Summary
The Illinois Appellate Court, Second District, reviewed Dion R. Holmes’s convictions for unlawful possession of cannabis by a driver and criminal damage to property. The court held that the trial court improperly admitted or permitted surrogate testimony concerning a forensic laboratory report after the report’s author died and failed to adequately remedy the State’s late disclosure of the surrogate expert. It reversed the cannabis-possession conviction and remanded for a new trial on that charge, while affirming the criminal-damage conviction.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether admitting the forensic laboratory report under the business-records hearsay exception violated the confrontation clause.
- Whether allowing surrogate expert Rhonda Earl to testify to the deceased analyst's testing and conclusions violated the confrontation clause.
- Whether the State's late disclosure of Earl required exclusion of her testimony or another discovery sanction.
- Whether the confrontation-clause violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove criminal damage to property.
- Whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to move to suppress evidence from the traffic stop.
- Whether the jury was improperly instructed on unlawful possession of cannabis by a driver.
- Whether retrial on the cannabis charge was barred by double jeopardy.
Holdings
- A forensic laboratory report prepared to establish that material seized from a targeted defendant was cannabis was testimonial. The State violated the confrontation clause by introducing the report and presenting its conclusions through a surrogate analyst who did not perform or observe the testing and whose opinion depended on the truth of the deceased analyst's statements.
- The confrontation-clause violation was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
- The evidence was sufficient to support Holmes's conviction for criminal damage to property based on his urination on the police-station furnace and resulting urine contamination.
- A new trial on the unlawful-possession-of-cannabis-by-a-driver charge was permissible because reversal rested on trial error rather than evidentiary insufficiency.
Key quotations
“A State may not introduce the testimonial out-of-court statements of a forensic analyst at trial, unless she is unavailable and the defendant has had a prior chance to cross-examine her.” (¶ 121)
“Presenting Earl as an expert and admitting Skelcy’s laboratory report under the business records exception to the hearsay rule were simply attempts by the State to circumvent the protections afforded by the confrontation clause.” (¶ 136)
“Based on our conclusion that defendant’s rights under the confrontation clause were violated and that this error was not harmless, we reverse defendant’s conviction of unlawful possession of cannabis by a driver.” (¶ 148)
Factual background
Near midnight on January 8, 2020, a police officer stopped Holmes's vehicle after observing what appeared to be an inoperative headlight or parking lights. The officer smelled cannabis, saw an open liquor bottle, and recovered a plastic bag containing suspected cannabis after Holmes said he had a blunt. At the police station, Holmes urinated on a furnace, resulting in the criminal-damage charge. The forensic scientist who tested the substance and prepared the laboratory report later died, and the State presented peer reviewer Rhonda Earl as a surrogate expert.
Procedural history
Holmes was charged in the Circuit Court of Kane County with several traffic, DUI, cannabis-possession, and criminal-damage offenses. A jury acquitted him of DUI, convicted him of unlawful possession of cannabis by a driver and criminal damage to property, and the trial court imposed concurrent 12-month periods of court supervision with fines. Holmes appealed, challenging the forensic evidence, late disclosure of the surrogate expert, sufficiency of the criminal-damage evidence, ineffective assistance concerning a traffic-stop suppression motion, and the jury instruction.
Remand instructions
Reverse the conviction for unlawful possession of cannabis by a driver and remand for a new trial on that charge. Affirm the conviction for criminal damage to property.