People v. Jackson

Defendant, Melvin Jackson, was found guilty of the burglary of an automobile after a jury trial in the circuit court of Will County. Conviction was entered and he was sentenced to a five-year term of imprisonment. In this appeal, defendant takes issue with the trial court's denial of his pretrial motion to suppress, its denial of his motion for a mistrial for possible tainting of the jury, and its denial of his motion for a new trial on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. We affirm. Defendant was arrested in the afternoon of February 6, 1985, in the parking lot of a Bolingbrook shopping center. He was subsequently charged, together with Ricky Cotton and Donald King, with having entered a black 1978 Trans Am belonging to Susan Field with the intent to commit a theft. The circumstances leading up to defendant's arrest, as presented at the hearing on his motion to suppress, follow.