Opinion ID: 3003119
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: Michael Cheeks, Maria Brown, and their child moved into a home on Hickok Street in University Park, Illinois in November 1995. The home was rented from Brown’s cousin, and only Brown’s name was on the lease. In March 1996, while Brown and Cheeks were still living together, Brown began dating Derrick Peterson without telling Cheeks. On August 30, 1996, Brown informed Cheeks that he could no longer live in the Hickok Street No. 05-3372 3 home. Nonetheless, Cheeks was at the home on the morning of September 22, 1996. Brown called Cheeks’s mother later that day and asked her to tell Cheeks not to come to Brown’s home that night. Brown could hear Cheeks in the background during the conversation and heard his mother give him the message. That night, Brown went to sleep in the Hickok Street residence while Peterson watched television in her bedroom. Peterson, fully clothed, later woke Brown, wearing a nightshirt, to say he thought someone was in the house. Brown got out of bed and encountered Cheeks in the hallway. After Cheeks let go of Brown, she went to her bedroom to call 911. Cheeks came into her bedroom holding a knife and cut the phone cord. When Cheeks saw Peterson, Cheeks said, “You don’t have a man in my house, do you? . . . Man, get out of my house before I kill you.” Peterson tried to run out of the house but fell in the hallway, and Brown could hear the two men struggling. She followed the men down the hallway and asked Cheeks what he had done. When a motion sensor light came on, she saw a pool of blood. Brown suggested that Peterson sit down because he was losing blood, and Cheeks pushed Peterson to the ground. An officer arrived shortly thereafter and found Cheeks outside with his hand on the door handle of a car’s driver’s side. After the officer told Cheeks to lay down, Cheeks said, “Go ahead and shoot me” to the officer three or four times. Paramedics arrived within a few minutes, but Peterson had passed away. The coroner later concluded that Peterson died from a single stab wound to the chest. 4 No. 05-3372 Cheeks was charged with Peterson’s murder and with home invasion in Illinois state court. During the ensuing bench trial, Cheeks received a letter from Brown that said, “I must make you pay for what you did when I take the stand . . . . I’m still confused about that night you know I really don’t know exactly what I said in my statement . . . I held myself responsible for his life so now I have to make sure that you get held responsible for his death instead of me . . . when I’m done with you believe me you will never see the light of day if I have anything to do with it and I do cause what the jury is gonna think of you when I leave the stand is that you deserve life . . . .” The letter also said, “you know he [Peterson] could have killed you but he didn’t he spared your life . . . maybe you was afraid maybe he intimidated by being so much bigger than you and not showing any fear.” The letter also asks, “Why did you come home?” Cheeks’s counsel used the letter to cross examine Brown at trial. Brown testified at trial and said at one point that Cheeks did not have permission to be in her home the evening of Peterson’s death. At another point, she was asked, “[I]s it fair to say that Michael Cheeks was, in fact, living at the location on Hickok after August 30, 1996?” She responded, “He was there after that but not with my permission, yes.” She also testified that she considered him not living at the house after August 30, though she acknowledged that she had not had him removed when he subsequently came back. In response to the question, “And at that time Michael Cheeks was still living in your house on September 21, 1996; is that correct?”, Brown answered, “He was still there.” No. 05-3372 5 An investigating officer testified that he found possessions belonging to Cheeks at the Hickok residence and that Cheeks’s identification cards showed he lived at the Hickok address. Law enforcement officials also testified that they saw what appeared to be blood on the waisthigh kitchen window, that Cheeks’s hat was found in the sink below the window, and that a box of kitty litter partially blocked the locked back door when they arrived. One officer testified that after receiving his Miranda rights, Cheeks said he had entered through the back door but then had no response to the question of how he could have done so without disturbing the box of kitty litter. At the close of the evidence and after hearing arguments from both sides, the judge found Cheeks guilty of murder and home invasion. At the sentencing hearing, the judge stated he had decided to impose a sentence above the statutory minimum because Cheeks was on parole at the time of the offense, had been in and out of the criminal justice system for the previous eleven years, and had a criminal history including stolen cars, drug dealing, and drug possession.