People v. Holloman

Procedural entryThis page is a short order in People v. Holloman. Read the opinion of the Court — 304 Ill. App. 3d 177
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided April 15, 1999·No. 4-98-0500·Published

Opinion

April 15, 1999

NO. 4-98-0500

IN THE APPELLATE COURT

OF ILLINOIS

FOURTH DISTRICT

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, ) Appeal from

Plaintiff-Appellee, ) Cir­cuit Court of

     v. ) Macon County     QUENTIN HOLLOMAN, ) No. 97CF1127

Defendant-Appellant. )

     ) Hon­orable

) James A. Hendrian,

) Judge Presid­ing.

JUSTICE STEIGMANN delivered the opinion of the court:

In February 1998, a jury convicted defendant, Quentin Holloman, of possession of more than 30 grams but not more than 500 grams of canna­bis with in­tent to deliver (720 ILCS 550/5(d) (West 1996)).  The trial court later sentenced him to 10 years in pris­on and imposed a fine.  De­fen­dant ap­peals, claim­ing that (1) the court abused its dis­cre­tion by ad­mitting his prior felony convic­tion for im­peach­ment pur­pos­es; (2) the court commit­ted revers­ible error when it ad­mitted ex­pert tes­ti­mony consisting of "drug deal­er profiles"; (3) the court relied on erro­neous in­for­

ma­tion at sen­tenc­ing; and (4) he received inef­fec­tive as­sis­tance of his trial coun­sel.  We af­firm defendant's con­vic­tion but re­

mand for a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing.

  I.  BACKGROUND

Around 4 p.m. on Au­gust 23, 1997, Decatur police offi­cer Frank Hubbard and two other offi­cers went to 721 E. Johns Street in Decatur, Illi­nois, to con­duct a follow-up investigation of a shooting inci­dent.  Hubbard and Officer Platzbecker went to the front door of the residence while Officer Michael Gannon went to the rear.  When Hubbard knocked on the front door, it opened approximate­ly 12 inches, and a young man, Antonio Har­ris, came to the door.  Accord­ing to Hubbard's testimony, when he began the inter­view, Harris acted "ner­vous" and repeated­ly looked over his shoul­der toward the inside of the house.  After a few moments, Hubbard heard a com­mo­tion in­side the house, and Gannon re­port­ed over his ra­dio that per­sons were at­tempt­ing to exit the resi­dence through a rear window.  At that point, Har­ris at­tempted to close the front door on Hubbard and Platzbecker.  Hubbard, be­lieving a felo­ny was in prog­ress, pulled Har­ris onto the front porch and en­tered the resi­dence.   

In­side, Hubbard found defen­dant lying on the floor in the back bed­room.  Jimmy Brown was halfway out the window of the same room.  Hubbard also found a large quan­ti­ty of can­na­bis on and around a card table in the din­ing area.  Following a stan­dard procedure, Hubbard con­tact­ed Task Force X (the Decatur po­lice drug task force) upon dis­cov­ery of the drugs.  He then took the occu­pants of the resi­dence into cus­to­dy and se­cured the resi­

dence.  Task Force X ob­tained a war­rant, searched the premis­es, and col­lected the evi­dence.  Task Force officer Edward Root tes­tified that the total amount of can­nabis re­cov­ered at the house was 406.1 grams.  Root also recov­ered a box of plastic bags and a pair of scissors.  Sixty dollars in cash was found on the card ta­ble, and defen­dant was hold­ing $347 in cash at the time of his ar­rest.  Jimmy Brown was holding $350.  Defendant's fin­ger­prints were found on one of the plastic bags containing canna­bis.

Officer Carl Carpen­ter testi­fied that he inter­viewed de­fen­dant at the Macon County jail fol­lowing his arrest.  De­fen­

dant told Carpen­ter that he came to Decatur from Chi­cago with his cous­in, Jimmy Brown, to sell drugs out of the Johns Street house.  This arrangement was made at the re­quest of a Chicago man known as "Tray," who trans­port­ed de­fen­dant and Brown to Decatur and dropped them off at the Johns Street house.  An individual un­

known to defendant dropped off the drugs (about one-half pound of can­na­bis) and other sup­plies later that night.  At tri­al, de­fen­

dant de­nied hav­ing told Car­penter this ver­sion of events.

Defendant tes­ti­fied that he came to Decatur from Chi­ca­

go with Brown for a vaca­tion.  He ini­tially stayed at a mo­tel, but checked out after an altercation with the management over a $10 raise in the rates.  At some point prior to the events sur­

rounding his arrest at the Johns Street house, defendant bought some "weed" at the house and subsequently was picked up by the police.  After posting bond he re­turned to the house and asked if he could sleep there for a cou­ple of hours because he had nowhere else to go.  The young man at the house agreed.  Defen­dant smoked a lit­tle, moved some things out of the way, and went to sleep on the floor in the back bed­room.  Accord­ing to defen­dant, he slept until he was awak­ened by Hubbard.  

Gannon tes­ti­fied that he saw de­fen­dant by the win­dow as Brown was at­tempt­ing to climb out.  By the time Gannon reached the window (where he handcuffed Brown), de­fen­dant had re­treated back into the house and out of Gannon's sight.   

When the State in rebuttal sought to impeach defen-

dant's tes­timo­ny with a 1996 felony conviction for posses­sion of a con­trolled substance with intent to deliver, the trial court con­ducted a side-bar con­fer­ence out of the jury's pres­ence.  (The re­cord con­tains no tran­script or bystander's re­port of the side-

bar.)  After the side-bar, the court ad­dressed the jury as fol­

lows:

"Ladies and gentlemen, the only evidence in, uh, rebuttal by the State is a certified copy of conviction, uh, of a case in Macon County.  It is entitled The People of the State of Illinois vs. Quentin Holloman, [No.] 96-CF-

681, and the record indicates that on August the 16th of 1996, Quentin Holloman was con­

victed of a felony in Macon County.  

You can use that evidence in determining his credibility only.  It is not to be used for any other purpose."

Later, also out of the jury's presence, the trial court gave defendant an opportunity to state on the record his objec­

tion to the conviction's ad­mission.  Defen­dant as­sert­ed that its prejudicial effect out­weighed any proba­tive val­ue.  The court stated in re­sponse that it had over­ruled the ob­jec­tion and had weighed the prej­u­di­cial ef­fect against the proba­tive value when the court made its de­termi­nation and that, because the prior con­

vic­tion was for the same of­fense as current­ly charged, the "mere fact" ap­proach was used.  The court later clarified its ruling for fear that it orig­inally mis­stated the stan­dard.  The court stated as follows:

"[J]ust to make sure that so there is no prob­lem in the record, uh, that the probative value of the impeachment evidence was--I made that determination that it was not out­weighed by the undue prejudice that could be caused to the defendant.  I think I might have said it backwards."

The jury then convicted defendant and the trial court subsequently sen­tenced him as previously stat­ed.  This ap­peal fol­lowed.

II.  ANALYSIS

A.  Impeachment Evidence

Defendant first argues that the trial court abused its dis­cre­tion when it admitted his prior felony conviction for im­

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