2022 IL App (1st) 192509 No. 1-19-2509 Opinion filed March 9, 2022 THIRD DIVISION IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST DISTRICT THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ) Appeal from the Circuit Court ILLINOIS, ) of Cook County. ) Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ) v. ) No. 16 CR 18865 ) JAVION HARRIS, ) The Honorable ) Maura Slattery Boyle, and Defendant-Appellant. ) Stuart P. Katz, Judges, presiding. PRESIDING JUSTICE GORDON delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion. Justices McBride and Justice Ellis concurred in the judgment and opinion. OPINION ¶1 After a jury trial, defendant Javion Harris was convicted of the first degree murder of Yvonne Nelson and the attempted murder of James Clark. Defendant, who was 15 years old at the time of the offense, was sentenced to 29 years for the murder and 6 years for the attempted murder, for a total of 35 years with the Illinois Department of Corrections. The convictions stemmed from a shooting on May 20, 2016, shortly before 4 p.m., on South State Street in Chicago, in which the shooter was shooting at Clark while Nelson, a bystander, had just exited a nearby Starbucks. No. 1-19-2509 ¶2 On this direct appeal, defendant claims (1) that the juvenile court erred in transferring his case to adult criminal court, (2) that the trial court committed plain error where the evidence in the case was closely balanced and the court failed to comply with Illinois Supreme Court Rule 431(b) (eff. July 1, 2012), and (3) that the trial court erred in admitting certain hearsay statements under the course-of-investigation exception to the hearsay rule. The State concedes that the trial court failed to comply with Rule 431(b) but argues that the evidence in the case was not closely balanced and the claimed error was forfeited. ¶3 For the following reasons, we affirm. ¶4 BACKGROUND ¶5 The State’s evidence at trial established that, on May 20, 2016, at 3:53 p.m., a shooter opened fire on South State Street. Clark testified that the shooter was shooting at him. Although wounded, Clark survived, but Nelson, a bystander, did not. Nelson died shortly after the shooting from a single gunshot wound to the chest. ¶6 Videos obtained from street surveillance cameras recorded the shooting, as well as the shooter’s flight from the scene. Video footage established that the shooter wore a black hooded sweatshirt and entered a nearby apartment building less than a minute after the shooting. Teon Spencer, 1 a resident of the apartment building, testified that defendant was a friend of his and visited Teon that afternoon. The police later retrieved a black hooded sweatshirt from Teon’s bedroom and submitted it for forensic testing. The tests revealed that the cuffs of the sweatshirt contained gunshot residue and that the inside collar contained DNA that matched defendant’s DNA. Although the cuffs, collar, and front pocket of the sweatshirt contained DNA mixtures 1 Teon’s mother was also mentioned at trial. Since they share the same last name, we refer to …
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