{ "id": 3505528, "name": "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SAMMY GIBSON et al., Defendants-Appellants", "name_abbreviation": "People v. Gibson", "decision_date": "1987-05-21", "docket_number": "No. 82\u20141753", "first_page": "459", "last_page": "464", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "156 Ill. App. 3d 459" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "375 U.S. 85", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 11717703 ], "weight": 3, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "86-87" }, { "page": "173" }, { "page": "230" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/375/0085-01" ] }, { "cite": "476 N.E.2d 1333", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "year": 1963, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1340" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "131 Ill. App. 3d 1034", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3437776 ], "year": 1963, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1044" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/131/1034-01" ] }, { "cite": "489 N.E.2d 1356", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1360" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "111 Ill. 2d 295", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3166624 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "304" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/111/0295-01" ] }, { "cite": "405 U.S. 427", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 11722669 ], "weight": 9, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "430" }, { "page": "344" }, { "page": "1059" }, { "page": "431" }, { "page": "345" }, { "page": "1059" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/405/0427-01" ] }, { "cite": "442 U.S. 62", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 1532150 ], "weight": 3, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/442/0062-01" ] }, { "cite": "391 U.S. 123", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 1767670 ], "weight": 3, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/391/0123-01" ] }, { "cite": "111 Ill. 2d 573", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "484 N.E.2d 858", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 1986, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "861" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "137 Ill. App. 3d 330", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3640771 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1986, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "334" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/137/0330-01" ] }, { "cite": "106 S. Ct. 2886", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "S. Ct.", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "90 L. Ed. 2d 974", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "L. Ed. 2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "476 U.S. 1167", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 12580, 12357, 12555, 12943, 12656, 12754, 12633 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/476/1167-07", "/us/476/1167-03", "/us/476/1167-06", "/us/476/1167-01", "/us/476/1167-04", "/us/476/1167-05", "/us/476/1167-02" ] }, { "cite": "476 U.S. 530", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 12807 ], "weight": 12, "year": 1986, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "545" }, { "page": "529" }, { "page": "2064-65" }, { "page": "539" }, { "page": "525" }, { "page": "2061" }, { "page": "547" }, { "page": "530" }, { "page": "2066" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/476/0530-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 718, "char_count": 14153, "ocr_confidence": 0.746, "pagerank": { "raw": 7.686933165142265e-08, "percentile": 0.45315576313522526 }, "sha256": "37a0682affa9e57a371b020f7205aac55a02dafad531e18ab06d699aba14e8d9", "simhash": "1:788f33386f1eff13", "word_count": 2297 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:00:40.510932+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SAMMY GIBSON et al., Defendants-Appellants." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "JUSTICE LINN\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nThis cause is before us on remandment from the United States Supreme Court, that court having vacated the conviction of Norman Bonds and remanded the case for our further consideration in light of Lee v. Illinois (1986), 476 U.S. 530, 90 L. Ed. 2d 514, 106 S. Ct. 2056. Gibson v. Illinois (1986), 476 U.S. 1167, 90 L. Ed. 2d 974, 106 S. Ct. 2886.\nOn October 3, 1985 we affirmed the convictions of Sammy Gibson, James Burdine, and Norman Bonds. (People v. Gibson (1985), 137 Ill. App. 3d 330, 484 N.E.2d 858, appeal denied (1986), 111 Ill. 2d 573.) All three were convicted of armed robbery and home invasion, and Gibson and Bonds were also convicted of rape and deviate sexual assault. The circumstances of the crimes are fully set forth in that opinion, and we will include herein only those facts that may be necessary for a full understanding of the issues raised.\nFollowing the Illinois Supreme Court\u2019s denial of defendant\u2019s appeal from our decision, defendants Gibson and Bonds petitioned the United States Supreme Court for certiorari. The court denied Gibson\u2019s petition but granted that of Norman Bonds, the only defendant whose conviction was vacated and remanded to us for further consideration.\nCounsel for the State and for Bonds have filed supplemental briefs and both agree that the central issue posed by Lee v. Illinois is whether the introduction of Gibson\u2019s and Burdine\u2019s statements at trial constituted harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt.\nBackground\nIn the United States Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Bruton v. United States (1968), 391 U.S. 123, 20 L. Ed. 2d 476, 88 S. Ct. 1620, the court held that, in the context of a joint trial, the use of a nontestifying code-fendant\u2019s confession which inculpates another defendant violates that defendant\u2019s rights under the confrontation clause of the Federal Constitution. Even if the jury is instructed to use the codefendant\u2019s confession only against that defendant, the possible prejudice to the second defendant is considered too great to justify the admission of the code-fendant\u2019s confession.\nIn Parker v. Randolph (1979), 442 U.S. 62, 60 L. Ed. 2d 713, 99 S. Ct. 2132, the Bruton rule was modified to the limited extent that a codefendant\u2019s inculpatory statement may be admitted into evidence if defendant has also confessed and his confession sufficiently \u201cinterlocks\u201d with that of the second defendant. In addition, the jury must be instructed to consider a particular confession against the defendant who gave the confession only.\nIn Lee v. Illinois (1986), 476 U.S. 530, 545, 90 L. Ed. 2d 514, 529, 106 S. Ct. 2056, 2064-65, the Supreme Court had this to say about the \u201cinterlocking confessions\u201d exception to Bruton: \u201c[A] confession is not necessarily rendered reliable simply because some of the facts it contains \u2018interlock\u2019 with the facts in the defendant\u2019s statement. *** The trae danger inherent in this type of hearsay is, in fact, its selective reliability. As we have consistently recognized, a codefendant\u2019s confession is presumptively unreliable as to the passages detailing the defendant\u2019s conduct or culpability because those passages may well be the product of the codefendant\u2019s desire to shift or spread blame, curry favor, avenge himself, or divert attention to another. If those portions of the codefendant\u2019s purportedly \u2018interlocking\u2019 statement which bear to any significant degree on the defendant\u2019s participation in the crime are not thoroughly substantiated by the defendant\u2019s own confession, the admission of the statement poses too serious a threat to the accuracy of the verdict to be countenanced by the Sixth Amendment. In other words, when the discrepancies between the statements are not insignificant, the codefendant\u2019s confession may not be admitted.\u201d\nOpinion\nInitially, we shall reevaluate the admissions of Bonds\u2019 codefend-ants\u2019 statements in light of the principles set forth in Lee v. Illinois.\nThe circumstances under which the United States Supreme Court found unconstitutional the use of the codefendant\u2019s confession against the petitioner in Lee v. Illinois are as follows. Millie Lee and her boyfriend, Edwin Thomas, were charged with the murders of Lee\u2019s aunt, Mattie Darden, and her aunt\u2019s friend, Odessa Harris. In February 1982 all four were at Darden\u2019s home. Lee and Thomas had an argument, which brought Harris out from the bedroom into the kitchen, where she had a discussion with Lee. As Harris left the kitchen, she passed Thomas and gave him a \u201cdirty look.\u201d Thomas then stabbed her in the back and killed her. Lee went into her aunt\u2019s bedroom and saw that she had a knife. Lee returned to the kitchen and picked up a butcher knife, which she took into her aunt\u2019s bedroom, and stabbed her aunt to death.\nBoth defendants gave statements to the police in which the described events took place. However, Thomas\u2019 confession referred to a premeditated murder plan, whereas Lee\u2019s confession suggested that Thomas had been provoked by her aunt\u2019s past behavior and \u201csnapped\u201d the night of the murders because he \u201cjust couldn\u2019t take anymore.\u201d\nDefendants, represented by separate counsel, both withdrew motions to sever their trials and waived a jury. Neither testified at trial, except for the limited scope of the motions to suppress their statements, which motions were denied.\nLee was convicted and sentenced to 40 years for her part in the death of Odessa Harris and life imprisonment for the murder of her aunt.\nOne of the points that the Supreme Court emphasized in its opinion in Lee v. Illinois was the prosecution\u2019s erroneous attribution of part of Thomas\u2019 confession to Lee. Specifically, the State argued that Lee had admitted thinking about the murder plan and deliberately decided to go ahead with it. The trial court expressly relied on Thomas\u2019 version of the events, as substantive evidence against Lee. The trial court thus concluded that the premeditated nature of the plan negated Lee\u2019s defense of noninvolvement with Harris\u2019 murder and her less culpable mental state in connection with her aunt\u2019s murder, which was based on her statement that her aunt had grabbed a knife and that Lee had acted upon an unreasonable belief that the stabbing was in self-defense or, in the alternative, as the result of sudden, intense passion.\nThe Supreme Court held that since \u201cThomas\u2019 statement, as the confession of an accomplice, was presumptively unreliable and *** did not bear sufficient independent \u2018indicia of reliability\u2019 to overcome that presumption,\u201d it was erroneously admitted into evidence and improperly used against Lee. (Lee v. Illinois (1986), 476 U.S. 530, 539, 90 L. Ed. 2d 514, 525, 106 S. Ct. 2056, 2061.) Accordingly, the court vacated her conviction and remanded the cause to the State court, holding that the use of Thomas\u2019 untested confession against Lee violated her confrontation clause rights. The court further stated, however, that it did \u201cnot foreclose the possibility that this error was harmless when assessed in the context of the entire case against Lee,\u201d a determination best left to the State court. 476 U.S. 530, 547, 90 L. Ed. 2d 514, 530, 106 S. Ct. 2056, 2066.\nIn the pending case, Bonds and his two codefendants each admitted in his confession that all were in the victim\u2019s apartment, armed with guns. All intended to steal from her. At trial, the complaining witness testified in great detail as to the repeated rapes and deviate sexual assaults that Bonds and Gibson had subjected her to in the bathroom of her home during the armed robbery and home invasion. Most significantly, Bonds admitted in his oral statement to an assistant State\u2019s Attorney that he had forced the victim to perform oral copulation on him and that Gibson was in the bathroom with him at the time he was having sex with her.\nBurdine\u2019s confession corroborated Bonds\u2019 version, that it was Bonds and Gibson who were in the bathroom with the victim. Burdine also stated that Bonds later told him that he had gotten a \u201cblow job\u201d from the victim. Gibson\u2019s confession also corroborated Bonds\u2019 statement to the extent that it placed Bonds in the bathroom with the victim, but Gibson accused Burdine of being the second perpetrator of the sex offenses. Therefore, the codefendants\u2019 confessions did not place any additional blame upon Bonds or add significantly to his confession and in fact were \u201cthoroughly substantiated\u201d by his own admissions. That, plus the independent evidence of the complaining witness and her son, both of whom identified Bonds in lineups, appears to rebut the presumptive unreliability of the codefendants\u2019 statements.\nIt is readily apparent that in Lee v. Illinois, the use of Thomas\u2019 confession against Lee was of far greater potential prejudice than were the statements of Burdine and Gibson to Bonds, since Thomas\u2019 differed from hers on the key question of homicidal intent. Without Thomas\u2019 statement, there might well have been no other direct evidence of a premeditated murder plan. Lee might have been cleared of Harris\u2019 murder and possibly received a lesser conviction of voluntary manslaughter had only her statement been used against her.\nIn contrast, Bonds\u2019 admission, properly considered against him, was not varied in any material aspect by Burdine and Gibson, whose desire, if any, to shift or spread blame was confined to each other. Neither disputed that Bonds was one of the two who were in the bathroom with the victim, as he admitted and as the victim had testified. Certainly the victim\u2019s testimony against Bonds stands as \u201cindependent indicia\u201d of the reliability of the codefendants\u2019 confessions on the points concerning Bonds\u2019 role. Hence, their presumptive unreliability is rebutted. This contrasts with the situation in Lee v. Illinois since those victims were dead and could not give their version of the events leading up to their deaths.\nHaving distinguished the circumstances of Lee v. Illinois from those of the pending case, we acknowledge that our prior analysis of the Bruton issue was focused solely on the question of whether the confessions sufficiently interlocked and did not specifically address whether their presumptive unreliability was rebutted by independent indicia of reliability. As noted above, however, the detailed testimony of the victim, whose testimony was uncontradicted, and that of her son appears to satisfy the Lee v. Illinois court\u2019s requirement of independent indicia of reliability.\nBe that as it may, we rest our holding on our conviction that if a Bruton error occurred in the admission of Gibson\u2019s and Burdine's statements, it was harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt in the context of the entire case against Bonds. See Schneble v. Florida (1972), 405 U.S. 427, 31 L. Ed. 2d 340, 92 S. Ct. 1056.\nThe standard of review of an error of constitutional magnitude is that the court must find it to be not merely \u201charmless,\u201d but harmless beyond a reasonable doubt (People v. Martin-Trigona (1986), 111 Ill. 2d 295, 304, 489 N.E.2d 1356, 1360), and the reviewing court must be able to \u201csafely conclude that a trial without the error would produce no different result\u201d (People v. Myles (1985), 131 Ill. App. 3d 1034, 1044, 476 N.E.2d 1333, 1340). In Fahy v. Connecticut (1963), 375 U.S. 85, 86-87, 11 L. Ed. 2d 171, 173, 84 S. Ct. 229, 230, the Supreme Court posed the question as \u201cwhether there is a reasonable possibility that the evidence complained of might have contributed to the conviction.\u201d\nWe find particularly pertinent the case of Schneble v. Florida (1972), 405 U.S. 427, 430, 31 L. Ed. 2d 340, 344, 92 S. Ct. 1056, 1059, in which the Supreme Court commented: \u201cThe mere finding of a violation of the Bruton rule in the course of the trial, however, does not automatically require reversal of the ensuing criminal conviction. In some cases the properly admitted evidence of guilt is so overwhelming, and the prejudicial effect of the codefendant\u2019s admission is so insignificant by comparison, that it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the improper use of the admission was harmless error.\u201d The court further noted that \u201cthe independent evidence of guilt\u201d in the case before it was \u201coverwhelming\u201d and that the \u201callegedly inadmissible statements of [the codefendant] at most tended to corroborate certain details of the petitioner\u2019s comprehensive confession.\u201d 405 U.S. 427, 431, 31 L. Ed. 2d 340, 345, 92 S. Ct. 1056,1059.\nThe overwhelming and uncontradicted evidence against Bonds is such that we can easily conclude that the result would have been no different had the corroborative admissions of the codefendants not been admitted at trial. The testimony of the victim and her son, and Bonds\u2019 own confession, is sufficient to affirm his conviction on all counts, beyond a reasonable doubt. Consequently, we hereby reinstate Norman Bonds\u2019 conviction and sentencing.\nConvictions and sentences of Norman Bonds reinstated.\nMcMORROW, P.J., and JIGANTI, J., concur.\nBonds claims that his statement to the police merely admitted that he was \u201chigh\u201d on marijuana and had gotten a \u201cblow job\u201d from the complaining witness. However, even without the statements of Burdine and Gibson, or even his own admission, the victim\u2019s detailed testimony of the sexual assaults was clear and convincing and uncontradicted in any material respect.\nBurdine was not charged with, or convicted of, the sex offenses and he received a lesser sentence. He did not seek certiorari from the United States Supreme Court. Gibson, who did petition for certiorari (unsuccessfully), waived any Bruton error he may have asserted by failing to preserve it in his post-trial motion. People v. Gibson (1985), 137 Ill. App. 3d 330, 334, 484 N.E.2d 858, 861.", "type": "majority", "author": "JUSTICE LINN" } ], "attorneys": [ "James J. Doherty, Public Defender, of Chicago (James H. Reddy, Assistant Public Defender, of counsel), for appellants.", "Richard M. Daley, State\u2019s Attorney, of Chicago (Thomas V. Gainer, Jr., Peter D. Fischer, and Jane H. Miller, Assistant State\u2019s Attorneys, of counsel), for the People." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SAMMY GIBSON et al., Defendants-Appellants.\nFirst District (4th Division)\nNo. 82\u20141753\nOpinion filed May 21, 1987.\nJames J. Doherty, Public Defender, of Chicago (James H. Reddy, Assistant Public Defender, of counsel), for appellants.\nRichard M. Daley, State\u2019s Attorney, of Chicago (Thomas V. Gainer, Jr., Peter D. Fischer, and Jane H. Miller, Assistant State\u2019s Attorneys, of counsel), for the People." }, "file_name": "0459-01", "first_page_order": 481, "last_page_order": 486 }