People v. Miles

577 N.E.2d 477, 217 Ill. App. 3d 393, 160 Ill. Dec. 347, 1991 Ill. App. LEXIS 1322
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedAugust 6, 1991
Docket4-90-0513
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 577 N.E.2d 477 (People v. Miles) 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. Miles, 577 N.E.2d 477, 217 Ill. App. 3d 393, 160 Ill. Dec. 347, 1991 Ill. App. LEXIS 1322 (Ill. Ct. App. 1991).

Opinion

JUSTICE KNECHT

delivered the opinion of the court:

A Vermilion County jury convicted the defendant of two counts of home invasion (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1989, ch. 38, par. 12 — 11), five counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1989, ch. 38, par. 12 — 14(a)(1)), one count of criminal sexual assault (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1989, ch. 38, par. 12 — 13(a)(1)), one count of aggravated unlawful restraint (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1989, ch. 38, par. 10 — 3.1), one count of armed robbery (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1989, ch. 38, par. 18 — 2(a)), and two counts of residential burglary (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1989, ch. 38, par. 19 — 3(a)). On appeal, the defendant challenges the admission of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) evidence and population statistics, trial counsel’s effectiveness, jury instructions, and the sentences imposed. We affirm the convictions but remand for resentencing.

The victim, G.S., an adult, African-American female living alone in her home in Danville, Illinois, testified she was sleeping at 2:30 a.m. on November 3, 1987, when she heard a noise. She believed someone was in the house and she was trying to leave when the front door burst open, and a man entered and knocked her down. G.S. was not wearing her eyeglasses and could not see the man. She has never been able to identify the assailant because she is unable to see clearly without her glasses, and he prevented her from getting to them. G.S. could only tell police the assailant was an African-American male, approximately 5 feet 9 inches or 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing 160 to 170 pounds.

The man searched the house for other occupants. He then picked up a kitchen knife and held it to G.S.’s throat. He took her to a bedroom and blindfolded her. During the next six hours, the intruder threatened to kill G.S. at least eight times. He sexually assaulted her twice (she testified there was vaginal penetration each time) and struck her at least five times. He ransacked her home, taking money and jewelry. He drove G.S., in her car, to an Easy Answer automatic teller machine and forced her to withdraw $200 from her checking account.

Upon returning to G.S.’s home, the intruder found G.S.’s savings account passbook. He allowed her to shower and dress and returned her eyeglasses to her, covered with duct tape. G.S. testified she kept duct tape in her utility room. He then drove her to her bank, Palmer Bank, in her car, and forced her to withdraw the $2,000 she had in her savings account. Business was transacted at a drive-up window. G.S. testified the man held a knife between her legs and threatened to use it if she did anything strange while at the bank. Her car had tinted windows.

After leaving the bank, the assailant drove a distance and stopped the car. He told G.S. he had to kill her; she pleaded for her life. The intruder suddenly jumped out of the car and ran. G.S. found another pair of her eyeglasses in the backseat of her car and went for help.

On cross-examination, G.S. testified she could not recall whether the defendant ejaculated during either sexual assault. She did not believe she could identify the defendant’s voice.

Tammy Rife, a teller at Palmer Bank, testified she was on duty at the drive-up window on November 3, 1987. A car pulled up to the window shortly after 8:30 a.m. She informed the occupants the bank did not open until 9 a.m. The male driver of the car told her they would wait. Rife did not know either occupant. She remembered the car had tinted windows. She talked only to the male driver. The female occupant kept her head down during the entire transaction and did not speak. Rife recorded the car’s license plate number as it was leaving, because she felt something was wrong, particularly since the female occupant was withdrawing all the money in her savings account and did not look up or talk. Rife could not identify the defendant.

John Deltuva, a Danville, Illinois, police officer, testified he spoke with G.S. at around 9:52 a.m. on November 3, 1987, and accompanied her to her house to investigate. He found a screen on a window of the screened front porch pulled out, the front door to the house open, and the front-door frame smashed. In the house, he found closet doors and drawers open and various articles strewn on the floors of each room.

Sergeant Bob Richard, of the Danville police department, testified he was the major crime scene supervisor for the department on November 3, 1987. He was present when the victim’s car was processed for fingerprints and went to G.S.’s house to lift fingerprints. At the house he saw a window and its frame, on the screened front porch, pulled out. The front door to the house had been forced open; the doorjamb around the deadbolt, which was still engaged, was splintered and the molding knocked to the floor. Three telephones were on the couch in the living room. The wires had been cut on two of the telephones, one was still connected. Richard found latent fingerprints on the window frame that had been pulled out, the window, the telephones, and the glass closet doors in G.S.’s bedroom. He also found a two-liter grape Crush soda bottle in G.S.’s bedroom, on a table next to her bed. He lifted and preserved more than 20 latent fingerprints at G.S.’s house.

Kevin Horath, a forensic scientist with the Illinois State Police, received evidence from Sergeant Richard, including 29 latent fingerprint lifts. He identified the defendant’s fingerprints on one of the telephones, a storm window, the inside of a porch window, and the grape Crush soda bottle.

William Frank, a forensic scientist with the Illinois State Police and DNA research coordinator for the State Police, received a sexual assault kit on November 22, 1988. He found no seminal material on any of the swabs in the kit. He found seminal stains on the bottom sheet police removed from the bed in G.S.’s bedroom, the site of one of the sexual assaults. After requesting additional samples from the defendant and G.S., Frank determined the defendant and G.S. have different blood types. On July 20, 1989, at a hearing on bail, the defendant requested DNA testing and expressed no objection to the taking of hair and blood samples.

Larry Thomason, a Danville police investigator, took G.S.’s statement on November 3, 1987, and recovered various items of evidence from her home. On July 18, 1989, he talked with the defendant, who was in prison, about a home invasion which occurred on November 3, 1987. The defendant denied committing the crime. The defendant had been sentenced to imprisonment on November 10,1987.

The State then began its presentation of DNA evidence. The State called Lisa Foreman, a Ph.D. research scientist at Cellmark Diagnostics (Cellmark), a DNA identification company in Germantown, Maryland. After presenting her credentials, Foreman explained DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, an organic substance found in chromosomes, which are located in the center or nucleus of cells. DNA carries genetic instructions. The instructions, or genetic code, are expressed in the form of four building blocks and in the arrangement of the blocks. The blocks are called bases, each with a different name. DNA is shaped like a ladder; each rung of the ladder has two bases. There are DNA ladders in each nucleated cell in each person. If strung out end to end, the ladder would have 3.3 billion rungs.

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Bluebook (online)
577 N.E.2d 477, 217 Ill. App. 3d 393, 160 Ill. Dec. 347, 1991 Ill. App. LEXIS 1322, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-miles-illappct-1991.