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People v. Hart9/16/1980
Defendant was charged by information with the offense of reckless conduct which occurred on July 29, 1979. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 38, par. 12-5.) Motions to suppress statements and to suppress evidence were heard and they were granted and denied, respectively. The defendant was convicted by a jury on January 14, 1980, and his bond was revoked. On February 1, 1980, he was sentenced to the Department of Corrections for 364 days. His appeal was timely filed.
Three issues are raised on appeal: (1) whether the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion to suppress evidence because the arrest of the defendant was warrantless and nonconsensual and there was no probable cause to arrest; (2) whether the trial court erred by sustaining the State's objection to defense counsel's use of an FBI manual in cross-examination of the evidence technician and (3) whether the trial court erred in sentencing defendant for the maximum term and whether the sentence imposed was excessive.
The record disclosed that Belvidere resident Myron Perkins and his wife, Brita, retired to their separate bedrooms a short while before 11 p.m. on the evening of July 29, 1979. Brita was reading, propped up on pillows, in her bed. The headboard was against the windows in the front bedroom which faced the street. Shortly after 11 p.m., four shots were fired through those windows. Two bullets went through the wall opposite the windows and dropped to the floor in the closet; one bullet lodged in the wall and one bullet was later found to have been lodged amongst the clothes in the closet. Myron was awakened by the shots, ran to Brita's room and found her on the floor, shaken but not wounded. She had thought there were children with firecrackers outside the windows. Myron observed the bullet holes through the windows and immediately called the police. The police responded, and several witnesses described the car the offender had been driving as a late model black or dark-colored TransAm Firebird or Camaro. One of the responding officers knew the defendant's son had recently been killed in a three-vehicle accident which also involved the Perkinses. Another police officer and the son of two of the witnesses provided the information that the defendant's son purchased a 1979 black Pontiac TransAm about two weeks before his death. One person at the scene stated that the defendant blamed the Perkinses for his son's death.
Police went to the defendant's house where they observed a black TransAm and a truck parked in the driveway. The TransAm was parked in front of the truck and furthest from the street. The officers felt the hood of the TransAm, and it was warm. One of the officers, Captain Leggett, rang the door bell and knocked on the screen door several times without receiving an answer. He then opened the screen door and knocked on the inside door, which swung partially open and he continued to ring the bell. At that point, the defendant responded to the knocking and ringing, clad only in T-shirt and shorts. The police either asked if they could enter or were simply invited in by the defendant. The defendant then either asked to be allowed to put some pants on or independently decided to do so by calling upstairs to his wife to throw a pair of pants to him. The police read the Miranda warnings to the defendant twice and explained them to him also when he said he did not understand. Captain Leggett told the defendant he was under arrest, and asked where his gun was. The defendant replied that it was upstairs, and he led them to a bedroom where he retrieved a gun from beneath a mattress and gave it to the police. Six bullets were unloaded from the gun. With the defendant's permission, the downstairs gun c
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