State of Illinois v. Patrick Taylor

Chicago, Illinois criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with the August 19, 2006, murder of Maquis Lovings in Rolling Hills, Illinois.



The State accused Patrick Taylor, age 37, of entering Lovings resident and robbing and killing him.



Veljko Bjelica was a witness to the robbery and murder.



Detective Dan Cook of the Rolling Meadows police department testified that, on August 19, 2006, he was assigned to investigate a home invasion that had occurred at an apartment at 4406 Euclid Avenue in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. Two men entered the apartment and took cash, cell phones, and watches from Charles Bjelica, Armando Vera, Michael Barraza, Kevin Gholston, Marya Klein, and Marquis Lovings. One of the men shot Lovings, who eventually died of a gunshot wound. ¶ 9 On August 19, 2006, Cook went to Northwest Community Hospital to interview the victims. At that point, Lovings had already died. Bjelica told Cook that the first intruder was black, 25 to 30 years old, 5'10" tall, 190 pounds, with "razor-short hair" and a "very dark" complexion. The first intruder was wearing a two-piece orange jumpsuit. Bjelica described the second intruder as a black man, 25 to 30 years old, 5'10" tall, 200 pounds, with a light complexion, wearing a light blue shirt and blue jeans. ¶ 10 Cook testified that Bjelica told him that the two intruders robbed



the occupants of the apartment and argued with Lovings about the combination to a safe. Bjelica said that he heard gunshots, then heard the intruders flee. ¶ 11 After interviewing Bjelica, Cook learned of another home invasion that had occurred in Streamwood, Illinois, involving two men, Robert Wasp and Vernial Trotter. Cook created a photo array containing Wasp and Trotter's pictures. ¶ 12 On August 22, 2006, Cook showed Barraza the photo array at Lutheran General Hospital. Before showing Barraza the array, Cook read a lineup advisory form to him. The form said that the suspect may or may not be in the photo spread, that Barraza was not required to make an identification, and that Barraza should not assume that Cook knew whether the suspect was in the array or not. Barraza signed the form. ¶ 13 Cook showed Barraza the photo array containing Wasp and Trotter, but Barraza did not identify any of the individuals in the array as the intruders he saw on August 19. ¶ 14 Cook also showed the same array to Vera, who did not identify any of the pictures as a picture of the intruders. ¶ 15 Cook testified that he spoke with Sergeant Gadomski on October 3, 2006, and Gadomski told Cook that he had a phone conversation with Bjelica, in which Bjelica told Gadomski that he thought one of the offenders might be someone known as "Black Pat" who was living in Harvey, Illinois. Cook learned that "Black Pat" was defendant, and that defendant was a 28-year-old black man with a dark complexion who weighed 160 pounds. Cook compiled a new photo array containing defendant's picture. ¶ 16 The next day, Cook showed the photo array to Bjelica, after he reviewed an advisory form. Bjelica identified defendant's picture as a picture of the intruder in the orange jumpsuit. On October 5, 2006, Cook showed the photo array to Barraza, but Barraza did not make an identification of anyone in the array. On the same day, Cook showed Gholston the array, and Gholston also identified defendant as the intruder in the orange jumpsuit. On October 6, 2006, both Vera and Klein identified defendant in the photo array. Each of the witnesses viewed the array separately. ¶ 17 On August 6, 2007, Cook and several other police officers from both the Rolling Meadows and Chicago police departments arrested defendant at a gas station at 79th Street and Martin Luther King Drive in Chicago. ¶ 18 The next day, Cook arranged a lineup that Gholston, Klein, Bjelica, and Vera all viewed. Cook testified that he was in the room with each of the witnesses when they observed the lineup. Cook testified that he performed a sequential lineup, having each witness view a single person one-at-a-time, because defendant had not been compliant and he thought that defendant might act up during the lineup. ¶ 19 Cook testified that, when defendant was brought into the viewing room, he started screaming, covering his face with his shirt, and crawling around the room. Cook testified that he called paramedics in to restrain defendant on a stretcher. Each of the four witnesses, who viewed defendant separately, identified defendant as the robber with the orange jumpsuit. Cook testified that six people, including defendant, were used in the lineup and that none of the witnesses recognized any of the five fillers. ¶ 20 On cross-examination, Cook testified that, when completing the photo array containing defendant's picture, he tried to find individuals with similar attributes to defendant. Cook found photos of other individuals of similar height and weight on the Illinois Department of Corrections' website. He did not remember how many photographs he looked at before he found all of the five fillers used to complete the array. Cook also testified that he showed each of the witnesses all six of the photographs at once; he did not show the witnesses the photographs one-at-a-time. ¶ 21 Detective Mark Recker testified that he showed Bjelica and Klein a photo array that did not contain defendant's photograph on August 23, 2006. Neither Bjelica nor Klein made an identification, but they both said that one of the individuals in the array resembled one of the intruders. ¶ 22 Gholston testified that the police showed him "a lot" of different photo arrays; he estimated that he had seen "maybe four, five, maybe more." Gholston said that he had identified one of the people in the array as the man in the orange jumpsuit but that he asked the police if he could view a live lineup so that he could "look at his face just to double check." But, Gholston said, he had already made his mind up that the person in the array was one of the robbers. ¶ 23 Gholston testified that he went to the Rolling Meadows police station to view a live lineup, although he was not sure of the date. He testified that paramedics brought defendant before him in a wheelchair. Gholston testified that defendant was fighting with them and trying to block his face with his hands. Gholston then viewed "at least three" other people in wheelchairs. Gholston testified that other eyewitnesses were at the station to view the lineup as well, but that the police separated Gholston from them before they conducted the lineup began. ¶ 24 Gholston identified a lineup advisory form which he had signed before viewing the lineup. It informed Gholston that he did not have to select anyone out of the lineup. The police officers who performed the lineup told Gholston that the suspect may not even be in the lineup. ¶ 25 Klein testified that, on August 7, 2007, she and Bjelica went to view a lineup at the Rolling Meadows police department. Detective Cook picked her and Bjelica up from his apartment in Chicago. Klein said that, before Cook picked them up, she and Bjelica talked about the incident "very briefly." She also testified that Gholston was at the police station and that Vera "could have been" there as well. ¶ 26 Klein testified that, before going in to view the lineup, she sat in a waiting room. She could not recall whether anyone else was in the waiting room with her. She testified that the police officers conducting the lineup did not tell her anything except that she would be viewing a lineup. ¶ 27 Klein testified that the officers brought her into a room where she looked through glass and saw a single person sitting in an office chair. Klein said that this person was one of the robbers. She testified that he was "moving around and just yelling." She noticed that there was a plastic bag by the man. Klein testified that she "saw a lot of different people" after the first viewing, seeing each person one-at-a-time. She could not remember whether any police officers were in the room with her when she viewed the individuals. ¶ 28 On cross-examination, Klein testified that she had seen a photo array containing a picture of the robber prior to viewing the in-person showup. ¶ 29 Defendant also called Bliss Dupes, an investigator with the Cook County public defender, to testify regarding an interview of Gholston that she and defense counsel had conducted prior to the hearing. Dupes testified that Gholston told her that the police had only shown him one person during the live lineup, and that that person was defendant. Gholston also said that it appeared that defendant had been shot and that he had a colostomy bag. ¶ 30 The court denied defendant's motion to suppress the identifications. With respect to the photo arrays, the court found that nothing made defendant's photo stand out when compared to the fillers' photos. The court acknowledged that defendant had a darker complexion than some of the fillers but noted that other fillers had a darker complexion than defendant. And with respect to the live showup, the court found that defendant made himself stand out by not cooperating with the lineup. The court found that the police made efforts to avoid any suggestiveness, noting that they did not coach the witnesses, kept the witnesses separate during the viewing, had the fillers sit in chairs like defendant, and informed the witnesses that they were not required to make an identification. And the court found that the witnesses who had testified in court—Gholston and Klein—"had a high level of certainty" about their identifications. ¶ 31 The State filed a motion in limine seeking to bar the testimony of Dr. Daniel Wright, a professor of legal psychology at Florida International University, who specialized in studying event memory and had focused his research on eyewitness testimony. ¶ 32 For purposes of the hearing on the motion in limine, the trial court accepted Wright as an expert in eyewitness identifications and memory. There is no dispute on appeal regarding Wright's qualifications. ¶ 33 Wright testified that a popular misconception regarding memory was that memory operates as "a snapshot of [one's] visual field," allowing a person to store a "snapshot" of an entire event. Wright said that, in reality, people remember fragments of a past event, then reconstruct the remaining elements of an image. A person can fill these gaps in a memory "with things that [he hears] from other people, with things that [he thinks] should be what happened, or with things that are just part of [his] general knowledge." ¶ 34 Wright added that another popular misconception regarding memory is that memory operates like a "file cabinet": an individual simply needs to access the memory, and it will be perfectly accurate. Rather, Wright testified, memory is "dynamic," in that it changes based on new information that people receive. Wright said that, if an individual was given inaccurate information about an event after experiencing it, that person would be more likely to report inaccurate information about the event. And, Wright said, an individual's expectations of how certain situations should play out will affect their ability to remember how an event actually occurred. ¶ 35 Wright described circumstances that can affect the quality of a person's memory. If a person viewed an event in the dark, or for a short amount of time, those circumstances would tend to make a person's memory worse. Wright also testified that, during stressful situations, a person's attention tends to be focused like a "spotlight," so that his or her attention is drawn to one object—such as a gun—rather than the images around it. ¶ 36 Wright said that people tend to have "worse memory in *** highly emotional settings." Wright explained that people's descriptions of highly emotional events tend to be warped by "rehearsed conversation that happens over and over and over again." A person's memory is "filtered through these rehearsals," so it may not be an accurate memory of the incident. ¶ 37 Wright also testified that laypeople tended to overestimate the importance of an eyewitness's confidence when evaluating the eyewitness's testimony. Wright said that there was some correlation between an eyewitness's confidence and the accuracy of their memory, but not as much as an average person would generally believe. And people tend to value an eyewitness's confidence more highly than more important factors, such as the lighting when the eyewitness saw the perpetrator or the time the eyewitness had to view the perpetrator. ¶ 38 Wright described the phenomenon of "memory conformity," whereby two individuals who have perceived the same event will tend to alter their memories to conform with one another if they discuss the event after it occurred. Wright said that memory conformity can affect the identification process because "witnesses may talk and it may mean that they come up with a description that's more similar to each other than they should." Wright noted that, if witnesses know one another, it may mean that they are more likely to talk about the event simply because they have more opportunities to speak with one another. ¶ 39 Wright also described the phenomenon of "unconscious transference," which occurs "when people remember something from one time and misattribute it to some other time." Wright described one case where a woman had been raped while a nearby television was on. The woman remembered her rapist's face as the face of a person she had seen on the TV "because she just had that face in her mind during that point and transferred it onto the perpetrator." ¶ 40 Wright explained that unconscious transference can occur when a police officer shows an eyewitness a photo array containing the suspect, then the eyewitness sees a live lineup containing the same suspect. Wright said that, in such a case, the processes "could make th[at] person stand out" to the eyewitness during the subsequent lineup. ¶ 41 Wright testified that an individual's familiarity with another person's face will also affect his or her ability to recall the person's facial features. If an individual is familiar with someone, the individual will be able to remember that person's face much better than if the individual saw a person's face for the first time. Generally, if an individual sees someone for the first time, the individual will recall that "global information" about the person—the person's general size, the general shape of the person's hair and face—rather than the detailed information, such as "the difference between the eyes, the exact shape of the nose, the shape of the lips, and things like that." ¶ 42 Wright testified regarding factors that can make lineup identifications more or less reliable. Wright said that simultaneous lineups, where the eyewitness looks at a group of possible suspects simultaneously, more often produce accurate identifications of individuals who are actually guilty, but also more often create false identifications of innocent people. By contrast, sequential lineups, where the eyewitness looks at a series of photographs one at a time, "are better for protecting the innocent." Wright explained that, during a simultaneous lineup, a person may tend to choose the individual with the characteristics most closely resembling the suspect, even if that person is not actually the suspect. Wright said that this problem with simultaneous lineups occurs "often." Thus, Wright concluded, "on the whole the cognitive psychologists and eyewitness testimony researchers have believed the sequential lineup is better." ¶ 43 Wright testified that he had reviewed the reports and photo spreads from this case. He said that it appeared that the police showed the eyewitnesses "all six pictures simultaneously" when conducting the photo spread. ¶ 44 Wright also testified that using the same fillers in the same lineups for multiple eyewitnesses, as the police did in this case, could lead to misidentifications of an innocent person. Wright said that, in any lineup, it was possible that an innocent suspect could more closely resemble the perpetrator than the five fillers. According to Wright, this possibility increased when the same fillers were used in multiple lineups.



¶ 45 Wright testified that, when conducting a lineup, it was best for police to a "double blind" procedure, where the officer who knows which of the lineup participants is the suspect is not in the room with the eyewitness making the identification. Wright testified that, when the officer knows which participant is the suspect, he or she can give off unconscious "cues" to the eyewitness about which participant is the suspect. Even if the officer tried to avoid giving off cues, it was possible that he or she would do so. Wright said that, as best as he could tell from the reports, the police did not use the double blind method in this case. ¶ 46 Wright testified that the longer an eyewitness waited to make an identification after an event made it less likely that the eyewitness could remember details about the event—what Wright referred to as the "forgetting curve." Wright acknowledged that this was something that most jurors would probably understand. ¶ 47 On cross-examination, the State focused on whether Wright could opine as to the reliability of any of the witnesses in this case. Wright said that, without conducting tests, he could not tell which of the eyewitnesses in this case would have a better ability to remember faces than others. But the circumstances of each identification—such as the length of time the eyewitness had to view the offender—could generally suggest whether his or her memory of the offender's face would be more reliable. ¶ 48 Wright also testified that he could not say with absolute certainty whether any of the factors he described would have affected the eyewitnesses in this case. Rather, he said that he was "looking at *** what happens for humans in general." At one point, the prosecutor asked Wright whether he could tell whether any of the specific witnesses in the case were influenced by any particular factors, and defense counsel interjected that the defense did not plan to ask Wright to opine on the credibility of any of the eyewitnesses. On redirect examination, Wright again clarified that he would not offer an opinion as to the credibility of any specific witness. ¶ 49 The trial court granted the State's motion in limine. While recognizing that "the trend might be that in the future this is admitted," the court stated that Dr. Wright's testimony would not offer anything beyond what a juror could understand. The court noted that the effects of factors such as a delay in identification, the presence of a weapon, whether two eyewitnesses talked to one another after an event were all effects that the jury could understand without the benefit of expert testimony. And, the court noted, there was no evidence that the police had given conscious or unconscious cues to the eyewitnesses during the lineups, meaning that Wright's testimony about those cues would be speculative.



¶ 51 At trial, Bjelica, Gholston, Vera, and Klein all testified about the incident. At the time, Lovings was dealing drugs and had two apartments, one in Chicago and one in Rolling Meadows. Vera was Lovings' roommate in Chicago, Gholston and Bjelica knew Lovings from college, and Klein was Bjelica's girlfriend. ¶ 52 On August 19, 2006, Bjelica, Gholston, Vera, and Klein left Lovings' Chicago apartment and went to his apartment in Rolling Meadows. Lovings, Vera, and Klein arrived first, meeting Barraza in the parking lot of the apartment building. The four of them went inside, leaving the door half-open for Gholston and Bjelica, who had not yet arrived. Lovings went into his bedroom, while Vera, Klein, and Barraza went into the kitchen. ¶ 53 About two minutes after they had gone into the apartment, two armed men, one of whom Klein and Vera identified as defendant, burst in and told everyone to lie on the ground. All of the witnesses testified that defendant wore orange clothes during the robbery. Vera and Klein described defendant's clothes as a one-piece jumpsuit, whereas Bjelica said that defendant wore matching sweatshirt and pants. Vera described the jumpsuit as "some sort of apparatus where it's like a tank top and some shorts." Vera testified that defendant wore an orange nylon cap, Klein testified that defendant had his hair in corn rows without a cap, and Bjelica testified that defendant had short hair with no cap. Vera also testified that he did not "see enough to know [whether] they were[ ] wearing gloves." ¶ 54 Vera testified that defendant kicked in the door to Lovings' bedroom, dragged Lovings out, and forced Lovings to lie on the floor. ¶ 55 At that point, Gholston and Bjelica arrived. They knocked on the apartment door, and defendant answered it, pointed his gun at them, and knocked Bjelica to the floor. Gholston testified that defendant and his accomplice told him to put a pillow over his head, but Gholston periodically lifted the pillow to see what was happening. Gholston said he got a good look at defendant's face when defendant opened the door. ¶ 56 Defendant ordered Lovings to give him the combination to a safe in Lovings' bedroom and took Lovings into the bedroom. Eventually defendant dragged Lovings back into the dining room, where Lovings said that defendant had all the cash and marijuana they came for and asked defendant not to kill him. Defendant hit Lovings in the head with his gun and demanded the combination to a second safe in the other bedroom. Lovings replied that he did not have the combination to that safe, and defendant threatened to kill Klein. ¶ 57 Defendant's accomplice then covered Bjelica's and Klein's heads with couch cushions. Bjelica testified that he could still see defendant's feet. Vera testified that he could see defendant's orange pants next to Lovings. The witnesses heard a struggle, two gunshots, and the sound of people running out of the apartment. ¶ 58 Vera testified that he stood up, saw that Lovings had been shot, and ran outside for help. In the parking lot, he saw Barraza, who had been shot, screaming. Back in the apartment, Klein ran to the bathroom while Bjelica tended to Lovings. Gholston locked the door to the apartment. ¶ 59 Lovings died by the time the paramedics arrived. They took Lovings, Barraza, and Bjelica to the hospital. The police questioned Gholston, Klein, and Vera at the scene. ¶ 60 Bjelica testified that, several months after the shooting, Lovings' brother called him and told him that someone named "Black Pat" was involved in the killing. Bjelica relayed that information to the police. ¶ 61 Detective Cook described the process of formulating the photo arrays and lineups consistently with his testimony at the hearing on defendant's motion to suppress. Bjelica, Gholston, Vera, and Klein all identified defendant's photograph in a photo array in October 2006 and identified in person during the live sequential lineup in August 2007. ¶ 62 Kenneth Slaughter, who used to buy drugs from Lovings, testified that, in September 2006, he saw defendant arrive at a park in Harvey in a new minivan. Defendant, who was dressed in nice clothes, began handing out money to children at the park. One week later, Slaughter asked defendant where he had gotten the money, and defendant said that he had to "lay *** down *** a shorty from Popeye's." Slaughter believed that defendant was referring to Lovings because Lovings used to work at a Popeye's Chicken. Slaughter contacted Lovings' brother about what defendant had said. ¶ 63 Slaughter acknowledged that, when he first spoke to the police, he told them that he did not recall having a conversation with defendant, but later changed his mind and decided to tell them about defendant's statement. Defense counsel attempted to ask Slaughter whether he had two outstanding warrants for possession of marijuana when he first talked to the police, but the trial court sustained the State's objection to that question. The trial court only allowed defense counsel to ask Slaughter whether he believed that he had received any benefit by telling the police what he knew. ¶ 64 The gun used to shoot Lovings was found in the home of an individual who was not charged in connection with the shooting. None of the fingerprints left at the scene could be linked to defendant. ¶ 65 The jurors deliberated for about 2 ½ hours when they sent out a note asking: (1) if they needed to finish deliberating that day; (2) if they needed to deliver their verdict if they had reached a decision that day; and (3) how late they would be held to deliberate. The court told the jurors to keep deliberating, and, twenty minutes later, they returned a verdict finding defendant guilty of first-degree murder. The trial court subsequently sentenced defendant to natural life imprisonment. Defendant appealed.



* * *



When deciding whether to admit expert testimony, the trial court should balance the probative value of the testimony against its prejudicial effect and should "carefully consider the necessity and relevance of the expert testimony in light of the particular facts of the case before admitting that testimony for the jury's consideration." Lerma, 2016 IL 118496, ¶ 23. "Expert testimony addressing matters of common knowledge is not admissible 'unless the subject is difficult to understand and explain.' " Id. (quoting People v. Becker, 239 Ill. 2d 215, 235 (2010))

After a jury trial, defendant was convicted of the first-degree murder of Marquis Lovings and sentenced to life in prison.



The conviction for vacate and remanded for a new trial on September 22, 2016.



Discovery prior to a second trial revealed that the State had not produced possible exculpatory evidenced.



The State elected to dismiss the charges.



Defendant was exonerated in 2023.

Dr. Daniel Wrights, a professor of legal psychology at Florida International University who studied event memory.