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Fifth Division
June 29, 2001

No. 1-99-3478

JUSTICE GREIMAN delivered the opinion of the court:

Following a bench trial, the defendant, Otis Knight, was convicted of possession ofcocaine with intent to deliver. He was sentenced to six years in the Illinois Department ofCorrections. The principal witness for the State was Officer Roberto Miranda and it is histestimony that gives rise to the issue of whether the trial court properly excluded testimonyrevealing the exact location of Officer Miranda while he was conducting a surveillance ofdefendant.

Officer Miranda testified that on December 5, 1998, at approximately 6:45 p.m. he andhis partner were conducting a narcotics surveillance somewhere in the vicinity of 2910 WestFillmore in Chicago, Illinois. They received information that a man wearing dark sweatpants anda red jacket was selling narcotics somewhere in the area. While on foot, about 1,000 feet fromhis parked vehicle, Officer Miranda saw a man he identified in court as defendant standing on thesidewalk in front of 2910 West Fillmore. Officer Miranda testified that he was standingapproximately 50 feet away from defendant when a van pulled up to defendant. The passenger inthe van gave defendant an unknown amount of money. Officer Miranda stated that he could seethree-quarters of defendant's face and had a clear view of the passenger side of the van. OfficerMiranda did not use any type of visual aid while observing defendant.

After defendant took the money from the passenger in the van, Officer Miranda testifiedthat defendant turned around and walked toward a nearby flower pot where he reached in andpulled out a brown paper bag. Officer Miranda claimed that defendant removed an object frominside the bag, walked back to the passenger side of the van, and gave the object that he removedfrom the bag to the passenger. The van then drove away.

After viewing the transaction between defendant and the passenger of the van, OfficerMiranda and his partner walked back to their car and drove to 2910 West Fillmore. OfficerMiranda admitted that from the time he left the surveillance point to when he reached 2910 WestFillmore, which took approximately one to two minutes, he lost sight of the man who tenderedthe object to the passenger of the van. When Officer Miranda and his partner arrived at 2910West Fillmore, they exited their vehicle and approached defendant. Shortly thereafter, OfficerMiranda returned to the surveillance point and removed a brown paper bag from the flower pot. The brown paper bag contained five clear plastic bags. Inside these five clear bags, there was atotal of 125 smaller bags of a rock-like substance suspected to be crack cocaine. After findingthe contraband, Officer Miranda placed defendant under arrest. Officer Miranda admitted that atthe time he arrested defendant there were several bystanders nearby. No money or contrabandwas recovered from defendant.

Prior to arresting defendant, Officer Miranda had observed him for approximately fiveminutes and from his observation of defendant he could not recall what type of jacket he waswearing. However, Officer Miranda testified that defendant did fit the description of theindividual who was involved in the transaction with the passenger of the van.

The parties stipulated to the testimony of Jeffrey Buford, a forensic chemist associatedwith the Illinois State Police, who tested 80 of the 125 recovered bags. All 80 of the tested bagstested positive for the presence of 15.7 grams of cocaine.

Reverend Hazel Fort testified that she lives at 2918 West Fillmore and that her church islocated at 2916 West Fillmore. At the time of trial, Reverend Fort testified that she had knowndefendant for several months. Reverend Fort asserted that sometime after 3 p.m. on the day ofthe crime in question, defendant assisted her in unloading the church's van, which was parkedbetween 2916 and 2918 West Fillmore. According to Reverend Fort, she never saw defendantselling narcotics in the area on the day in question.

Yvette Young, defendant's girlfriend of four years at the time of the trial, testified that onthe day in question defendant helped Reverend Fort unload a van at approximately 4:30 p.m. According to Young, defendant helped Reverend Fort for about 15 minutes and was arrested afew minutes later. Young stated that she told the police that defendant was not selling drugs onthe day in question and that another man, with a jacket similar to defendant's, was selling drugsnearby.

Defendant testified that on the day in question he was standing in the vicinity of 2916 and2918 West Fillmore when Reverend Fort asked him to help unload a van filled with furniture forthe church. Defendant testified that he unloaded furniture for 45 minutes to an hour. After hefinished unloading furniture, he was walking down the street to Young's house when he wasstopped and searched by Officer Miranda while other officers retrieved the brown paper bag. Alighter and a box cutter were recovered from defendant. Defendant testified that he told thepolice he had not been selling drugs that day but that a man he knew as "D.C.," who wore a coatsimilar to his own, was in the area selling drugs.

On August 18, 1999, the court sentenced defendant to six years in the Illinois Departmentof Corrections for possession of cocaine with the intent to deliver. Defendant's sentence wasordered to run consecutively with his one-year sentence for his violation of probation. Defendantnow appeals the judgment and argues that the trial court violated the confrontation clause (U.S.Const., amend. VI) when it restricted defense counsel's cross-examination of Officer Miranda asto the exact location of his surveillance.

Defendant asserts that the trial court improperly precluded him from cross-examiningOfficer Miranda regarding the officer's exact point of surveillance. Specifically, defendantargues that since the State's case rested entirely on Officer Miranda's credibility and his ability toobserve the purported drug transaction, the trial court committed reversible error by undulyrestricting defense counsel's cross-examination of Officer Miranda regarding his vantage point atthe time of surveillance. The trial court allowed defense counsel to cross-examine OfficerMiranda regarding "his distance, the lighting, opportunity to observe, obstructions blocking hisview, and things of that nature without requiring the officer to disclose the exact location of thissurveillance." The trial court stated that, based on certain case law, Officer Miranda was notrequired to reveal the exact location of his surveillance point. Thus, the issue now before thecourt is whether the trial court violated defendant's rights under the sixth amendment'sconfrontation clause by prohibiting defense counsel from cross-examining Officer Miranda as tohis exact surveillance point. We conclude that defendant's rights under the sixth amendmentwere violated and, therefore, the instant matter is reversed and remanded.

The United States Supreme Court has held that a criminal defendant has the right toconfront the witnesses against him, including the right to cross-examine those witnesses. Cruz v.New York, 481 U.S. 186, 189, 95 L. Ed. 2d 162, 169, 107 S. Ct. 1714, 1717 (1987); U.S. Const.,amends. VI, XIV; Ill. Const. 1970, art. I,