Court Opinion

ID: 9891277
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-17 22:06:01.007151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:27.724041
License: Public Domain

NOTICE                  2023 IL App (4th) 230264-U
This Order was filed under                                                              FILED
Supreme Court Rule 23 and is                 NO. 4-23-0264                           October 17, 2023
not precedent except in the                                                            Carla Bender
limited circumstances allowed      IN THE APPELLATE COURT                          4th District Appellate
under Rule 23(e)(1).                                                                     Court, IL
                                             OF ILLINOIS

                                        FOURTH DISTRICT

   THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS,                       )   Appeal from the
              Plaintiff-Appellee,                             )   Circuit Court of
              v.                                              )   Winnebago County
   QUINTON A. SMITH,                                          )   No. 19CF1530
              Defendant-Appellant.                            )
                                                              )   Honorable
                                                              )   Joseph G. McGraw,
                                                              )   Judge Presiding.

                   JUSTICE CAVANAGH delivered the judgment of the court.
                   Justices Steigmann and Lannerd concurred in the judgment.

                                               ORDER
 ¶1       Held: Because no evidence had been adduced to support some of the essential elements
                of second degree murder, the circuit court did not abuse its discretion by refusing a
                jury instruction on that offense.

 ¶2                In the circuit court of Winnebago County, a jury found defendant, Quinton A.

 Smith, guilty of three offenses: (1) first degree murder of Joseph Hernandez by defendant’s

 personal discharge of a firearm (see 720 ILCS 5/9-1(a)(2) (West 2018); 730 ILCS 5/5-8-l(d)(iii)

 (West 2018)), (2) aggravated discharge of a firearm in the direction of an occupied motor vehicle

 (see 720 ILCS 5/24-l.2(a)(2) (West 2018)), and (3) aggravated battery of Kaitlin Shumaker with a

 firearm, resulting in injury to her (see id. § 12-3.05(e)(l)). For first degree murder, the court

 sentenced defendant to 55 years’ imprisonment. For aggravated battery, the court sentenced him

 to a consecutive prison term of 15 years.
¶3             Defendant appeals on a single ground: he argues the circuit court abused its

discretion by refusing his request to give a jury instruction on second degree murder (see id. § 9-

2(c)). In our review of the record, however, we see no evidence supporting two of the elements of

second degree murder. First, the record lacks any evidence to support a characterization of

defendant as “not the aggressor” when he chased Hernandez and, upon catching up with him, shot

him in the back. People v. Mujkovic, 2022 IL App (1st) 200717, ¶ 26. Second, we see no evidence

that, at the time defendant shot Hernandez—an unarmed man running for his life—the “danger of

harm” to defendant “was imminent.” Id. Absent some minimal evidence of those two elements,

we disagree that the court abused its discretion by refusing to instruct the jury on second degree

murder. Therefore, we affirm the judgment.

¶4                                     I. BACKGROUND

¶5             Evidence in the jury trial tended to prove the following facts.

¶6             At about 5:30 or 6 a.m. on June 18, 2019, in Rockford, Illinois, Hernandez

telephoned Mackenzie Berry, the mother of defendant’s infant child. Defendant answered her

phone and before hanging up, told Hernandez to “stop calling my b*** phone.” (We quote from

the police interview of defendant.) Then Hernandez rang the phone of Berry’s friend (name

unknown), who also was present in Berry’s residence. Hernandez asked where defendant was.

Defendant said into the phone, which was in video-chat mode, “I’m right here.” Hernandez made

a finger-gun gesture in the camera and said, “I got my Blick.” Defendant responded, “Well, I got

mine, too. Pop up.”

¶7             Hernandez arrived at Berry’s residence. Berry’s friend locked the door and called

to defendant, who was upstairs. Berry tried to hold defendant back, pleading with him, “[P]lease,

don’t do it.” Defendant responded, “No, n*** said he’s going to kill me, right?” When Berry

                                               -2-
picked up their baby son, defendant ran out of the room and down the stairs. As defendant later

admitted to the police, he knew that Hernandez would not shoot him in Berry’s residence when

Berry and the baby were present.

¶8             When defendant opened the door, Hernandez told him, “I ain’t got no gun.”

Defendant answered, “I do,” whereupon defendant took his pistol out of his pants and “upped it”

on Hernandez. Hernandez ran. Defendant chased him down the street and fired a shot at him. Then

he chased Hernandez around DaVita Dialysis Center and shot at him again. Both of those shots

missed. Katie Shumaker, whom Berry had telephoned earlier to bring cannabis, was at the scene,

in the driver’s seat of her car. Hernandez saw Shumaker’s car and scrambled to get in. Defendant

ran into the middle of the street and, with the third shot, struck Hernandez in the back as he opened

the passenger-side door of Shumaker’s car. The bullet passed through Hernandez and struck

Shumaker in the thigh. Then defendant left the scene and threw the pistol into a river.

¶9             When arrested, defendant was cooperative. He admitted he had intended to kill

Hernandez. He told a detective, “I’m not going to lie. He said he’s going to kill me if he caught

me.” The detective commended defendant for his candor and said, “[Y]ou attempted to kill him

because you thought he was coming to kill you.” Defendant agreed.

¶ 10           Nevertheless, at trial, the circuit court declined to give a jury instruction on the

lesser offense of second degree murder. In the court’s view, there was no evidence to support such

an instruction. The court acknowledged the threat that Hernandez made to defendant in the video

chat. Even so, the court saw no evidence that defendant was in imminent danger at the time he shot

Hernandez. Rather, when chasing down Hernandez and shooting him as he tried to get into

Shumaker’s car, defendant was, as the court put it, “totally the aggressor.”

¶ 11                                      II. ANALYSIS

                                                -3-
¶ 12             Second degree murder is made up of the following elements, all of them

indispensable: “(1) force is threatened against the person, (2) the person threatened is not the

aggressor, (3) the danger of harm was imminent, (4) the threatened force was unlawful, and (5) the

defendant actually and subjectively believed a danger existed that required the use of force

applied.” Id. ¶ 26.

¶ 13             In a first degree murder case, if there is very slight evidence that, if believed by the

jury, would reduce the crime to second degree murder, and if the defense tenders a proper jury

instruction on that lesser crime, the circuit court should give the instruction. See People v.

McDonald, 2016 IL 118882, ¶ 25; People v. Lockett, 82 Ill. 2d 546, 550 (1980); People v. Hayes,

2022 IL App (4th) 210409, ¶ 67; People v. Salas, 2011 IL App (1st) 091880, ¶ 82. “When deciding

whether to give a tendered instruction, the court’s role is to determine whether there is some

evidence supporting that theory, without weighing the evidence.” (Internal quotation marks

omitted.) Hayes, 2022 IL App (4th) 210409, ¶ 67. A jury instruction on second degree murder

should not be given, though, if the evidence clearly shows that the crime was first degree murder

and there is no evidence upon which a jury could find the defendant guilty of second degree

murder. See Lockett, 82 Ill. 2d at 551. The question for us is whether the refusal of a jury instruction

on second degree murder was an abuse of discretion. See People v. Hampton, 2021 IL App (5th)

170341, ¶ 100.

¶ 14             Defendant argues that, in the light of People v. Goods, 2016 IL App (1st) 140511,

and People v. Hawkins, 296 Ill. App. 3d 830 (1998), the circuit court abused its discretion. Unlike

those cases, however, the present case lacks evidence—even very slight evidence—of an imminent

danger of harm to defendant at the time he shot the victim. In Goods, the victim fumbled at his

waist, as if reaching for a pistol, before the defendant shot him. The appellate court observed that

                                                  -4-
the victim “was, in fact, armed and the danger of harm to [the] defendant was imminent.” Goods,

2016 IL App (1st) 140511, ¶ 50. Hernandez, by contrast, was unarmed and running away from

defendant when defendant shot him in the back.

¶ 15             Defendant’s comparison of Hernandez to the victim in Hawkins is equally strained.

In Hawkins, when the defendant stabbed the victim, the victim was coming up the stairs toward

the defendant, saying, “ ‘I’m goin[g] [to] kill you, n***.’ ” Hawkins, 296 Ill. App. 3d at 838. In

the present case, the roles are reversed. Defendant was pursuing Hernandez and (by repeatedly

firing at him) was threatening to kill him. Hernandez ceased being the aggressor when, after telling

defendant he had no gun, he ran away. Defendant became the aggressor when he ran after

Hernandez, shooting at him.

¶ 16             We acknowledge the evidence that Hernandez threatened defendant earlier, in the

video chat, by making a finger-gun gesture in the camera and saying, “I got my Blick.” The trouble

is that this evidence, if the jury believed it, would be insufficient to reduce the crime to second

degree murder. See Lockett, 82 Ill. 2d at 550. That “force is threatened against the person” is only

one element of second degree murder. Mujkovic, 2022 IL App (1st) 200717, ¶ 26. There are

additional, separate elements, namely, that “the person threatened is not the aggressor” and that

“the danger of harm was imminent.” Id. As we have discussed, the record lacks even minimal

evidence to support those additional elements. Thus, by refusing a jury instruction on second

degree murder, the circuit court did not abuse its discretion. See Hampton, 2021 IL App (5th)

170341, ¶ 100.

¶ 17                                     III. CONCLUSION

¶ 18             For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the circuit court’s judgment.

¶ 19             Affirmed.

                                                -5-