Criminal Law

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s habeas petition challenging his first degree murder conviction on grounds that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to take steps to support defendant’s claim that victim’s girlfriend was actual culprit in murder. While defendant argued that his counsel failed to call as witnesses two detectives, who could cast doubt on girlfriend’s credibility, defendant failed to show that said detectives would have spoken to defendant’s counsel prior to trial, and said detectives could not have otherwise given opinion at trial regarding plaintiff’s credibility. Also, counsel was not ineffective for failing to call two witnesses to dispute govt. claim that girlfriend had no motive to kill victim, where counsel was unaware of existence of one witness, and where neither witness could have testified about relationship between girlfriend and victim at time of murder. Moreover, counsel’s failure to use telephone records to refute girlfriend’s version of her whereabouts at time of murder was not ineffective where five-minute discrepancy established by records would not have helped establish defendant’s defense.

Dist. Ct. erred in imposing as special condition of defendant’s supervised release lifetime ban on possession of any sexually explicit material, after finding that defendant had violated term of his supervised release on charge of unlawful possession of child pornography. Dist. Ct. could not impose instant lifetime ban in absence of any finding or explanation for such ban, especially where ban was not discussed before or during sentencing hearing. Ct. also found that such ban was too vague/broad with respect to whether it covered more than visual depictions, or whether it applied to legal adult pornography.

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to above guideline, 108-month term of incarceration on charge of unlawful possession of firearm. Record showed that defendant had several prior offenses, including aggravated unlawful use of weapon as juvenile, armed robbery and battery, and that defendant was on parole at time of charged offense. While defendant argued that Dist. Ct. did not appropriately consider his troubled childhood, Dist. Ct. could choose to focus on defendant’s most recent six years of repeated crimes. Moreover, while Dist. Ct. filed 39-page sentencing memorandum that presented extensive data on violence in East St. Louis area, said memorandum did not support defendant’s claim that Dist. Ct. considered irrelevant issues when determining his sentence, where topics in memorandum supported Dist. Ct.’s claim regarding general need for crime deterrence.