People v. Powell

485 N.E.2d 560, 138 Ill. App. 3d 150, 92 Ill. Dec. 749, 1985 Ill. App. LEXIS 2665
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedNovember 5, 1985
Docket4-85-0266
StatusPublished
Cited by32 cases

This text of 485 N.E.2d 560 (People v. Powell) 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. Powell, 485 N.E.2d 560, 138 Ill. App. 3d 150, 92 Ill. Dec. 749, 1985 Ill. App. LEXIS 2665 (Ill. Ct. App. 1985).

Opinion

JUSTICE McCULLOUGH

delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant was convicted by a jury of the offense of aggravated criminal sexual abuse (111. Rev. Stat., 1984 Supp., ch. 38, par. 12— 16(c)(1)) and was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. He appeals from the judgment of the circuit court of Vermilion County, arguing (1) he was not proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and (2) he was denied a fair trial by the admission of testimony on the details of the report by the eight-year-old victim to a deputy sheriff and to her mother, as this testimony exceeded the scope of the hearsay exception codified in section 115 — 10 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (Code) (111. Rev. Stat., 1984 Supp., ch. 38, par. 115 — 10). We affirm.

Defendant was charged with committing this offense upon an eight-year-old child during the early morning hours of August 15, 1984. The victim of the offense was spending the night with her girlfriend, the daughter of Mrs. Sanders. The Sanders lived in a trailer next to the Pit Stop Tavern, where Mr. and Mrs. Sanders worked. The defendant is the nephew of Mrs. Sanders and was living with his grandmother, Mrs. Hoskins, during the summer of 1984. The victim had previously seen the defendant on one occasion, at the residence of Mrs. Hoskins, and had been told who he was by her friend, the Sanders’ daughter. On the night of the offense, the defendant had 10 or 12 Royal Crown and Coke drinks before he became involved in an altercation with the victim’s stepfather. He had several more drinks, became involved in another altercation with the victim’s stepfather, and left the tavern.

Mrs. Sanders had been working at the Pit Stop the night of August 14, 1984, while Mr. Sanders stayed at the trailer with his stepdaughter and the victim. When the defendant became involved in the first altercation, Mr. Sanders was called to the bar, where he remained until sometime after the second altercation. He returned to the trailer about four minutes after someone came into the bar and told him they had seen someone go in behind his shed and into the trailer.

According to the victim, after she and her friend went to sleep on a blanket in the living room in front of the television, covered by a sheet, defendant entered the trailer and pulled the covers down past her knees. She was only wearing underpants. She and her friend awoke and told defendant to leave, which he did, and they went back to sleep. The victim testified she was later awakened by the defendant moving his hand on her leg. According to the victim, defendant moved his hand into her underwear through the leg, and touched the outside of her “private,” described as the place she went to the bathroom. She said she used a loud “man’s” voice to tell him to leave, and that he went over and stood by a freezer and sat on a stool and stared at her until after she again told him in a “man’s” voice to leave, and he left. She said she then woke her girlfriend and told her “to call her mom or I would because Leslie had just been in there, and he had touched my private.” The Sanders’ daughter called her mother, and thereafter Mrs. Sanders returned to the trailer, the victim told her what had happened, and Mrs. Sanders made a number of phone calls. The police arrived, and the victim told them what happened. The victim told her mother what happened when she came to pick her up the following morning.

The victim testified that before she and her friend went to sleep, she saw a shadow on a small square window by the door. Later, she saw the defendant at a big square window, and he asked her if there was anyone in the trailer besides herself and the Sanders’ daughter. She told him there was not, and he said “okay,” and then stared at her. Since his staring bothered her, she told him to leave, which he did. She testified that on looking at the defendant through the window, he was wearing a yellow and white shirt and blue pants; she could not tell what kind of shoes he had on, because the window “just showed the top of him.” She testified that when he touched her he was wearing a yellow and white shirt, cut-off pants, and “blue and white Converse shoes.” She saw the shoes after he touched her, when he stared at her from near the freezer. The victim demonstrated the offense in front of the jury with dolls.

The defendant testified that after he left the bar, the girls called him over from the trailer window and asked him what was going on at the Pit Stop, since Mr. Sanders had been called away from the trailer. He “told them what had happened,” and then felt ill, and went to a cornfield behind the trailer and was sick. He testified that he must have lain down, because he remembered getting up and going back to the trailer to see if he could get a ride home. He knocked on the door and looked in, saw the girls asleep, walked back out and closed the door, and sat on the steps. According to the defendant, about that time Mr. Sanders came around the porch and asked him what he was doing, and he said he was just sitting there. Defendant testified that Sanders said his wife, defendant’s aunt, wanted to talk to him, and about 15 minutes later his Aunt Linda accused him of fondling the victim. Defendant testified that he told his aunt she was crazy and took off walking, returning to his grandmother’s.

Defendant testified that on the night of the alleged offense, he was wearing gray dress slacks, a yellow and white shirt, and blue Nerfs, jogging shoes. He denied telling the officer that interviewed him on August 15, 1984, that he went to the cornfield twice, saying he told the investigator he went to the trailer twice. He testified that he remembered “more or less everything that happened,” but wouldn’t “testify to any sequence of events.” Asked if he had covered one of the girls, defendant answered, “No, sir, not to my recollection.” Asked if he had told his grandmother that one of the girls was uncovered and that he had covered her, defendant said he had told his grandmother that the girls were lying in the living room, but not that he had covered one girl. He denied touching the girls; the defendant acknowledged he had been convicted of misdemeanor theft in 1983.

Mrs. Hoskins testified that the defendant had told her he guessed he was “in a mess of trouble,” and did not remember exactly what had happened. She said she had asked him if he had touched the little girl in any way, and he had answered, “ T can’t remember. She was uncovered, and I reached down and pulled the covers up over her.’ ”

The Sanders’ daughter testified that she remembered the night the victim had stayed with her when claims were made about the defendant being in the trailer. She remembered calling her mother to have her come over to the trailer because of what the victim told her. She testified that she did not see the defendant in the trailer that night. She said she did not remember talking to a deputy on the night of the alleged offense, but said she thought someone did come out and talk to her and the victim. Asked whether this was after her mother called the police, she answered affirmatively. She said she did not remember telling a deputy at that time that she had seen the defendant in the trailer but he had not touched her.

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Bluebook (online)
485 N.E.2d 560, 138 Ill. App. 3d 150, 92 Ill. Dec. 749, 1985 Ill. App. LEXIS 2665, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-powell-illappct-1985.