four counts. Count I alleged that on February

18, 2021, the defendant committed armed violence, in that he knowingly and unlawfully had in his

1 possession more than 100 grams, but not more than 500 grams, of a substance containing cannabis,

other than as authorized in the Cannabis Control Act, while armed with a dangerous weapon, a

Glock model 45 handgun. Count II alleged that on February 18, 2021, the defendant committed

the offense of armed habitual criminal, in that the defendant, a person who has been convicted of

the offenses of unlawful possession by felons and armed robbery, knowingly possessed a firearm,

a Glock model 45 handgun. Lastly, counts III and IV set forth that the defendant committed the

offense of aggravated resisting a peace officer, in that defendant knowingly resisted arrest by

officers who were engaged in the execution of their official duties.

¶5 On November 10, 2022, the defendant waived his right to a trial by jury and requested a

bench trial. On April 19, 2023, the defendant’s bench trial began. Because the issues raised by the

defendant on appeal do not concern the evidence presented at the defendant’s bench trial or the

conduct of the parties at trial—and because an understanding of that evidence and conduct is not

necessary to our disposition of the issues raised by the defendant—we need not discuss the

defendant’s bench trial in detail. It is sufficient to note that the State presented evidence in support

of its theory that the defendant was guilty of counts I-IV, and counsel for the defendant presented

evidence in rebuttal. On April 19, 2023, the trial court continued the defendant’s case to May 3,

2023, for closing arguments. Following arguments, the trial court found the evidence sufficient to

prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt as to counts I, III, and IV.

¶6 Regarding count II, armed habitual criminal, the trial court found that the defendant’s

juvenile adjudication was not a conviction that satisfied the predicate felony offense requirement

of the armed habitual statute. Moreover, the trial court found the evidence insufficient to prove the

defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial court then set a sentencing hearing for the

defendant to occur on July 13, 2023.

2 ¶7 On July 12, 2023, the defendant filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

The memorandum in support thereof is absent from the record before this court. After denying the

defendant’s motion on July 13, 2023, the trial court informed the State and the defendant that it

believed the sentencing range would be 15-30 years. It was then agreed by both parties that any

sentence as to counts III and IV would run concurrent with count I, and the trial court proceeded

with sentencing.

¶8 The State began the defendant’s sentencing hearing by calling detective James Weddle, for

evidence in aggravation. Weddle testified that he was employed with the Decatur Police

Department as a detective, with the primary duty of following up on officer reports, including a

report involving the defendant.

¶9 Regarding this report, Weddle testified that on or about December 22, 2020, officers were

dispatched to a neighborhood regarding a shooting that occurred. The report detailed roughly 46

shell casings were recovered. Weddle testified that the report indicated an individual by the name

of Jayleon Cummings was discovered dead, seated in a vehicle, and with multiple gunshot wounds

that were later autopsied to be his cause of death. Reportedly, previously seated in the passenger

side of the vehicle was Jabron Hayes. Hayes told reporting officers he and Cummings were to meet

at the home of Brogerick Johnson to assist in moving items, which Weddle inferred to be illegal

because the defendant was known to be affiliated with drug related activity.

¶ 10 Weddle testified that an interview was conducted with Johnson, who made a statement to

officers about the incident involving Cummings’ death. Johnson stated that he was in the

neighborhood at the time of the shooting, and saw two subjects, one being the defendant, emerge

with rifles and begin firing at the vehicle Cummings and Hayes were seated in. Further, Weddle

3 testified that Johnson told reporting officers that the defendant had Facebook messaged him with

pictures of loaded guns.

¶ 11 Further, Weddle testified that a cellular device, owned by the defendant, was reportedly

recovered from the scene of the incident by responding officers. An extraction of the defendant’s

cellular device for discoverable information was conducted. And according to the testimony of

Officer Weddle, there was a recording of the vehicle that Cummings was found deceased in that

was taken five hours prior to the homicide. Weddle testified that he reviewed the recording and

affirmed the fact that the recording contained audio. The audio was of two men reading the license

plate of the vehicle Cummings was found deceased in.

¶ 12 On cross-examination, defense counsel inquired into the items to be moved from Johnson’s

home and their inferred illegality. Weddle testified that the items were firearms and cannabis.

Further, Weddle testified that in addition to the photos, videos, and Johnson’s statement identifying

the defendant, there were also a series of text messages from the defendant instructing Johnson to

grab a gun. Furthermore, there was a text message sent shortly before the homicide that said the

location of Johnson’s home.

¶ 13 The State then elicited testimony from witness Corey Maloney as evidence in aggravation.

Maloney testified that he was a sergeant for the Macon County sheriff’s office, corrections

division. As a sergeant, Maloney’s daily duties consist of monitoring jail progress, reviewing

disciplinary reports, and “just [the] day-to-day operations of making sure the jail runs smooth and

safe.”

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Bluebook (online)
2024 IL App (5th) 230535-U, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-garry-illappct-2024.