People v. Brown

Digitally signed

by Reporter of

Decisions

Reason: I attest to

Illinois Official Reports the accuracy and

integrity of this

document

Date: 2021.09.29

Appellate Court 10:22:02 -05'00'

People v. Brown, 2020 IL App (1st) 190828

Appellate Court THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.

Caption ANDRE BROWN, Defendant-Appellant.

District & No. First District, First Division

No. 1-19-0828

Filed August 11, 2020

Rehearing denied September 3, 2020

Modified opinion filed September 14, 2020

Decision Under Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County, No. 1996-CR-26470;

Review the Hon. Timothy Joyce, Judge, presiding.

Judgment Affirmed.

Counsel on Karl Leonard, David B. Owens, and Debra Loevy, of The Exoneration

Appeal Project at University of Chicago Law School, of Chicago, for

appellant.

Kimberly M. Foxx, State’s Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg,

Janet C. Mahoney, and David H. Iskowich, Assistant State’s

Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

Panel JUSTICE COGHLAN delivered the judgment of the court, with

opinion.

Presiding Justice Fitzgerald Smith and Justice Lavin concurred in the

judgment and opinion.

OPINION

¶1 Defendant, Andre Brown, was convicted of murder in connection with the 1996 shooting

death of Enrique Fuentes (Enrique). No physical evidence connected him to the crime, but he

was identified at a showup by five eyewitnesses. The State’s theory of the case was that Brown,

a member of the Blackstone street gang, mistakenly believed Enrique to be a member of a rival

gang.

¶2 In 2016, Brown filed a postconviction petition asserting his actual innocence and alleging

that his due process rights were violated. Following a third-stage evidentiary hearing, the trial

court denied his petition, and Brown now appeals. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the

judgment of the trial court.

¶3 BACKGROUND

¶4 Trial Evidence and Proceedings

¶5 At around 7 p.m. on September 30, 1996, Enrique and his brother, Leodegareo Fuentes

Roman (Leodegareo), were sitting outside a store on the corner of 48th Street and Laflin Street

in Chicago. A man approached on a bicycle, shot Enrique multiple times, and then fled

eastbound. Based on a contemporaneous witness report, the police issued a radio dispatch to

look for a black male riding a mountain bike and wearing a black jacket, black cap, and dark

pants.

¶6 Less than five minutes later, Officer Mike Ward encountered Brown riding his mountain

bike three blocks south of the shooting on Laflin Street. Brown was wearing a black-and-white

Oakland Raiders jacket over a dark shirt with white stripes, a black knit cap with a white Nike

swoosh on the front, and black pants. Ward observed that Brown was riding slowly and did

not appear to be in a hurry, but he was sweating profusely and breathing heavily, and when

Ward did a protective pat down of Brown, his heart was beating rapidly. Ward did not find a

gun on Brown’s person. Officers later conducted a thorough search of the area, including the

path they thought Brown might have traveled, and could not find the murder weapon.

¶7 Ward brought Brown to the scene of the shooting in a squad car, with the tire of Brown’s

bicycle visibly sticking out of the trunk. Brown was wearing the black cap and black jacket

when he was placed in the squad car. At the scene, officers were stationed with the witnesses,

keeping them apart and making sure they did not speak with each other. Ward conducted a

showup of Brown to five witnesses: Leodegareo, Timothy Hopper, Karla Navarette, Don

O’Reilly, and Juan Campos. All five witnesses identified Brown at the scene and, later, at trial.

¶8 Leodegareo testified that neither he nor his brother were gang members. At 7 p.m. on the

day of the shooting, they were sitting outside the store at 48th Street and Laflin Street when a

man on a bicycle approached them. A Hispanic man was talking with Enrique but ran away as

the cyclist drew near. The cyclist stopped around 10 feet away from the Fuentes brothers, lifted

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his shirt, and pulled a gun from his waistband. Enrique lifted his hands and said, “No, bro,”

and then the cyclist shot him “seven [or] eight times.”

¶9 Police and paramedics arrived on the scene. Enrique was taken away by ambulance and

later died of his injuries. Approximately 10 to 15 minutes after the shooting, an officer brought

Leodegareo to a squad car in which Brown was sitting. Based on Brown’s face and his clothes,

Leodegareo identified him as the shooter.

¶ 10 Hopper testified that he lived in an apartment with a clear view of 48th Street. At 6:30 p.m.

on the day of the shooting, from his second-story window, he noticed a man on a mountain

bike cycling back and forth in front of his house for around 15 minutes. Hopper did not pay

much attention at first, since cyclists were common in the neighborhood, but started watching

him closely because he did not leave. When Hopper first saw the cyclist, it was still daylight,

although the sun was starting to set; nothing obstructed his view, and he could see the man

clearly. He observed the cyclist was a black man wearing a black knit hat, a black jacket with

“maybe a couple of white stripes,” and dark pants.

¶ 11 Hopper saw the cyclist ride a block away, towards 48th Street and Laflin Street, and lift up

his jacket, revealing a gun. Hopper called 911, described the cyclist, and then ran outside so

he could report to police where the cyclist went. He heard two gunshots and then “clearly” saw

the cyclist standing at the corner of 48th Street and Laflin Street, firing several more shots.

Afterwards, the cyclist headed eastbound on 48th Street.

¶ 12 Shortly afterward, an officer asked Hopper whether Brown, who was sitting in a squad car,

“was the person that did the shooting.” Hopper did not initially identify Brown because “by

then it was dark” and he could not see him clearly. The officers later took Brown out of the

squad car. Once Hopper “could see his face,” he identified Brown as the shooter. At the time

he made his identification, he was not told that others had also identified Brown.

¶ 13 Navarette was 16 when the shooting occurred. At around 7 p.m., she was walking home

past the corner store at 48th Street and Laflin Street. She saw a man on a mountain bike wearing

a skull hat and black jacket and riding in circles on 48th Street. She kept her eyes on him the

entire time because he “seem[ed] suspicious.” After she passed Laflin Street, she heard

gunshots and ran to her house. She did not actually see anyone firing a gun. After the shots

stopped, her parents brought her back to 48th Street and Laflin Street, where police asked her

to see if the guy sitting in the police car was the same guy she had seen on the bike. She

recognized him although she testified he was not wearing the same clothes: instead of the jacket

he was wearing earlier, he had on a sweater, and he was holding his hat in his hands.

¶ 14 O’Reilly testified that, in 1996, he was a La Raza gang member, and the La Razas were at

war with the Blackstones. At around 7 p.m., O’Reilly was at 47th Street and Laflin Street,

talking with friends, when he heard gunshots. He ran toward 48th Street and saw a man on a

mountain bike around 50 feet away. The lighting was “pretty good.” The cyclist fired a shot at

O’Reilly, who ducked to the ground. When he got up, he saw the cyclist leaving, going east.

Later that evening, police asked O’Reilly to look at Brown, who was sitting in the back of a

squad car. They shone a flashlight into the car and asked if he could identify Brown as the

shooter. O’Reilly said, “That’s him.” Brown was wearing a striped T-shirt when O’Reilly

identified him sitting in the police car, but he was wearing a black cap and jacket at the time

of the shooting.

¶ 15 Campos testified that in 1996, he was 16 years old and a La Raza gang member. At the

time of trial, he had a felony conviction for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and was in

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custody for marijuana possession, but he had made no deals with the prosecution. At 6:30 p.m.

on the day of the shooting, Campos was using the phone at the corner store at 48th Street and

Laflin Street. A man on a mountain bike pulled up to around five feet away from him and

“threw up the pitchfork,” a gesture indicating his affiliation with the Folks Nation (Folks).

(La Raza is part of the Folks; Blackstone is not.) Campos did not believe the cyclist was a

Folks affiliate and told him so.

¶ 16 The cyclist lifted up his shirt, revealing a pistol in his waistband. Campos ducked for cover

and then ran. He heard “more than five” gunshots. Minutes later, he returned to the scene and

identified Brown “as the guy that was shooting at [him].” Brown was standing outside of the

car, and Campos could see him clearly; he recognized Brown as the shooter based on his

clothes (which he testified were the same as when he saw him earlier) and his face.

¶ 17 At around the same time as Ward stopped Brown, police stopped two other suspects in the

area. Detective John Halloran stopped a black man riding a moped at 54th Street and Bishop

Street but released him upon learning that the offender was not riding a motorized vehicle.

Halloran testified that other officers stopped a man on a bicycle at 52nd Street and Ashland

Avenue, but that man was also released.

¶ 18 After being identified by five eyewitnesses at the scene, Brown was taken to Area 1 for

processing. Halloran did not conduct a lineup because the results would have been tainted by

the witnesses’ prior identifications. Brown’s hands were not tested for gunshot residue because

he had already been identified by five witnesses and because his profuse sweating and the fact

that he had used his hands to remove his coat and hat in the police car might have altered the

test results.

¶ 19 Scott Rochowicz, an employee at the state police crime lab, testified for the defense that

he performs gunshot residue tests. In such tests, a suspect’s hands are swabbed and the swabs

are analyzed for the presence of antimony, barium, and lead. A positive result indicates that

the suspect either fired a gun, was nearby when a shot was fired, or handled a recently fired

gun. Rochowicz acknowledged that sweat could prevent gunshot residue from sticking to one’s

hands, as could gripping the handlebars of a bike or rubbing hands against clothes or other

items.

¶ 20 Brown testified in his own defense that he did not shoot anyone. He stated that he left the

house of his girlfriend Brenda Green 1 and was heading to the store at 51st Street and Laflin

Street to get something to eat when police stopped him. Later that night, when he was taken to

the police station, he requested that the police put him in a lineup, but his request was ignored.

(Officer Kenneth Boudreau, Halloran’s partner, denied hearing Brown make such a request.)

At the time he was stopped by the police, he was riding a dark-colored mountain bike and was

wearing a black hat, a black jacket, and a striped T-shirt. On cross-examination, Brown

admitted being a member of the Blackstone gang, but he denied that the Blackstones were at

war with the La Razas.

¶ 21 Finally, the defense proffered Dr. Jonathan Schooler, an expert on witness identifications

and memory. In an offer of proof, Dr. Schooler stated that multiple factors present in this case

could reduce the accuracy of eyewitness identifications, including “disguises” such as “the

simple wearing of a hat,” weapon focus (“in the presence of a weapon, witnesses’ attention is

devoted more to the weapon”), and lighting. Cross-racial identifications are also less accurate.

1

Green is also sometimes referred to as Brenda Harris and Brenda Herron-Green.

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Suggestive factors—such as, in this case, the fact that Brown’s bicycle was visible to the

witnesses—can increase the chance of a false identification. Finally, Dr. Schooler stated that

witness confidence and accuracy are only weakly correlated and “individuals can be very

confident in their identifications and nevertheless be inaccurate.”

¶ 22 Following the offer of proof, the trial court barred Dr. Schooler’s testimony, stating that it

would not be any more helpful to the jury “than all the factors the jury will already have in

their common experiences in life,” plus the judge’s admonishments and instructions of law on

the circumstances of identification and the arguments of counsel “with respect to the particular

facts as it applies to each respective witness’s identification of Mr. Brown.”

¶ 23 The jury found Brown guilty of the first degree murder of Enrique, and Brown was

sentenced to 45 years’ imprisonment. On direct appeal, Brown argued, in relevant part, that

(1) the evidence was insufficient to convict him because the showup procedure was improperly

suggestive and (2) the trial court abused its discretion by excluding Dr. Schooler’s testimony.

We rejected these arguments and affirmed. People v. Brown, No. 1-99-2759 (2001)

(unpublished order under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23).

¶ 24 Postconviction Proceedings

¶ 25 In 2012, Brown filed the instant postconviction petition. As amended in 2016, the petition

alleged Brown’s actual innocence based on (1) a new eyewitness account from Claudio

Martinez, (2) Campos’s recantation, (3) alibi testimony from Green and Thalmus Elzy, and

(4) expert opinions on gunshot residue and eyewitness identification. Alternately, Brown

argued that the trial court violated his due process rights by excluding Dr. Schooler’s

testimony, citing our supreme court’s 2016 decision in People v. Lerma, 2016 IL 118496 (trial

court abused its discretion in denying defendant’s request to allow expert testimony on the

reliability of eyewitness identifications). The circuit court advanced his petition to the third

stage and held an evidentiary hearing.

¶ 26 Martinez died a week prior to the hearing, so his testimony was admitted via a pro se

affidavit that he signed in 2009. Martinez averred that on the day of the shooting, he was

standing across from the 48th Street and Laflin Street corner store when a black man rode past

him on a mountain bike, pulled up to the curb, and exchanged words with Campos while

Campos was on the phone. Campos began to run, whereupon the cyclist pulled a gun from his

waistband and fired at two Hispanic men sitting on the stoop of the corner store. The cyclist

then turned toward Martinez and started firing at him. Martinez fled.

¶ 27 Martinez later returned to the scene of the shooting and saw a black man sitting in the back

seat of a police car. He observed that the black man was not the person who shot at him earlier.

But when he learned that Campos had identified the man as the shooter, he kept quiet, since he

and Campos were both La Raza members. After many years of reflecting on his conduct,

Martinez “realized that he should come forward” with this information.

¶ 28 In a 2009 affidavit, Campos averred that he falsely identified Brown at trial in exchange

for having pending criminal charges against him dismissed, “even though he falsely testified

at trial that there was no agreement.” He claimed that he was “coached and told what to say by

the State[’]s Attorney and the detectives.”

¶ 29 At the 2018 evidentiary hearing, Campos did not remember his trial testimony or recognize

his affidavit. He testified that around 6:30 p.m. on September 30, 1996, he exited the corner

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store at 48th Street and Laflin Street when a man on a bicycle shot at him. He said, “Everything

happened so fast, I didn’t have a chance to see his face. *** I just ran for my life, that was it.”

Afterwards, he returned to the scene of the shooting but did not speak to any police. He

admitted testifying at Brown’s trial but claimed not to recall what he said. He denied that

anyone promised to dismiss the pending charges against him in exchange for his testimony.

¶ 30 At the hearing, the State examined Brown regarding Martinez’s and Campos’s affidavits.

Brown admitted that Martinez, who was also in custody at the time, sent him ten letters,

including one in which Martinez stated: “As far as J, one of my guys is going to help me

prepare his affi. And I send you the copy. You can see it and you can see if any changes need

to be made and correct it and send it back to me.”

¶ 31 Brown also admitted receiving unsigned letters in the same handwriting as Martinez’s

letters. One stated:

“He was 16 years old at the time and he was scared and didn’t have his parents with

him when the cops scared him and made him say that it was you who did it. Because

the cops told him that if he didn’t point anybody out, that they would put the case on

him. So he lied on you and did what he had to in fear for his freedom. You know,

something like that sounds better to where we put this s*** on some corrupt cops that

made Juan point you out.”

Another stated: “If you can have your people help my guy out and have your people sign that

paper saying what they thought they saw wasn’t so, then we can make Juan do the same.” A

third such letter, which bore the same date as Martinez’s affidavit, stated:

“Here is that affidavit that you needed from me. *** I sent Juan’s affidavit out to him

last night with instructions as to what he has to do so you should be getting Juan’s

affidavit soon after. *** If there’s anything that you need me to change on my affidavit,

just let me know. *** [I]t’s pretty much accurate just how I remember it went down

and Juan’s affidavit is very accurate as well.”

¶ 32 Brown also testified that in 1996, he lived at 49th Street and Laflin Street with Green (his

girlfriend then, his wife now). On the day of the shooting, he was at home all day before leaving

at around 7 p.m. He and Green left at the same time; she was going to a riverboat casino with

her grandmother, while he planned to hang out at the store at 51st Street and Laflin Street.

They walked down the stairs together and went their separate ways. A minute or two later,

Brown was stopped by detectives before reaching the store.

¶ 33 Green corroborated Brown’s version of events, testifying that she was at home with Brown

until shortly after 7 p.m. They walked down the stairs together, he wished her luck at the casino,

and then she got in her car while he got on his bike and headed toward 51st Street. Green also

testified that she attended Brown’s trial with the intention of testifying on his behalf, but the

public defender did not call her to the stand because she had been sitting in the courtroom,

presumably in violation of an exclusion of witnesses order.

¶ 34 Elzy testified that he and Brown grew up together. He lived at 51st Street and Laflin Street,

two blocks south of Brown’s house, and in 1996 he spent time with Brown “[a]lmost every

day.” On the day of the shooting, Brown called Elzy and suggested they meet at the corner

store at 51st Street and Laflin Street. Elzy left his porch and stood in the middle of the street.

He saw Brown “come off the sidewalk where [he] project[ed] his house to be and he came in

the street with the bike and he proceeded to come toward me.” He did not observe Brown drop

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or throw anything on the ground. As Brown was biking, he was stopped by detectives who

searched him, put his bicycle in the trunk of their car, and drove away with him. Elzy visited

Brown at the Cook County jail and told him that he saw him get “snatched up” by the police.

But Elzy never talked to any officers or lawyers prior to Brown’s 1999 trial. The first time he

gave an affidavit or spoke to anyone about this case was in 2016.

¶ 35 Mary Wong, an expert in trace chemistry, testified that in September 2014, she performed

gunshot residue testing on the cuffs of Brown’s jacket and the foldover areas of his hat and did

not find any particles indicating the presence of gunshot residue. She acknowledged such

particles could have been removed by sweat or by being removed from a bag or otherwise

handled. She concluded that “the sample areas *** may not have been in the vicinity of a

discharged firearm [or] if they were, then the particles could have been removed by activity or

not detected by the procedure.”

¶ 36 Dr. Brian Cutler, an expert on witness identifications, testified that memory is divided into

three stages: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Accurate encoding can be diminished by several

factors: (1) the witness is identifying a stranger, (2) the witness is making a cross-racial

identification, (3) the witness’s “exposure time” to the subject is low, (4) the witness is under

stress, (5) the witness is visually or mentally distracted, (6) the subject is wearing a head

covering, since a person’s hair and hairline are important cues for identification, and (7) the

subject is armed (“weapon focus”). Although these factors were arguably present in some or

all of the witness identifications in this case, Dr. Cutler was unable to make any assumptions

about the accuracy of their identifications.

¶ 37 As for memory retrieval, Dr. Cutler stated that identification procedure “matters a great

deal.” Showups have both pros and cons: they minimize the time between the crime and the

identification, which increases witness accuracy, but they are also inherently suggestive, which

decreases accuracy. Suggestiveness is a more potent factor when witness encoding is weak.

Additionally, when suggestive procedures are used, there is not a strong correlation between

witness confidence and accuracy.

¶ 38 Following closing arguments, the trial court denied Brown’s postconviction petition.

Regarding Brown’s actual innocence claim, the court found that Martinez’s affidavit was not

credible because the evidence indicated that it was “put forth by persons in some kind of

seeming deal where, well, if you say this in this case, I’ll say this in some other case.” The

court also found Campos’s recantation “is in a stark contradistinction to his testimony at trial

in which he identified Mr. Brown, [and] it’s in stark contradistinction to the additional evidence

at trial which showed that he identified Mr. Brown on the day of the murder at the time the

murder took place.”

¶ 39 The court also considered the fact that “four other persons *** right after the time of this

murder identified Mr. Brown *** in properly conducted and *** independent showups not

conducted within one another’s presence.” Thus, the court concluded that Brown’s newly

discovered evidence was not so substantial that it would likely change the result on retrial.

¶ 40 The court additionally rejected Brown’s due process claim, stating that Lerma, 2016 IL

118496, did not establish a bright-line rule requiring admission of expert testimony regarding

eyewitness identifications but left its admission to the discretion of the trial court.

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¶ 41 ANALYSIS

¶ 42 The Post-Conviction Hearing Act (725 ILCS 5/122-1 et seq. (West 2010)) enables criminal

defendants to challenge their convictions on constitutional or actual innocence grounds. People

v. Domagala, 2013 IL 113688, ¶ 32; People v. Coleman, 2013 IL 113307, ¶ 94. A

postconviction action is a collateral proceeding allowing inquiry into issues that were not, and

could not have been, adjudicated on direct appeal. People v. Coleman, 206 Ill. 2d 261, 277

(2002). Accordingly, res judicata bars consideration of issues decided on direct appeal, and

waiver bars consideration of issues that could have been presented on direct appeal but were

not. Id.

¶ 43 Brown’s petition was denied at the third stage of postconviction proceedings, where “the

burden of proof is upon the petitioner to show a denial of [a] constitutional right by a

preponderance of the evidence.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Coleman, 2013 IL

113307, ¶ 92. At a third-stage evidentiary hearing, the circuit court serves as the finder of fact;

thus, it is the court’s function to determine witness credibility, decide the weight to give to

evidence, and resolve evidentiary conflicts. Domagala, 2013 IL 113688, ¶ 34.

¶ 44 Here, Brown argues that the trial court erred in rejecting both his due process claim and his

actual innocence claim. We consider these contentions in turn.

¶ 45 Due Process

¶ 46 Brown first argues that, based on our supreme court’s 2016 decision in Lerma, 2016 IL

118496, his due process rights were violated when the trial court barred Dr. Schooler from

testifying as an expert on eyewitness identifications.

¶ 47 In Lerma, the evidence of defendant’s guilt consisted solely of two eyewitness

identifications, “only one [of which] was subject to adversarial testing and cross-examination

at trial.” Id. ¶ 26. The victim, Gill, and his friend, Clark, were sitting on Gill’s porch when a

gunman approached and opened fire, hitting Gill several times. Gill told Clark that the shooter

was the defendant, whom Gill had been friends with for years. Although Gill died before trial,

his statement was admitted into evidence as an excited utterance. As for Clark, she went to the

police station the next day and identified defendant as the shooter from an array of six photos.

She later also identified defendant in a one-man showup. Regarding her familiarity with the

defendant, Clark testified that she had seen him across the street around 10 times, but she

admitted that she “ ‘did not know him.’ ” Id. ¶ 6.

¶ 48 Under these facts, our supreme court held that the trial court abused its discretion in

denying defendant’s motion to call an expert to testify on the reliability of eyewitness

identifications. Id. ¶ 32. The court began its analysis by noting that “[a] criminal defendant’s

right to due process and a fundamentally fair trial includes the right to present witnesses on his

or her own behalf.” Id. ¶ 23. The court further observed that the past 25 years “have seen a

dramatic shift in the legal landscape, as expert testimony concerning the reliability of

eyewitness testimony has moved from novel and uncertain to settled and widely accepted.” Id.

¶ 24. There is now “a clear trend” toward admission of such testimony at the trial court’s

discretion for two reasons: first, advances in DNA testing have confirmed that eyewitness

misidentifications are “ ‘responsible for more wrongful convictions than all other causes

combined’ ” and, second, the expert testimony at issue is both unfamiliar and counterintuitive

to the average person. Id. (quoting State v. Dubose, 2005 WI 126, ¶ 30, 699 N.W.2d 582

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(collecting relevant studies)). Lerma therefore concluded that research concerning eyewitness

identifications “is well settled, well supported, and in appropriate cases a perfectly proper

subject for expert testimony.” Id.

¶ 49 In Lerma, the court discussed four factors that courts should consider in assessing the

relevance and appropriateness of expert testimony on eyewitness identifications: (1) the

importance of the eyewitness identifications to the State’s case, (2) the presence or absence of

the factors identified by the expert as undermining the credibility of witness identifications,

(3) whether the witness was subject to adversarial testing and cross-examination at trial, and

(4) the witnesses’ prior familiarity with the defendant. Id. ¶ 26.

¶ 50 As in Lerma, the State’s eyewitness identifications were the sole evidence of Brown’s guilt

in this case. All of the identifications were cross-racial, all were identifications by strangers,

and the shooter was wearing a hat, which diminishes the accuracy of facial encoding. Three of

the State’s witnesses—Leodegareo, O’Reilly, and Campos—had only a brief opportunity to

view the shooter before he began firing at them, and their encoding may have been impaired

by both stress and weapon focus. In addition, all of the identifications were made outside after

nightfall at a single-person showup, an inherently suggestive procedure.

¶ 51 Nevertheless, Brown cannot avail himself of the Lerma decision on collateral review. As

discussed, in postconviction proceedings, res judicata bars consideration of issues decided on

direct appeal. Coleman, 206 Ill. 2d at 277. Here, Brown argued unsuccessfully on direct appeal

that the trial court erred in barring Dr. Schooler’s testimony. Brown, No. 1-99-2759. The court

specifically held as follows:

“The trial judge considered the proffered testimony of Dr. Schooler, balanced the

testimony against cases in which the court has upheld the exclusion of such evidence,

and found that the testimony would be no more helpful than the factors that the jury

would already have in the jury instructions on the reliability of eyewitness

identification, and in their common life experience and knowledge. [Citations.]

Additionally, defense counsel had ample opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses

regarding their identifications.” Id.

¶ 52 Brown argues that res judicata does not preclude reexamination of the issue since Lerma

changed the relevant law. See, e.g., People v. Partee, 268 Ill. App. 3d 857, 863-64 (1994). But

it was well established prior to Lerma that the trial court, in the exercise of its broad discretion,

must “carefully scrutinize” the relevance and probative value of the defense’s proffered

eyewitness identification expert testimony. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) People v. Allen,

376 Ill. App. 3d 511, 526 (2007) (trial court committed reversible error by failing to conduct

meaningful inquiry into the relevance and probative value of eyewitness identification expert’s

testimony); see also People v. Starks, 2014 IL App (1st) 121169, ¶ 72 (on remand, directing

trial court to give “serious consideration” to defendant’s request to present expert testimony

on eyewitness identification). Lerma did not change this standard; on the contrary, it reaffirmed

the longstanding rule that admission of expert testimony is within the trial court’s discretion

and shall not be overturned on review absent an abuse of that discretion. Lerma, 2016 IL

118496, ¶¶ 23, 32.

¶ 53 Moreover, even assuming arguendo that Lerma represents a significant enough change in

the law to overcome res judicata, its application would in that case be barred by Teague v.

Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 301 (1989), which limits application of “new rules” in postconviction

proceedings. See People v. Sanders, 238 Ill. 2d 391, 400-01 (2010) (discussing Teague). A

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“new rule” may only be applied retroactively if (1) it is a substantive rule, e.g., one which

narrows the scope of a criminal statute or places certain conduct or individuals beyond the

State’s power to punish, or (2) it is a “watershed” procedural rule, meaning that the rule “is

implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, without which the likelihood of an accurate

conviction is seriously diminished.” People v. Davis, 2014 IL 115595, ¶ 36. Here, Lerma is

clearly not a substantive rule, and Brown does not argue that it is a watershed procedural rule.

See People v. Morris, 236 Ill. 2d 345, 361 (2010) (observing that “since Teague, the United

States Supreme Court has rejected every claim brought before it alleging that a new rule

satisfies the requirements for watershed status”). Accordingly, the trial court did not err in

denying his due process claim.

¶ 54 Actual Innocence

¶ 55 Next, Brown contends that the trial court erred in denying his claim of actual innocence.

To prevail on such a claim, “the defendant must present new, material, noncumulative evidence

that is so conclusive it would probably change the result on retrial.” Coleman, 2013 IL 113307,

¶ 96 (citing People v. Washington, 171 Ill. 2d 475, 489 (1996)). As our supreme court

explained in Coleman:

“New means the evidence was discovered after trial and could not have been discovered

earlier through the exercise of due diligence. [Citation.] Material means the evidence

is relevant and probative of the petitioner’s innocence. [Citation.] Noncumulative

means the evidence adds to what the jury heard. [Citation.] And conclusive means the

evidence, when considered along with the trial evidence, would probably lead to a

different result.” Id.

See also People v. Robinson, 2020 IL 123849, ¶¶ 55-56 (evidence is material to an actual

innocence claim if it tends to significantly advance that claim and “need not be entirely

dispositive to be likely to alter the result on retrial”).

¶ 56 Insofar as the trial court bases its decision on credibility determinations or findings of fact,

we review its decision for manifest error, which occurs only where the opposite conclusion is

plainly evident. Coleman, 2013 IL 113307, ¶ 98. But when the trial court rules on a question

of law, our review is de novo. Sanders, 238 Ill. 2d at 398.

¶ 57 We first consider Brown’s alibi witnesses, Green and Elzy. The State argues that neither

of these witnesses is “new” because Brown was aware of his own whereabouts and could

therefore have produced Green and Elzy at trial with due diligence. See People v. Harris, 206

Ill. 2d 293, 301 (2002) (affidavits of alibi witnesses were not “newly discovered” because

defendant “was armed with this information at the time of trial”).

¶ 58 With regard to Elzy, we agree. According to Elzy’s testimony, Brown called him and

suggested they meet at the 51st Street and Laflin Street store. Elzy saw Brown biking toward

the store and believed Brown saw him as well. Moreover, after Brown’s arrest, Elzy visited

him in jail and said that he saw him “get snatched up” by the police. In light of these facts, it

is clear that Brown was aware of Elzy’s potential testimony prior to trial.

¶ 59 Similarly, if Brown was at home with Green when the shooting occurred and then left the

house together with her, he obviously would have been aware of those facts before trial. Brown

nevertheless argues that Green is a “new” witness because she was unavailable at trial. It is

undisputed that Green was willing to testify on Brown’s behalf, and in fact came to court for

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that purpose, but was told by the public defender “that [she] wasn’t able to [testify] because

[she] was in the courtroom.”

¶ 60 The State argues that a witness’s unavailability at trial does not render her testimony “new”

for purposes of an actual innocence claim. See, e.g., People v. Jarrett, 399 Ill. App. 3d 715,

723 (2010) (“evidence is not ‘newly discovered’ when it presents facts already known to a

defendant at or prior to trial, even if the source of these facts may have been unknown,

unavailable, or uncooperative”). But this proposition has been significantly called into doubt

by our supreme court’s decision in People v. Edwards, 2012 IL 111711. In Edwards, defendant

was convicted of murder. He later filed successive postconviction petitions alleging actual

innocence on the basis of (1) an affidavit from his codefendant Eddie stating that defendant

“ ‘had nothing to do with this shooting’ ” and (2) affidavits from two alibi witnesses. Id. ¶¶ 10,

12.

¶ 61 The Edwards court found that the codefendant’s affidavit constituted newly discovered

evidence, stating:

“While petitioner obviously knew of Eddie at the time of trial, the evidence in Eddie’s

affidavit apparently was nevertheless unavailable at trial [citation], and the evidence

thus qualified as newly discovered. Eddie was a codefendant, with a fifth amendment

right to avoid self-incrimination. No amount of diligence could have forced him to

violate that right if he did not choose to do so.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id.

¶ 38.

See also People v. Molstad, 101 Ill. 2d 128, 135 (1984) (holding that “[t]he testimony of

Molstad’s codefendants clearly qualifies as newly discovered evidence” because no amount of

diligence could have compelled them to incriminate themselves at trial).

¶ 62 The Edwards defendant also argued that his alibi witnesses were unavailable, and therefore

“new,” because they refused to testify on his behalf at trial. Edwards, 2012 IL 111711, ¶ 35.

In response, our supreme court stated: “We do not conclude that such evidence could never be

considered unavailable where, as here, the witnesses rejected the petitioner’s attempts to

persuade them to testify.” Id. ¶ 37. Thus, the court appeared to contemplate that an alibi witness

who is genuinely unavailable at trial may be considered new for actual innocence purposes.

However, the court found that the defendant failed to satisfy the due diligence requirement

because he made no attempt to subpoena the witnesses. Id.

¶ 63 Here, Brown asserts that Green’s testimony was unavailable because “the court barred her

from testifying for violating the witness sequestration rule.” This is not supported by the

record. Green did not state that the court barred her from testifying, merely that Brown’s

counsel did not call her due to her presence in the courtroom. Likewise, the trial transcript does

not reflect that the trial court issued an order barring her from testifying. After Dr. Schooler’s

testimony was barred, the defense stated that it would call “[t]hree [witnesses] at the most”;

then it called two witnesses (Brown and a gunshot residue expert) and rested. The defense did

not mention Green, much less move for admission of her testimony.

¶ 64 “A violation of a court order excluding witnesses or prohibiting witnesses from discussing

their testimony does not result in the automatic exclusion of a witness’s testimony.” In re

H.S.H., 322 Ill. App. 3d 892, 896 (2001). Rather, the trial court retains discretion to allow such

a witness to testify. Id.; see, e.g., People v. Trask, 167 Ill. App. 3d 694, 706 (1988) (trial court

did not abuse its discretion in permitting witness to testify after he reviewed the transcript of

another witness’s testimony in violation of court order). Denying a party’s motion to admit a

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witness who has violated an exclusion order constitutes an abuse of discretion if (1) the

testimony would have been material and (2) the rule violation was not the party’s fault. H.S.H.,

322 Ill. App. 3d at 896-97.

¶ 65 In light of this well-established law, and in the absence of any evidence that Brown moved

to admit Green’s testimony or was barred from calling her, we find that Brown has not satisfied

the due diligence requirement. Green’s testimony at trial could have been procured through the

exercise of due diligence, and it is therefore not newly discovered.

¶ 66 We next consider Martinez’s affidavit and Campos’s recantation affidavit and testimony.

Although Martinez’s affidavit was new, material, and noncumulative, the circuit court found

that it was not credible based on letters sent from Martinez to Brown indicating that Martinez’s

affidavit was part of a deal “where, well, if you say this in this case, I’ll say this in some other

case” (in the words of the circuit court). We find this conclusion to be amply supported by the

record. In one letter, Martinez wrote: “If you can have your people help my guy out and have

your people sign that paper saying what they thought they saw wasn’t so, then we can make

Juan [Campos] do the same.” 2 In another letter, he told Brown that he was going to prepare

Campos’s affidavit with help from “one of [his] guys.”

¶ 67 As for Campos, the circuit court also did not give much weight to his recantation, stating:

“He didn’t really testify to much. *** [H]e testified that he didn’t have any recollection of that

day at all.” Brown correctly points out that Campos also testified that he did recall the day of

the shooting and, specifically, he recalled that things happened too quickly for him to see the

shooter’s face.

¶ 68 Nevertheless, there are multiple reasons that a finder of fact might choose not to credit

Campos’s recantation. First, “[i]t is well settled that the recantation of testimony is generally

regarded as unreliable.” People v. Brooks, 187 Ill. 2d 91, 132 (1999). Second, as noted, the

evidence showed that Martinez wrote his affidavit as part of a deal with Brown’s “people.”

That same evidence indicated that Martinez prepared Campos’s affidavit for him. In fact,

Campos testified at the evidentiary hearing that he did not recognize that affidavit.

Additionally, Campos’s testimony was not strictly exonerating; he said that he “didn’t have a

chance to see [the shooter’s] face,” so he could not say whether Brown was the shooter and

did not purport to contradict the State’s other eyewitnesses in that regard.

¶ 69 Finally, we consider Brown’s expert testimony. Wong’s testimony that gunshot residue

testing on Brown’s jacket and hat came back negative is clearly new, material, and

noncumulative. But as Wong acknowledged on the stand, her findings are far from conclusive

since it is possible that Brown fired a gun without depositing residue on his clothes or that

residue was removed by handling of Brown’s clothes in the years before she performed the

test.

¶ 70 As for Dr. Cutler’s testimony, although it serves to undermine the credibility of the State’s

witnesses, it does not exonerate Brown by affirmatively demonstrating that he was not the

shooter. In the context of an actual innocence claim, “[e]vidence that merely impeaches a

witness will typically not be of such conclusive character as to justify postconviction relief.”

People v. Collier, 387 Ill. App. 3d 630, 637-38 (2008) (rejecting actual innocence claim

2

This letter was not signed, but Brown acknowledged it was in the same handwriting as other letters

sent by Martinez.

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because “defendant has repackaged the reasonable doubt arguments advanced at trial, on direct

appeal, and collateral review and placed them upon the altar of actual innocence”).

¶ 71 Considering the evidence as a whole, we do not find it “so conclusive it would probably

change the result on retrial” (Coleman, 2013 IL 113307, ¶ 96). Neither Elzy’s testimony nor

Green’s testimony qualifies as new. Martinez’s affidavit and Campos’s recantation are new,

material, and noncumulative but heavily impeached by correspondence implying they were

procured as part of a deal. Dr. Cutler’s testimony serves only to impeach the State’s evidence,

and Wong’s findings are inconclusive.

¶ 72 Accordingly, we do not find that Brown has met the criteria to warrant a new trial based

on his actual innocence claim. See Washington, 171 Ill. 2d at 489 (describing the requirement

of conclusive evidence as the “most important[ ]” element of an actual innocence claim).

¶ 73 CONCLUSION

¶ 74 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court denying Brown’s

petition for postconviction relief.

¶ 75 Affirmed.

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