Opinion
No. 2-15-1194
05-22-2018
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. EARNEST T. JEFFRIES, Defendant-Appellant.
NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and may not be cited as precedent by any party except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Kane County.
No. 14-CF-1554
Honorable T. Clint Hull, Judge, Presiding.
JUSTICE BURKE delivered the judgment of the court.
Justices Hutchinson and Jorgensen concurred in the judgment.
ORDER
¶ 1 Held: The trial court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing defendant to 26 years' imprisonment for home invasion and armed robbery: despite the mitigating evidence, the sentence was justified by the seriousness of the offenses and defendant's criminal history, which the court accurately described as bad even though his most serious prior offenses were remote in time.
¶ 2 Defendant, Earnest T. Jeffries, appeals from his concurrent 26-year prison terms based on his convictions of home invasion (intentionally causing injury) (720 ILCS 5/19-6(a)(2) (West 2014)) and armed robbery (bludgeon) (720 ILCS 5/18-2(a)(1) (West 2014)). He contends generally that the sentences were an abuse of discretion and specifically that the court
"mischaracteriz[ed his criminal] history as consisting of 'a number of robberies and violent crimes.' " We hold that the court accurately detailed defendant's criminal history when it imposed sentence—no mischaracterization occurred. Further, the court did not otherwise abuse its discretion. We thus affirm.
¶ 3 I. BACKGROUND
¶ 4 A jury found defendant guilty of 9 of 10 charges stemming from an August 28, 2014, incident in which he and another man, Steven L. Simmons, forced their way into an apartment in which K.C. Phongsavath and Tyrone Davis were sleeping. The jury found defendant guilty of three counts of home invasion, two counts of armed robbery, two counts of unlawful restraint (720 ILCS 5/10-3(a) (West 2014)), one count of aggravated fleeing or attempting to elude a peace officer (625 ILCS 5/11-204.1(a)(1) (West 2014)), and one count of unlawful possession of more than 2.5, but not more than 10, grams of cannabis (720 ILCS 550/4(b) (West 2014)). It acquitted him of a count of aggravated battery (720 ILCS 5/12-3.05(f) (West 2014)).
¶ 5 The evidence at trial was that defendant and Simmons forced their way into Phongsavath's apartment, struck Davis, restrained Phongsavath and Davis with electrical cord, and stole cash and an electronic tablet. Simmons and defendant fled; defendant led police on a high-speed vehicular chase, and, when arrested, was in possession of cannabis. According to testimony by Simmons, defendant had come to him with an idea for an unspecified, but clearly criminal, enterprise, but had not detailed to Simmons what he had planned.
¶ 6 On August 28, 2014, at around 3:45 a.m., defendant and Simmons came to the outside door of Phongsavath's apartment and started pounding on it, shouting that they were Aurora police officers with a warrant. Both were masked. They entered the building and forced the bedroom door open. They appeared to carry at least one firearm between them; Phongsavath
testified that she had seen the intruders with what she believed was a handgun. And during the invasion, each intruder held the gun. However, the police found parts of a BB- or Airsoft gun in the apartment, and the State charged defendant with armed robbery employing a bludgeon, not with armed robbery employing a firearm.
¶ 7 The intruders ordered Davis to give them money and drugs. One hit Davis with a chair. After they discovered that Davis lied to them when he told them that they would find money outside in a car, they hit him repeatedly, tied him up with stereo cables, and searched the bedroom. They pulled the bedcovers off Phongsavath, who was undressed, and tied her hands with the cord of a curling iron. The intruders left the apartment, taking with them a Galaxy tablet and $2800 in cash. Police and paramedics arrived at the scene; they treated Davis for a gash on his head, broken teeth, cuts to his hands and feet, and bruises that included bruised ribs.
¶ 8 Defendant fled in the vehicle in which he and Simmons had arrived. His vehicle drew the attention of an officer who was en route to Phongsavath's apartment. Defendant would not pull over, and a high-speed chase ensued. Defendant's vehicle crashed into a rock, but defendant fled on foot. When police eventually found and arrested him, he was carrying 6.7 grams of cannabis. The jury found defendant guilty of all counts other than the aggravated battery count. The court entered judgment on one count of home invasion, one count of armed robbery, the single count of aggravated fleeing or attempting to elude a peace officer, and the cannabis-possession count.
¶ 9 At sentencing, defendant, who was born in 1975, presented evidence of his good relationship with his family, particularly his children—he had been a volunteer at his son's school. The State did not present any evidence in aggravation beyond defendant's criminal history.
¶ 10 In imposing sentence, the court suggested that, beyond the circumstances of the current offenses, the factor on which it placed the most weight was defendant's history of serious offenses:
"[Y]ou acknowledge that you have had a bad criminal history, and you have. It's important for me to highlight that for the record so you understand that your crimes, your felonies started in 1992, and they have continued through this one, which is in 2014. There *** [are] 10 felony convictions prior to this one since 1992. Those convictions have included crimes of violence. A robbery in 1992. A robbery in 2001. They have consisted of you possessing weapons when you weren't supposed to in 1994, unlawful use of weapon. They have involved drugs in 1996. They involved an attempt crim[inal] sex assault in 1996 and some thefts. So your criminal history, it's bad."
In summing up the factors in aggravation, the court described defendant as having "had a number of robberies and violent crimes." In mitigation, the court found that defendant was a good father and that his imprisonment would both entail excessive hardship for his dependents and likely aggravate his chronic back pain. It sentenced him to two 26-year terms of imprisonment for home invasion and armed robbery and two 3-year terms of imprisonment for unlawful restraint and aggravated fleeing or attempting to elude a peace officer, all to be served concurrently. It imposed a jail term for cannabis possession.
¶ 11 Defendant moved for reconsideration of his sentence, arguing inter alia that the court had not given adequate weight to factors in mitigation. The court stood on its original reasoning and denied the motion. Defendant timely appealed.
¶ 12 II. ANALYSIS
¶ 13 On appeal, defendant argues that his sentence reflects an abuse of discretion. He suggests that the court went wrong when it "overstated [defendant's] criminal history and did not act on the significant mitigation evidence demonstrating his rehabilitative potential." Concerning his history, defendant suggests that the court should have viewed his convictions as being mostly part of an earlier phase of his life:
"[O]f the 28 convictions listed in the 'Adult Record' section of the presentence investigation report, 17 are vehicle status offenses. Of the remaining convictions, the serious offenses of robbery, felony possession/use of a weapon, criminal trespass to land, possession of narcotics, attempt criminal sexual assault, unlawful possession of a controlled substance, and theft under $300 occurred in the 1990's-more than 16 years before the incident here. The defendant's remaining convictions were all more than seven years before the present incident."
He further contends that the court exaggerated when it described him as having "had a number of robberies and violent crimes."
¶ 14 We hold that the court did not abuse its discretion. First, we see no overstatement of defendant's criminal history. The court accurately recited the offenses on which it relied for its conclusion that defendant's criminal history was "bad" and included "a number of robberies and violent crimes." Thus, when defendant suggests that the court misunderstood his criminal record, he misreads the trial court record. Second, to the extent that defendant suggests that the court abused its discretion by giving insufficient weight to an apparent dip in the severity of defendant's crimes, we address that next along with his contention that the court did not give adequate weight to his rehabilitative potential.
¶ 15 We may not reduce a sentence that is within the statutory range "unless it is greatly at variance with the spirit and purpose of the law or manifestly disproportionate to the nature of the offense" (People v. Horta, 2016 IL App (2d) 140714, ¶ 40); or unless the trial court otherwise abused its discretion (People v. Alexander, 239 Ill. 2d 205, 212 (2010)). Within the applicable sentencing range, a trial court has great latitude in sentencing a defendant, but it may neither ignore relevant mitigating factors nor consider improper factors in aggravation. People v. Roberts, 338 Ill. App. 3d 245, 251 (2003). Furthermore, a "reviewing court must not substitute its judgment for that of a sentencing court merely because it would have weighed the factors differently." People v. Streit, 142 Ill. 2d 13, 19 (1991).
¶ 16 Here, defendant does not suggest that his sentence fell outside the applicable range, but only that the court abused its discretion. We find no abuse. Although mitigating factors clearly existed—the court noted that defendant was a good parent—the aggravating factors that the court cited were sufficient to justify the sentence the court imposed. Even excluding factors inherent to the offenses—something that the court explicitly did—defendant's offenses were particularly serious. The court correctly noted that Simmons and defendant's announcing themselves as police officers was a highly aggravating factor. Similarly, that the "bludgeon" had the appearance of a firearm was an aggravating circumstance not inherent to the offenses. Moreover, given defendant's criminal history, which again the court accurately described, we hold that the court did not abuse its discretion by assigning little weight to defendant's rehabilitative potential. Although, in the period before defendant committed the current offenses, there might have been an ebbing in defendant's rate of commission of offenses and the offenses' seriousness, defendant is nevertheless in the position of having to argue that, aside from the current offenses, he was reforming himself. This clearly is not tenable. We thus deem
that the court did not abuse its discretion by giving low weight to any rehabilitative potential defendant might have.
¶ 17 III. CONCLUSION
¶ 18 For the reasons stated, we affirm defendant's sentences. As part of our judgment, we grant the State's request that defendant be assessed $50 as costs for this appeal. 55 ILCS 5/4-2002(a) (West 2016); see also People v. Nicholls, 71 Ill. 2d 166, 178 (1978).
¶ 19 Affirmed.