Court Opinion

ID: 9709290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:44:13.46695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:47.010477
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE McCORMICK, concurring in part and dissenting in part: The record before the court on this appeal supports none of the convictions under review. Therefore, I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion affirming defendants’ convictions for aggravated discharge of a firearm. The majority gives short shrift to defendant Castile’s self-defense argument; however, an examination of our case law on self-defense indicates that he was acting in self-defense when he either returned defendant Peterson’s gunfire or initiated the gun battle after Peterson pulled his gun on Castile. Even ignoring both defendants’ statements, Reverend Vinson’s testimony clearly established that Peterson drew a gun on Castile. That Castile may have said some fighting words prior to Peterson’s act does not alter the fact that (1) unlawful force was threatened against Castile; (2) Castile was not the aggressor; (3) the danger of harm was imminent; (4) Castile believed that a danger existed and that the use of force was necessary; and (5) Castile’s belief was reasonable. Thus, the State was required to disprove at least one of these elements beyond a reasonable doubt. (People v. Rodriguez (1994), 258 Ill. App. 3d 579, 582, 631 N.E.2d 427.) It did not do so. Indeed, the majority acknowledges that Castile was acting in self-defense when he began firing. Nonetheless, the majority insists that he became an aggressor because he chased Peterson through the car wash while firing his gun. I recognize that for a defendant to maintain a claim of self-defense, he may not become the aggressor after initially being the nonaggressor. (People v. De Oca (1992), 238 Ill. App. 3d 362, 606 N.E.2d 332.) However, when Castile ran into the car wash, any allegation that he was committing the offense of aggravated discharge of a firearm, as charged in the indictment against him, fails. The State charged Castile with "knowingly discharging] a firearm in the direction of Donald Vinson.” (Emphasis added.) The State did not charge Castile with firing his gun at Peterson, yet when he was running through the car wash, he was no longer firing in the direction of Reverend Vinson. Whether he was the aggressor or defender at this point is irrelevant because Castile was not indicted for firing at Peterson. As to Peterson, the majority holds that the accountability and transferred intent doctrines do not apply in this case. I agree, but given this, the State plainly failed to carry its burden of proving that Peterson discharged his firearm in the direction of Reverend Vinson, as alleged in the indictment. The photographic evidence in the record establishes that Vinson was sitting in a chair in front of the wall next to the open garage-sized door of the car wash. Vinson testified that when Peterson opened fire, Peterson’s back was to Vinson. Thus, the crime of firing a gun in Vinson’s direction could not have been accomplished at this juncture. (People v. Hartfield (1994), 266 Ill. App. 3d 607, 608-09, 640 N.E.2d 39.) Acknowledging this, the majority concludes that when Castile and Peterson ran through the car wash, shots continuing to ring out, Peterson must have been firing in Vinson’s direction, although nobody saw Peterson firing backwards as he ran through the car wash. When Peterson’s gun was recovered minutes later, it contained only one spent shell. The evidence fairly shows that the bullet from that casing was fired at Castile and passed through his leg. Hartfield holds that a conviction for aggravated discharge of a firearm cannot stand under such circumstances, e.g., where a witness hears gunshots, but does not see either from where they emanated or in what direction they were aimed. (Hartfield, 266 Ill. App. 3d at 609.) On the evidence presented, Peterson did not fire in Vinson’s direction. Only Castile did so. Certainly, Peterson could have been charged with firing at Castile. Inexplicably, he was not. That error does not justify sustaining an unsupported conviction.