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People v. Martinez, 2021 IL App (1st) 190490 Appellate Court THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Caption JOHN MARTINEZ, Defendant-Appellant. District & No. First District, Second Division No. 1-19-0490 Filed June 29, 2021 Decision Under Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County, No. 99-CR-6197; the Review Hon. Angela M. Petrone and the Hon. Marcus R. Salone, Judges, presiding. Judgment Reversed and remanded. Counsel on Joshua Tepfer, Karl Leonard, and Debra Loevy, of The Exoneration Appeal Project at the University of Chicago Law School, of Chicago, for appellant. Kimberly M. Foxx, State’s Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, John E. Nowak, and Noah Montague, Assistant State’s Attorneys, of counsel), for the People. Panel JUSTICE LAVIN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion. Presiding Justice Fitzgerald Smith and Justice Cobbs concurred in the judgment and opinion. OPINION ¶1 On October 12, 1998, Daniel Garcia was severely beaten in an alley near Whipple Street and Armitage Avenue. He died two months later from cranial cerebral injuries. Defendant, John Martinez, was charged in this incident alongside codefendants, Jose Tinajero and Thomas Kelly. Following a bench trial, defendant was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison. ¶2 This appeal arises from the second-stage dismissal of defendant’s successive petition filed under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act (Act) (725 ILCS 5/122-1 et seq. (West 2012)). On appeal, defendant asserts the trial court erroneously dismissed his claims that (1) Detective Reynaldo Guevara’s manipulation of evidence violated his right to due process; (2) the State failed to disclose evidence of the detective’s misconduct, in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963); and (3) new evidence demonstrated his innocence. For the following reasons, we reverse and remand for an evidentiary hearing. ¶3 I. Background ¶4 A. Trial ¶5 To set the scene, we note there is no dispute that defendant was in the alley where Garcia was killed on the night he was killed. Rather, defendant disputes that he participated in the attack and claims that he came upon Garcia at the attack’s conclusion. ¶6 At trial, the State presented witnesses who were supposedly in the area of the attack and subsequently spoke with Detective Guevara. Those witnesses’ accounts at trial varied from their accounts memorialized by the police and the assistant state’s attorney. Additionally, three witnesses—Manuel Rodriguez (Manuel), his brother Esteban Rodriguez (Esteban), and Jesus Fuentes—demonstrably struggled with a language barrier while testifying, notwithstanding the assistance of an interpreter. Melloney Parker, who lived near the scene, professed to have a poor memory at the time of trial and expressly stated that she was relying on the accuracy of her prior statement, which was itself made months after the attack. These issues contributed to a somewhat laborious trial. ¶7 Manuel testified that one or two nights before the attack, Garcia asked Manuel to drive him to the area of Armitage Avenue and Whipple Street for the purported purpose of buying beer. When Rodriguez turned south on Whipple Street, Garcia told him to stop the car. Garcia exited, exchanged words with a heavyset black woman standing on the curb, and then followed her into the alley. Manuel then knew that Garcia was buying drugs, not beer. Garcia eventually ran out of the alley, got back in the car with cocaine, and told Manuel to “step on it.” ¶8 Fuentes testified that at about 1:30 a.m. on October 12, 1998, he and Esteban were drinking beer with Garcia. Fuentes had consumed three or four beers starting at about 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. Fuentes then drove Garcia, Esteban, and Fuentes’s six-year-old son to buy beer. When Fuentes’s van arrived at Albany Avenue and Armitage Avenue, Garcia exited the car and told Fuentes to wait there. Fuentes did not see where Garcia went. After about 15 minutes, Fuentes

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drove around looking for him. Specifically, Fuentes drove down Whipple Street and back to a spot near the place where Garcia told him to wait. ¶9 After 10 minutes, Fuentes circled a second time and saw five or six young men, about 40 feet away, playfully shoving each other in the alley by Whipple Street. Four of them had short hair. The area was lit by streetlight, and a van was parked 10 to 15 feet from where the group was standing. Fuentes was able to see the faces of the men who faced his direction. Although Fuentes apparently made an in-court identification of defendant and codefendants as members of that group, the attorneys did not make a clear record of that identification at trial. ^[1] Fuentes testified that it “[s]eems like” defendant was one of the two men he saw wearing sweatshirts. Fuentes did not see Garcia, however, and circled a third time. ¶ 10 About 30 minutes after Garcia had first exited Fuentes’s car, Fuentes saw a young man lying facedown where the group of men had been. That man proved to be Garcia, who was unconscious. When Esteban was unable to get Garcia into the car, he and his companions left to tell Garcia’s family about the situation. In addition, Fuentes flagged down a police car, but the language barrier prevented him from obtaining assistance. Fuentes testified that he never saw anyone hit or push Garcia. ¶ 11 Esteban substantially corroborated Fuentes’s trial account. Additionally, he identified defendant and codefendants as having been with the group playing, pushing, and kicking each other in the alley. Esteban also testified, however, that he “was not able to see it very well.” Esteban could not say what defendant was wearing that night or describe whether he had any facial hair because he was too far away. ¶ 12 Margarita Casiano lived in the area and bought drugs there daily. She testified that she saw defendant, codefendants, and “Rabbit,” apparently referring to Angel Serrano, in the alley on October 13 or 14, which we observe was not the date of the attack. We also note that Serrano was interviewed but not charged in this case. After Garcia died, Manuel, Esteban, Fuentes, and Casiano all spoke with Detective Guevara. ¶ 13 During his testimony Detective Guevara acknowledged that his report did not reflect that Esteban or Fuentes said a group of four or five guys were playing in the alley. Yet, Esteban testified that he had relayed similar information to Detective Guevara at some point. Additionally, Detective Guevara ultimately testified that he interviewed Fuentes only once and that Fuentes never described anyone he saw on the night of the beating. Curiously, Fuentes testified that while he and Esteban initially did not describe anyone in order to avoid trouble, they subsequently described the men they had seen when Detective Guevara drove them to the scene on the night they were interviewed. The detective did not recall whether he drove them to the scene. ¶ 14 According to Detective Guevara, when he interviewed Esteban again in February 1999, Esteban relayed the same information that he had testified to in court. Esteban also told Detective Guevara at that interview, however, that four people at the mouth of the alley started yelling and throwing bottles at them as Esteban tried to get Garcia into Fuentes’s car. During his testimony, Esteban denied telling Detective Guevara this. Fuentes similarly testified that no one chased his van or threw bottles at it. ¶ 15 Detective Guevara testified that on February 23, 1999, Fuentes and Esteban identified three

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individuals, apparently defendant and codefendants. According to Fuentes, he never told Detective Guevara that he saw those individuals actually hit Garcia. Furthermore, Fuentes testified that Detective Guevara stayed outside the lineup room and Esteban testified that the detective did not help him identify anyone. Although Detective Guevara had given Esteban a ride to view the lineup, Esteban denied that they discussed the case en route to the station. ¶ 16 The State’s key witness was Parker, who lived in a third-floor apartment near Whipple Street and Armitage Avenue on October 12, 1998. Her living room window overlooked Whipple Street, and she had an unobstructed view of the alley, notwithstanding a tree that was in front of her window. Based on what she saw from her window that night, she made an anonymous call to 911. She ultimately encountered Detective Guevara, who was present when she signed a written statement. ¶ 17 Before reciting the substance of Parker’s testimony about the night Garcia was attacked, we reiterate that she provided certain details that conflicted with her written statement or was otherwise unable to recall details. In those instances, she repeated that her memory was better at the time of her statement. Furthermore, she knew the statement was accurate because she signed it and she had been “very sure” of her observations at that time. Yet, she testified that “as of today, I am not sure. It’s not vivid in my head.” ¶ 18 Parker testified that at about 1:55 a.m. on the night in question, she woke up and noticed six or seven young men in various places in the alley. She saw two of their faces. In court, Parker identified defendant and codefendant Kelly as having been part of the group. In contrast, during a previous lineup, Parker had identified defendant and codefendant Tinajero but not codefendant Kelly. Parker later acknowledged while testifying that codefendants looked so much alike that she could not now tell them apart. Parker further testified that while she did not socialize with defendant, she had seen him in the area before. ¶ 19 According to Parker’s testimony, the young men in the alley appeared to be making drug transactions. When a Hispanic man walked through the alley, someone asked, “Where’s my money?” Parker testified that she was unable to determine who asked that question but later acknowledged that her statement said codefendant Tinajero had done so. Parker also testified that, in the parking lot adjacent to the alley, the same man hit the Hispanic man, apparently referring to Garcia. ^[2] Others then joined in the attack. ¶ 20 While the men fought, Parker could only see the backs of their heads. She later acknowledged that although there was artificial lighting, the distance, darkness, and similar appearances of the men contributed to her difficulty seeing faces. When asked if the brevity of the incident contributed to that inability, she answered, “I guess it did; I don’t know.” ¶ 21 Parker added that “[e]veryone jumped in at one point.” “Q. So, as you sit here today, you cannot tell us for sure that this man here, John Martinez, was actually hitting, correct? A. I can’t say that because I saw everyone outside join in hitting the guy. Q. But you can’t specifically— A. He was one of the guys.” In contrast, Parker’s prior statement said that she “saw some other male Hispanics who had been in the alley surround Garcia as Garcia lay on the ground.” (Emphasis added.)

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Furthermore, Parker’s statement explicitly said that defendant was one of the men she saw punch Garcia, but Parker testified that she did not remember telling the police that. ¶ 22 After the initial fight, one person left to make a transaction and then returned to kicking the victim. This happened twice. The same person said he was “getting out of there.” The statement identified this person as codefendant Tinajero, although Parker could not identify that person in court. Her statement added that at some point, some of the men yelled at codefendant Tinajero to stop, but he carried on. Parker’s statement further alleged that during the attack, codefendant Tinajero struck two different vans with a chair after speaking to their occupants. When codefendant Tinajero left, the others left too. ¶ 23 At about 10:30 p.m. on January 24, 1999, police came to Parker’s apartment and showed her photos. Parker first testified that she did not recognize anyone at that time but subsequently testified that she had identified codefendant Tinajero’s photo. When asked whether she saw the person she had identified that night in the courtroom, she testified, “It look like it might be one of them right here; I am not for sure now that you have the-picture right here in front of my face.” She had been sure, however, on the night she picked out that photo. ¶ 24 Parker testified that she subsequently identified two or three people from a lineup on February 3. With respect to their role in the beating, she testified, “I believe they took part in it, yes.” She denied that it was difficult to pick out individuals in the lineup because the offenders were Hispanic and looked similar. When she saw defendant in the lineup, she recognized him not only from seeing him at the scene that night but from seeing him other times. ¶ 25 Parker testified that she provided a handwritten statement on February 8, 1999. Assistant State’s Attorney (ASA) Jacob Rubinstein wrote the statement, and Parker read and signed it. Yet, when asked if she had signed exhibit C, a photo of defendant, Parker testified, “I never saw the defendant’s face.” She later testified that when she gave her written statement, she identified the people whom she had seen. “Q. What you said in the statement about John Martinez, you are not sure today that it’s *** 100 percent accurate because you don’t remember what you said that night, right? A. Correct. I remember probably 50 percent.” ¶ 26 Parker acknowledged feeling that she had been at the police station too long on the night of her statement. “Q. So, as the State’s Attorney was asking you these questions, at some point in time, did you kind of just go along with it because you wanted to get out of there, too? A. Probably so, yes. Q. And so you signed it and initialed it where they told you to sign it and initial it because you wanted to go home, right? A. Correct.” Parker later testified that she signed the statement because it was correct, not simply because she had been there too long. When asked whether she believed the statement was true because she did not want to be charged with perjury, she answered, “No, I don’t.” Her statement also alleged that no promises or threats had been made. ¶ 27 Detective Guevara testified that he interviewed Parker at her apartment and showed her a photo array at about 8:30 p.m. on January 24, 1999. She identified a photo of codefendant

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Tinajero. The detective returned to Parker’s apartment with more photos on February 6, 1999, but he did not show them to her because “she did not want to cooperate at that time.” At about 9:15 p.m. on February 8, 1999, Detective Guevara returned to Parker’s home and asked her to come to Area 5 to view a lineup. On either February 6 or February 8, the detective told her he had identified the possible offenders. Detective Guevara further testified that he spoke to Parker before the lineup. She was very cooperative and did not act like she wanted to leave. ¶ 28 Detective Guevara testified that from a lineup of 10 or 11 people, Parker identified defendant and codefendant Tinajero but not codefendant Kelly. Parker and Detective Guevara were alone in the lineup room. Afterward, Parker spoke to ASA Rubinstein, who took a handwritten statement. ASA Rubinstein, Parker, and Detective Guevara signed the statement and the attached photos of defendant, codefendant Tinajero, and Garcia. ¶ 29 ASA Rubinstein testified that on February 9, 1999, after he had taken Parker’s statement, he spoke with defendant in the presence of Detective Troche for 45 minutes. ASA Rubinstein did not tell defendant that he intended to charge him or that he was in trouble. No one asked him if he would rather act as a witness in this case. At one point, the detective left the room and ASA Rubinstein asked defendant how he had been treated. Defendant said he felt well, was treated fine, had enough food to eat, and was permitted to use the bathroom. At around 6:45 p.m., ASA Rubinstein wrote defendant’s statement as the two men conversed, and they finished at about 8:15 p.m. Defendant read part of the statement to demonstrate that he could read English. ¶ 30 According to defendant’s statement, he arrived at Whipple Street and Armitage Avenue, the Latin Kings’ territory, at about 1 a.m. on October 12, 1998. The Latin Kings sold drugs on that block, and some Latin Kings were already present, including codefendant Tinajero, codefendant Kelly, and Serrano. While defendant was walking around, he heard men’s voices and went to the alley, where he saw Garcia, lying facedown on the ground. Several Latin Kings surrounded Garcia. As defendant approached, he observed blood around Garcia’s head. Someone said that Garcia belonged to a rival gang. We note that no evidence showed defendant did belong to a gang. ¶ 31 The statement said that because Garcia was a rival gang member, defendant gave him “a hard kick” to the side of his ribs. He kicked Garcia a second time, although not as hard, to tell him to get out of the area. When defendant used his foot to roll Garcia over, defendant heard “a sucking sound,” as though Garcia was struggling to breath. Defendant now saw that Garcia’s face was bloody and beaten, and he left the scene. According to the statement, ASA Rubinstein and the police had treated him well. “Defendant has been given pop to drink, chips and salsa to eat and was offered other food to eat.” At the time of his statement, defendant had been in police custody for two days. ¶ 32 Defendant testified that on the night in question, he was talking to a girl who lived on Whipple Street when he heard yelling and walked to the alley. He saw a man facedown on the ground behind a silver van and saw codefendant Tinajero walk away from him. Defendant approached the man, nudged him once with his foot, and turned him over but did not recognize him. The man’s face was smashed in, and he was having trouble breathing. Defendant testified, “[a]nd I’m like man, I’m out of here.” He did not get help because he wanted to distance himself from the situation. He did not see codefendant Kelly or Serrano in the immediate vicinity, although they were “on the block.” ¶ 33 According to defendant, he was brought to Area 5 at about 7:30 p.m. or 8 p.m. on February

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8, 1999. Detective Guevara aggressively questioned him and yelled at him for about 10 minutes. He then switched places with Detective Troche, who did more of the same. Defendant told the police what he had seen and denied saying that he gave the victim a hard kick. In addition, defendant spent two days in a windowless room before signing a statement. During that time, he ate a bag of chips, as well as chips and salsa. He was not offered other food to eat. He denied being given soda and testified that he drank water from the faucet when he used the restroom. During this period, people kept coming in and out of the room, preventing him from sleeping. ¶ 34 Eventually, Detective Troche told him that an assistant state’s attorney was coming to talk to him and that defendant would go home after he signed some papers. He told defendant not to worry because he had not killed anyone. Because defendant had only nudged the victim with his foot, he would be used as a witness against codefendant Tinajero. ¶ 35 ASA Rubinstein questioned him in the early morning hours of February 9 without writing anything down. Defendant denied telling ASA Rubinstein that someone told him the victim belonged to a rival gang or that he gave the victim a hard kick. Additionally, defendant told ASA Rubinstein that there was one Latin King standing by the victim, not multiple Latin Kings. Defendant further denied that ASA Rubinstein wrote the statement in front of him or that defendant had read part of the statement. Rather, defendant did not read English well and signed the statement without reading it. ¶ 36 The parties stipulated that Detective Troche would deny telling defendant that he would be able to go home if he signed something. Detective Troche would also testify that defendant slept the night away in his room and was fed. ¶ 37 The trial court found defendant guilty of first degree murder. The court found there was “considerable question” as to the accuracy of Esteban’s testimony and Fuentes’s testimony. Yet, “I believe that we can discount the testimony of Mr. Rodriguez without causing any challenge to the accuracy of the testimony of Miss Melanie Parker.” While Parker was uncertain about details at trial, “[s]he was certain and unequivocal that her recollection which was reduced to writing was an accurate one.” Her reluctance to merely “go off the paper” heightened her credibility. The court acknowledged defendant’s testimony that he played a minimal role in what transpired” but found that “that is not the recollection of Miss Parker.” 3

¶ 38 B. Posttrial Proceedings ¶ 39 Defendant moved for a new trial based on new information regarding Parker. At a hearing on the motion, Parker testified that there was an active warrant for her arrest for the possession of stolen property at the time the police interviewed her regarding Garcia’s murder. When police officers, including Detective Guevara, came to her house, they knocked on her door and displayed a warrant accompanied by her photo. The detectives said they wanted her to look at photos and took her to the police station, where she was placed in an interview room with the door closed. The police did not tell her she was under arrest. ¶ 40 Parker testified that Detective Guevara made no threats with respect to the warrant but told her that the warrant would be quashed if she looked at pictures and identified the men she saw at the scene. She proceeded to identify photographs of people she saw there. The police

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identified the victim’s photograph for her, however, as she had not seen him. Parker testified that she identified defendant based on what she had seen, not based on the threat of arrest. When the police pulled her car over a year later, she learned that the arrest warrant was still active. ¶ 41 The trial court denied defendant’s motion, finding that she had “not equivocated from her identification of Mr. Martinez as one of the attackers.” Additionally, Parker’s “testimony implicates Mr. Martinez to a greater extent than the statement of Mr. Martinez.” The court subsequently sentenced defendant to 25 years in prison for first degree murder.

¶ 42 C. Direct Appeal ¶ 43 On direct appeal, we affirmed the trial court’s judgment, rejecting defendant’s assertion that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction. We also rejected his assertions that the trial court erroneously admitted Parker’s written statement as substantive evidence, that the State improperly admitted his written statement after it rested its case-in-chief, and that trial counsel was ineffective for not moving to suppress his inculpatory statement. People v. Martinez, 348 Ill. App. 3d 521 (2004). 4

¶ 44 D. Postconviction ¶ 45 Defendant filed his first postconviction petition under the Act on April 1, 2006. That petition is missing from the trial court’s file and, in turn, our record on appeal. The trial court summarily dismissed that petition on April 17, 2006. ¶ 46 In 2013, defendant commenced these proceedings by filing a successive postconviction petition, which survived to the second stage. Defendant, through the Exoneration Project, filed an amended petition and supplemental petitions. He asserted that evidence of Detective Guevara’s pattern and practice of engaging in investigative misconduct, including improperly influencing eyewitness identifications, would have led to a different result at trial. Additionally, the State failed to disclose such evidence, in violation of Brady. This evidence alongside new expert testimony regarding witness identification demonstrated his actual innocence. ¶ 47 Defendant provided thousands of pages in exhibits, some of which involved misconduct in other cases and some of which were specific to this case. Defendant’s evidentiary sources for Detective Guevara’s misconduct included allegations made by a police officer as well as FBI reports, citizens’ affidavits or testimony, Office of Profession Standards (OPS) documents, and judicial decisions. In a report commissioned by the City of Chicago, attorney Scott Lassar provided evidence substantiating many citizens’ complaints about the detective’s misconduct. Detective Guevara also invoked the fifth amendment when asked questions about manipulating dozens of witnesses to make false identifications. Given the staggering breadth of the materials regarding Detective Guevara’s involvement in other cases, we succinctly state that those materials reflected a penchant for manipulating witness identification. Many of his victims were eventually exonerated.

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¶ 48 Pertinent to Garcia’s murder, Detective Guevara was questioned at length about this investigation while testifying in an unrelated case. He repeatedly invoked the fifth amendment when asked about his conduct with respect to Esteban, Fuentes, Casiano, Parker, and defendant himself. Former assistant public defender James Saltouros submitted an affidavit placing doubt upon a police report that said he was present for a lineup in this case. While he did not specifically recall this case, he had only ever attended one lineup. Moreover, defendant’s trial attorney, John Deleon, submitted an affidavit stating that at trial, he had believed that Detective Guevara improperly influenced Parker’s identification and testimony, not to mention evidence provided by other witnesses, and that he would have used information of the detective’s other misdeeds to impeach his credibility. ¶ 49 Eladio Valdez, an investigator for the Exoneration Project, provided an affidavit alleging that when he and defense counsel spoke with Parker on August 5, 2016, she said that she could not make out the offenders’ faces during the attack. Parker also said that when Detective Guevara came to her home in February 1999, he told her she had to accompany him to the police station because of the arrest warrant and that, if she provided the information he wanted, he would take care of the warrant. In addition, Parker said that when she viewed the lineup, Detective Guevara told her that the offenders who beat Garcia were present and “that they knew they had the right people because they had searched their apartments and found bloody boots that they had used to stomp the victim.” We observe that no trial evidence showed that the police recovered bloody boots. Moreover, Parker stated that she “did not know if John Martinez participated in the beating.” She identified him in the lineup because she saw him in the alley. She believed Detective Guevara would have her arrested if she did not identify anyone. ¶ 50 Valdez and defense counsel returned to Parker’s home later that month and asked her to sign an affidavit setting forth what she previously told them. She responded that they might be able to “tell her what to say” if they showed her “dollar signs” or “treated her to lunch.” ¶ 51 Dr. Geoffrey R. Loftus’s report discussed the dangers of reconstructed memories, lineups containing multiple suspects, and the absence of double-blind lineup procedures. Additionally, he found that unconscious transference, which occurs when the witness identifies a suspect whom she has seen before due to mere familiarity, may have impacted Parker’s identification. He discussed the negative impact of distance and darkness as well as the limitations of streetlights, which are dim by design. He further explained the limitations of cross-racial identification. Moreover, confidence was not an accurate indicator of accuracy. ¶ 52 Dr. Loftus explained that eyewitness experts should not judge whether a particular witness’s memory is correct but should provide information about the scientific bases of perception and memory. The trier of fact can use this information to assess an eyewitness’s reliability. While Dr. Loftus did not opine as to whether Parker’s identification was correct, he found it was “highly questionable” whether someone in her position would have focused on the various offenders’ appearances. As for the lineup identification, her memory that she saw defendant act as an assailant would have been poor at best. ¶ 53 The State filed a motion to dismiss, primarily arguing that defendant had not shown how “a litany of examples of misconduct by Guevara from other dissimilar cases” was relevant to his own case, where there was no claim of specific misconduct. Furthermore, Brady did not require the State to disclose information regarding unrelated cases that only individual police officers knew about “where the nexus between the other cases of alleged misconduct and

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petitioner’s case was not known until years after petitioner’s trial.” In response, defendant argued that Detective Guevara provided evidence of misconduct in this case when he invoked the fifth amendment. ¶ 54 The trial court granted the State’s motion to dismiss, finding that defendant failed to provide an affidavit from anyone alleging coercion by Detective Guevara in this case. In addition, defendant testified that he gave his statement because of Detective Troche’s representations, not those of Detective Guevara, and a police report showed that Detective Guevara was off duty at the time of defendant’s statement. Furthermore, Detective Guevara had compelling, defensible reasons to invoke the fifth amendment, negating an adverse inference therefrom, because (1) he was being deposed in a different case when asked about the Garcia investigation and (2) “the questions which he was asked have never been allegations which have ever been made by any of the persons involved.” Moreover, Investigator Valdez’s hearsay evidence about Parker’s new representations was insufficient and Saltouros’s denial of witnessing a lineup was irrelevant, as he did not specifically remember this case. ¶ 55 The court found that “absent a specific claim of misconduct by Guevara in this case,” defendant’s due process claim failed. In addition, the State did not violate Brady by failing to disclose evidence of the detective’s misdeeds because if defendant could not have discovered such evidence before trial, the State could not have either. Defendant’s actual innocence claim failed for reasons similar to those defeating his due process claim and because Dr. Loftus’s report was rife with improper personal opinions. Defendant now appeals.

¶ 56 II. Analysis ¶ 57 At the second stage of proceedings under the Act, a defendant must make a substantial showing of a constitutional violation. People v. Domagala, 2013 IL 113688, ¶ 33. This showing is greater than that required to obtain leave to file a successive petition. People v. Robinson, 2020 IL 123849, ¶ 43. In addition, the State may file a motion to dismiss or an answer to the petition. People v. Dupree, 2018 IL 122307, ¶ 28. Yet, courts must take all well- pleaded allegations as true, unless positively rebutted by the trial record. People v. Sanders, 2016 IL 118123, ¶ 42. If a defendant satisfies his burden of making a substantial showing, he is entitled to an evidentiary hearing, at which the trial court will assess the credibility and weight of the evidence and resolve any conflicts in the evidence. Domagala, 2013 IL 113688, ¶¶ 34-35. ¶ 58 Evidentiary questions are not to be resolved at the second stage, however. Id. ¶ 35. The second stage does not call for fact-finding or credibility determinations. Dupree, 2018 IL 122307, ¶ 29. Instead, the substantial showing required “is a measure of the legal sufficiency of the petition’s well-pled allegations of a constitutional violation, which if proven at an evidentiary hearing, would entitle petitioner to relief.” (Emphasis in original.) Domagala, 2013 IL 113688, ¶ 35. Dismissal is warranted only when the petition’s factual allegations, liberally construed in the defendant’s favor and in light of the trial record, fail to make a substantial showing that a constitutional violation occurred. People v. Coleman, 183 Ill. 2d 366, 382 (1998). We review the second-stage dismissal of a petition de novo. Dupree, 2018 IL 122307, ¶ 29.