People v. Blankenship , 2019 IL App (1st) 171494 ( 2020 )

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People v. Blankenship, 2019 IL App (1st) 171494Appellate Court THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.
Caption JEREMIAH BLANKENSHIP, Defendant-Appellant.
District & No. First District, Sixth Division
No. 1-17-1494
Filed November 1, 2019
Decision Under Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County, No. 16-CR-13578; the
Review Hon. James B. Linn, Judge, presiding.
Judgment Affirmed.
Counsel on James E. Chadd, Patricia Mysza, and Maria A. Harrigan, of State
Appeal Appellate Defender’s Office, of Chicago, for appellant.
Kimberly M. Foxx, State’s Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg
and Brian K. Hodes, Assistant State’s Attorneys, of counsel), for the
People.
Panel JUSTICE HARRIS delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.
Justices Cunningham and Connors concurred in the judgment and
opinion.
OPINION
¶1 Following a bench trial, defendant Jeremiah Blankenship was convicted of robbery (720
ILCS 5/18-1(a) (West 2016)) and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. On appeal, defendant
argues that his conviction should be reversed because the State failed to prove him guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt where the sole eyewitness’s identification of defendant as the
offender was not reliable. 1 For the following reasons, we affirm.
¶2 I. JURISDICTION
¶3 The trial court sentenced defendant on May 31, 2017. He filed his notice of appeal that
same day. Accordingly, this court has jurisdiction pursuant to article VI, section 6, of the
Illinois Constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, § 6) and Illinois Supreme Court Rule 603 (eff.
Oct. 1, 2010) and Rule 606 (eff. Mar. 20, 2009), governing appeals from a final judgment of
conviction in a criminal case entered below.
¶4 II. BACKGROUND
¶5 Defendant was charged with one count of armed robbery while armed with a firearm and
one count of aggravated unlawful restraint while using a deadly weapon, stemming from the
August 17, 2016, robbery of Dewantez Daniels. At trial, Daniels testified that, between
midnight and 2 a.m., he left Lauonta Dyers’s house to walk to a gas station to purchase pain
medication and a “swisher.” He was walking down the alley behind the house, looking at his
5-S iPhone, when he “bumped into” two men he did not know. Daniels identified defendant in
court as one of the men.
¶6 The alley was dark and had no artificial lighting, but Daniels could see defendant was
wearing black Adidas pants with a white stripe and holding a black 9-millimeter gun in his
right hand. The other man had a white scarf covering his face from his nose to his chin, and
defendant had a scarf around his neck, which he was trying to put over his face. Daniels was
approximately two to three feet away from the men when defendant pointed the gun at him.
Daniels put his hands up with his phone in his left hand. Wearing brand new Michael Jordan
gym shoes, he immediately kicked them off because he did not “want no problem” and thought
the men would want the shoes.
¶7 Defendant asked Daniels, “[W]hat you got?” He gave the gun to his partner and searched
Daniels while the other man continued to point the gun at Daniels. Defendant took “[n]ine
dollars and three bags of weed and an iphone” from Daniels. He asked Daniels for the passcode
to the phone and, after checking the passcode, walked away with the other man. The men did
not take Daniels’s shoes.
¶8 Daniels hid in the bushes until the men were far enough away, and then he ran into Dyers’s
house. He wanted to retaliate against the men, but Dyers talked him out of it. When Daniels
checked his “iCloud” phone locator on a computer, he determined his stolen phone was around
1
The appendix to defendant’s opening brief includes a trial court order of commitment and sentence
and a notice of appeal (see Ill. S. Ct. R. 342 (eff. July 1, 2017)) but from an unrelated case involving a
different defendant. The documents relevant to defendant are, however, included in the record on
appeal.
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the corner “on the next block.” Daniels drove his car to his phone’s location “trying to see if
[defendant] was right there for real.” He found defendant in front of an apartment building,
wearing the same black Adidas pants with white striped lining he was wearing when he robbed
Daniels 30 to 45 minutes earlier.
¶9 Dyers called the police, and Daniels made a police report. Daniels and the police officers
drove to the apartment building to identify the person who took his phone. Defendant was still
standing in front of the building where Daniels had last seen him. When the police turned on
their lights, he ran into the building. The police did not follow him because they did not know
which apartment he ran into. They told Daniels, “you’re going to have to catch him on the
outskirts.”
¶ 10 That morning, in daylight, Daniels drove back to where he had seen defendant. From
across the street in his car, he saw defendant for the third time. Defendant was sitting in the
front of the building wearing the same clothes he had worn when he robbed Daniels. He was
using Daniels’s phone. Daniels got out of his car, approached defendant, and told him “you’re
a b*** a** n***, you rob me, you’re sitting on the front and got my phone, and you’re a dumb
a** n***—you got on the same f*** clothes.” Defendant ran into the building. Assuming
defendant was going to get his gun, Daniels drove to a nearby parking lot and called the police.
¶ 11 Police responded “with the sirens and everything,” and Daniels pointed out defendant, who
was back outside the building. Defendant flagged down a car and got into the passenger seat.
The police stopped the car and “restrain[ed]” defendant. At the police station, Daniels
identified defendant in a photograph as the person who robbed him. Daniels acknowledged he
had one prior felony conviction, a Class 4 possession of a controlled substance from June 2008.
¶ 12 On cross-examination, Daniels stated that he was going to the gas station to buy swishers,
which are used to smoke marijuana. He had smoked one blunt of marijuana that day and
intended to smoke another one because he had a toothache. Daniels “bumped right into”
defendant and was two to three feet from him as he pointed the “nine millimeter, all black, big”
gun at Daniels’ face. The robbery lasted two to three minutes. Daniels gave police a description
of defendant, and described him as “wearing all black,” taller and heavier than the “five, five,”
120-pound Daniels, and having a medium complexion. Daniels described the man with
defendant as “skinnier” than both himself and defendant.
¶ 13 The police told Daniels he would have to wait for defendant to be outside to have him
arrested. The morning after the robbery, Daniels went back to the apartment building and saw
defendant again in front of the building. Daniels was across the street in his car, 10 feet away.
¶ 14 Defendant had caught his attention “the first time” because he was wearing the same
clothes as when he robbed Daniels. “If [defendant] never had the clothes on, [Daniels] would
have rode past,” as the clothes were what he initially noticed from afar. Daniels testified that,
once he walked up the street, he knew it “was him because I seen him when he never had the
ski mask on his face when he was robbing me. That’s how I identified, knew that was him.”
While driving, Daniels initially spotted defendant because of defendant’s black pants with a
white stripe. However, when Daniels got out of the car and approached, he “identified him as
his face, the same face that was the last night he robbed [Daniels].”
¶ 15 Chicago police officer Roman Zawada testified that he responded to a call of a person with
a gun before 10:50 a.m. on August 17, 2016. As he approached the area, he saw Daniels jump
over a gate, apparently tracking something or somebody. Daniels pointed out that the person
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who robbed him was the passenger in an approaching car. Zawada ordered the car to stop and
placed the passenger, whom he identified in court as defendant, into custody.
¶ 16 The court granted defendant’s motion for a directed finding in part, striking “firearm” from
both counts. As no firearm was recovered, the court concluded it could not determine whether
the firearm was operable or “real.” Defendant remained on trial for the lesser included offenses
of robbery and unlawful restraint.
¶ 17 Defendant testified that on August 17, 2016, around 3 a.m., he was spending time with
friends at the building when he got into a fight with one of them. His nose started bleeding and
he wiped it with his shirt. Defendant was wearing a black Adidas outfit with white stripes but
changed from the bloody shirt into a different one. He fell asleep in the hallway of the building
and was awakened at 5 a.m. Defendant then sat outside the building, calling and texting his
girlfriend on the cell phone he had owned for the 10 months since he left prison. He had three
prior felony convictions and was on parole.
¶ 18 While he was outside on his phone, Daniels came up to him. He was cursing, threatened
defendant, and accused him of robbery. Defendant had never encountered Daniels before.
Daniels grabbed his pants at the waist, leading defendant to believe Daniels had a gun.
Defendant ran inside the building and watched Daniels get back in his car and leave. Later, as
defendant began walking toward the train to go home, he saw his friends and got in their car.
Daniels then pointed defendant out to a police officer, who arrested him. When the police
officer frisked defendant, he did not take anything from him. The phone defendant had on his
person belonged to defendant.
¶ 19 On cross-examination, defendant stated that he was outside with his friends, in front of the
building, from midnight to 3 a.m. on the day in question. Defendant did not live in the
apartment complex.
¶ 20 The trial court found defendant guilty of robbery and unlawful restraint. It stated that the
case was a “single finger identification case” and that Daniels’s identification would need to be
“tight and good,” since he was the sole witness. The court found Daniels was, “in his own way,
his own street wise way, very alert” and an “[e]xtraordinary young man” who knew his
whereabouts and understood the dangers of the situation. Daniels called the police and did his
own investigation. In the court’s estimation, he was “very firm and tight about what
happened.” The court found that defendant was “not only less credible than Mr. Daniels but not
credible” and that Daniels “carried the day” as an “extraordinary young witness.” The court
found defendant guilty of the lesser included offenses of robbery and unlawful restraint, which
it merged. It denied defendant’s motion for a new trial and sentenced defendant to four years’
imprisonment. The court denied defendant’s motion to reconsider sentence.
¶ 21 III. ANALYSIS
¶ 22 Defendant argues on appeal that this court should reverse his conviction because the State
failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he robbed Daniels, where Daniels was only able
to give a general description of the man who robbed him and only recognized defendant due to
the unremarkable clothing he was wearing at the time.
¶ 23 The standard of review in challenging the sufficiency of the evidence is “whether, viewing
the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, ‘any rational trier of fact could have found
the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’ ” (Internal quotation marks
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omitted.) People v. Belknap, 2014 IL 117094, ¶ 67 (quoting People v. Collins, 106 Ill. 2d 237,
261 (1985)). The trier of fact, here the trial judge, has the responsibility to resolve conflicts in
the testimony, weigh the evidence, and draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate
facts. People v. Brown, 2013 IL 114196, ¶ 48. Accordingly, this court will not retry the
evidence or substitute its judgment for that of the trier of fact on issues involving the weight of
the evidence or credibility of witnesses. Id. A reviewing court will not reverse a criminal
conviction unless the evidence is “unreasonable, improbable, or so unsatisfactory as to justify a
reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) People v.
Jackson, 232 Ill. 2d 246, 281 (2009).
¶ 24 We find the evidence sufficient to support defendant’s conviction. To prove defendant
guilty of robbery as charged, the State had to prove that defendant knowingly took property
from Daniels by the use of force or by threatening the imminent use of force. 720 ILCS
5/18-1(a) (West 2016). Daniels consistently identified defendant as one of the two men who
took personal property from him at gunpoint. The testimony of a single witness is sufficient to
convict if the testimony is positive and credible, even where it is contradicted by the defendant.
People v. Gray, 2017 IL 120958, ¶ 36. Here, the trial court found Daniels’s testimony that
defendant robbed him credible and found defendant’s version of events not credible. We defer
to those credibility determinations. Brown, 2013 IL 114196, ¶ 48. Accordingly, Daniels’s
testimony, standing alone, is sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find the elements of robbery
beyond a reasonable doubt.
¶ 25 Nevertheless, defendant argues this is a case of mistaken identity, where the robbery took
place in a dark alley and Daniels gave only a general description of the robber, did not know
the robber, had never seen defendant before, and identified defendant as the robber only
because defendant was wearing unremarkable clothing and holding a cell phone, which
Daniels never identified as his property.
¶ 26 Where a finding of guilty depends on eyewitness testimony, the reviewing court must
decide whether a fact finder could reasonably accept the testimony as true beyond a reasonable
doubt. Gray, 2017 IL 120958, ¶ 36. Testimony may be found insufficient only “where the
record evidence compels the conclusion that no reasonable person could accept it beyond a
reasonable doubt.” People v. Cunningham, 212 Ill. 2d 274, 280 (2004).
¶ 27 In assessing identification testimony, we consider the following five factors set forth in
Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188 (1972): (i) the witness’s opportunity to view the defendant
during the offense, (ii) the witness’s degree of attention at the time of the offense, (iii) the
accuracy of the witness’s prior description of the defendant, (iv) the witness’s level of certainty
at the subsequent identification, and (v) the length of time between the crime and the
identification. People v. Slim, 127 Ill. 2d 302, 308 (1989). “None of these factors, standing
alone, conclusively establishes the reliability of identification testimony; rather, the trier of
fact is to take all of the factors into consideration.” People v. Joiner, 2018 IL App (1st) 150343,
¶ 47 (citing Biggers, 408 U.S. at 199-200). For the following reasons, we find the Biggers
factors support the reliability of Daniels’s identification of defendant as one of the men who
robbed him.
¶ 28 With respect to the first Biggers factor, Daniels had ample opportunity to view defendant
during the robbery. Daniels testified that the robbery took approximately two to three minutes,
and defendant’s face was uncovered throughout the entire encounter. Further, although the
alley where the robbery took place was dark with no artificial light source, Daniels testified
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that he was only two to three feet away from defendant and had, in fact, bumped into him.
Daniels saw defendant long enough to be able to note details concerning not only defendant’s
physical characteristics, but also the clothing he was wearing at the time, the gun he was
holding, and the scarf he was attempting to raise over his face. Daniels also testified regarding
the white scarf worn as a mask by the second robber, as well as that man’s build. A positive
identification need not be based upon perfect conditions for observation, nor does the
observation have to be of a prolonged nature. People v. Williams, 143 Ill. App. 3d 658, 662
(1986). Given Daniels’s detailed testimony regarding the nature of the robbery and its
perpetrators, Daniels had ample opportunity to view defendant during the robbery.
¶ 29 Regarding the second Biggers factor, we find defendant’s degree of attention during the
robbery favors the State. We find no indication that, as defendant argues, Daniels’s degree of
attention was compromised by his focus on the gun. Despite the presence of the weapon,
Daniels was able to give a detailed account of the events of the robbery and the physical
descriptions of both defendant and gun. See In re J.J., 2016 IL App (1st) 160379, ¶ 30 (a
witness’s detailed and descriptive testimony indicated that she was attentive during the
encounter, despite having a gun pointed at her).
¶ 30 Defendant contends Daniels’s degree of attention was negatively affected by his admitted
use of marijuana prior to the incident and that his “addiction,” as demonstrated by his
possession of and intent to smoke more marijuana, affected his capacity to observe, retain
accurate impressions, and be truthful. There was no evidence that defendant was “addicted” to
marijuana as defendant claims. Further, having heard Daniels testify regarding his use of
marijuana, the trial court still found him to be an “extraordinary young witness,” whose “very
firm and tight” credible testimony proved defendant committed robbery as charged. We defer
to that credibility determination. Brown, 2013 IL 114196, ¶ 48. Accordingly, the record does
not compel a conclusion that Daniels’s degree of attention was insufficient to make a positive
identification of defendant.
¶ 31 With regard to the third Biggers factor, defendant contends that Daniels gave police only a
“general description,” with no mention of facial features, and was only able to identify
defendant because of his clothing. Daniels, however, described to officers not only defendant’s
clothing, but also his height, build, and complexion. Also, although Daniels initially noticed
defendant’s clothes as he drove down the street, upon approaching defendant, Daniels saw his
face and recognized him as the robber. Daniels testified he had “seen [defendant] when he
never had the ski mask on his face when he was robbing me. That’s how I identified, knew that
was him,” because it was “the same face that was the last night he robbed me.” Accordingly,
even though Daniels gave police only a general description of the robber, his identification of
defendant as the robber based on his recognition of defendant’s face supports the accuracy of
his identification. See People v. Tomei, 2013 IL App (1st) 112632, ¶¶ 51-52 (holding that a
witness’s positive identification, including recognition of defendant’s face, may be sufficient,
even if he gave only a general description based on his total impression of defendant’s
appearance).
¶ 32 As defendant concedes, the fourth Biggers factor, Daniels’s certainty as to his
identification of defendant, weighs in favor of that identification. Defendant, however,
contends this factor should be given little weight because social science research suggests a
weak correlation between confidence and accuracy of an identification. Defendant did not
present expert testimony at trial to support its argument that the correlation is weak in this case.
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This court has found defendant’s argument unpersuasive where no such evidence was
presented to support a finding that the witness’s certainty should be given little weight. See id.
¶ 56 (“Since defendant did not present expert testimony, we do not find defendant’s argument
persuasive that the fourth factor, the witness’s level of certainty, should be given little
weight.”). Also, defendant raises this point for the first time on appeal. “ ‘[I]f the defendant in
the case at bar had introduced into evidence the testimony of an expert in eyewitness
identification research, the trial court may have [then] chosen, based on the evidence presented
in the case, to omit one of the listed factors.’ ” Id. ¶ 55 (quoting People v. Rodriguez, 387 Ill.
App. 3d 812, 824 (2008)).
¶ 33 Lastly, defendant is correct that the fifth Biggers factor, the length of time between the
crime and the identification, weighs in favor of Daniels’s identification. Daniels was robbed
after midnight on August 17, 2016, and identified defendant to police for the first time
approximately 45 minutes later. He again identified defendant to police some hours later, at
which point police arrested defendant. Daniels’s identification of defendant took place mere
hours after defendant robbed him in the alley. Significantly longer lengths of time have not
rendered identifications unreliable. See, e.g., People v. Malone, 2012 IL App (1st) 110517,
¶ 36 (one year and four month delay between crime and positive identification). Accordingly,
the fifth Biggers factor weighs in favor of Daniels’s identification.
¶ 34 Taken together, the five Biggers factors support the reliability of Daniels’s identification of
defendant as the unmasked man who took his personal property at gunpoint. Accordingly,
viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, we conclude a rational trier of fact
could have found defendant guilty of robbery beyond a reasonable doubt.
¶ 35 IV. CONCLUSION
¶ 36 For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.
¶ 37 Affirmed.
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