Opinion ID: 2052579
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: State's Case in Rebuttal

Text: Two paramedics gave testimony to the effect that defendant did not appear remorseful when they responded to the emergency call to give him a sedative. It was stipulated that defendant made statements to medical personnel at the hospital that he had just lost his wife and baby in a fire. There was soot in defendant's nasal passages. Earlier expert testimony had established that both starting a fire and escaping a fire could cause soot in nasal passages. Ollie Portwood, the grandmother of Angela McDaniel, testified that McDaniel was home at their house on the night of the fire. She stated: Angela didn't go no further than the back yard that night. She and the girl upstairs from next door, they was playing, running and playing in the back yard, and myself and the lady next door, we was in the kitchen. We could see them, so she was out there. She did not know where McDaniel was at the time of trial. She had not seen her in months. Sergeant Patrick Garrity testified and denied abusing defendant. Detective James Lotito also testified and denied abusing defendant. Lotito took no notes whatsoever of defendant's alleged admissions. Lotito's notes did refer to defendant's denials of his involvement with the fire, however. The jury found defendant guilty of seven counts of felony murder, one count of arson, and seven counts of aggravated arson, as earlier noted. The jury was polled in open court. A bifurcated capital sentencing hearing then commenced before the same jury. At the first stage, the jury found defendant eligible for the death penalty. At the second stage, the jury found no mitigating factors sufficient to preclude imposition of the death penalty. The trial court sentenced defendant to death. A summary of the evidence presented at defendant's sentencing hearing is contained in this court's opinion on direct appeal. Hobley, 159 Ill.2d at 288-90, 202 Ill.Dec. 256, 637 N.E.2d 992. Given that defendant has not raised any issue relating to this evidence here, we do not reiterate it.