Two sets of victims
Monday, Sep 16, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* At first glance, I, like Eric Zorn, was somewhat puzzled about this story…
Gov. Pat Quinn has asked the director of a state commission vetting allegations of police torture to step down amid complaints from victims’ families that the commission violated Illinois law by excluding them from the process.
Quinn said in a letter released Wednesday that he had asked David Thomas to resign from the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission immediately, “and if he does not do so the commission should remove him.”
While the commission’s assignment to look for possibly torture-induced confessions was critical, “it is just as critical … to hear from the families of the murdered victims,” Quinn stated in the letter, which was addressed to Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, who had written to the governor expressing concerns about the treatment of victims’ families.
* Zorn…
What possible information, let alone relevant information, could the family members of crime victims have to offer a panel exploring the narrow and preliminary issue of whether the suspect or suspects in the related crime were tortured while in police custody?
How could it possibly be useful — never mind “critical” — to hear from them at such a stage in the review process? […]
(W)hat “input” could victims’ families possibly offer when it comes to legal determinations about investigatory/procedural matters to which they were not witnesses?
The alleged “victim” here is actually the person who may have been tortured. The original “victims” wouldn’t have any knowledge of that.
* But Chuck Goudie’s I-Team also jumped into the fray…
“We are outraged and we think the people of Illinois would be outraged if they knew what we know,” said Joe Heinrich, murder victim’s brother.
What Joe Heinrich says he knows started precisely thirty years and two weeks ago, in 1983. His sister JoEllen Pueschel and her husband Dean were savagely killed in their West Rogers Park apartment. Son Ricky saw it. The then-11-year old was left for dead, but survived and testified against Jerry Mahaffey and his brother Reginald. Ricky is now 41 years old.
“Without question they are the ones who swung the bats, they are the ones who grabbed the gun, the ones who stabbed the knives. They are the ones who did unthinkable things to my mother,” said Rick Pueschel, attack survivor.
Murder-con Jerry Mahaffey claims he was tortured into confessing under the regime of notorious police commander Jon Burge. When Mahaffey asked the new Illinois torture commission to review his case, under state law, the victims’ family members were to be notified. But they never were.
* From the state law…
The 2009 law establishing the commission states that in cases where evidence of torture is found, the director “shall use all due diligence to notify the victim and explain the inquiry process,” and notify victims of their “right to present his or her views and concerns throughout the … investigation.”
So, the commission screwed up and didn’t follow the law.
* Then again, Zorn quotes DePaul College of Law professor Len Cavise, a member of the commission…
The work of the Commission has absolutely nothing to do with underlying guilt or innocence. We have no power whatsoever to retry the case or even to examine the weight of the evidence. Our statutory charge is solely to determine whether physical coercion led to a confession in the case. If we so find, the case is referred to the Chief Judge for further proceedings. At that point, our work is done. It is then up to the court to determine the relationship between the torture and the conviction…..
As much as we welcome the participation of the families of the victims of crime as well as the families of the victims of torture, most families have no personal knowledge as to whether or not the police tortured the defendant. I repeat we are only looking at torture, not the underlying case. The underlying case is an inquiry for the courts and we are not a court.
OK, I get all that, but state law is state law. I don’t remember the details, but I’m betting the bill was crafted in a way to make sure it could pass, and that meant making sure the original victims were notified. The commission dropped the ball.
It’s possible, even probable, that Burge and his thugs used torture to “frame” guilty men. While admittedly irrelevant to the commission’s mission, the original victims still have a right to be heard.
Your thoughts?
- wordslinger - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 10:07 am:
What’s the problem with following the law? Notification is hardly a burden.
- 47th Ward - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 10:11 am:
The excerpt of the law says that families of victims must be notified “where evidence or torture is found.” Any defendant that came into contact with Jon Burge is likely to be filing claims of torture. An allegation of torture isn’t evidence.
My reading is that the commission, if it finds evidence of torture, refers these cases back to the Chief Judge for further review. That would seem to be the time for the families of victimes of the underlying crime to be notified and that would be the point where their testimony would be most relevant.
- anonymous - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 10:14 am:
The problem is that although someone did in fact screw up the notification, this “controversy” stinks of another Anita Alvarez witchhunt - trademark obfuscating the real question (was there torture) with mostly-manufactured outrage.
- Just Observing - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 10:24 am:
The law seemingly not only speaks to notification but specifically points to allowing victims (which can include family members) to present their views. So, if the law is “bad” change the law, but don’t purposely ignore it.
Family members who have taken a significant interest in the case of their loved ones, may have something substantial contribute based on their own study and investigations.
- Formerly Known As... - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 10:58 am:
Any time Anita Alvarez’s name is associated with anything, there is cause to be dubious.
Regardless, how hard is it for this commission to do their one job properly? Get it right or let’s get someone in there who can.
- MrJM - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 10:58 am:
Exactly this.
– MrJM
- sideline watcher - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 11:03 am:
I am confused as to what is the confusion. Quinn will always jump on some faux populist thing….but it appears that the “victims” referred to in this state law are the victims of torture by law enforcement. Under what possible circumstance would the victim of the original crime ever be sympathetic to the criminal in question. As unsettling as it is, we can not be like third world countries torturing people to get confessions. Again, this isn’t about the underlying guilt or innocence of the person in question. This is about whether we in this country sanction the torture of anyone.
- Wensicia - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 11:04 am:
I agree with 47th.
- walkinfool - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 11:16 am:
47th Ward and the judge are correct. The commission did exactly what it should have. Quinn is making a mistake.
- The Fox - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 11:38 am:
Skipping over the David Thompson brouhaha let’s get something straight. Shyster lawyers dazzled by huge payoffs and thumb-sucking reporters notwithstanding, coercion in obtaining a confession should not trump unassailable evidence and post trial appeals.
- Amalia - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 11:43 am:
yep, the victims are all too often forgotten. the law was violated. consequences for violation.
- Precinct Captain - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 12:35 pm:
“it is just as critical … to hear from the families of the murdered victims”
It is actually not critical to hear from murder victims at all in this process. This is about police torture. Yes, many people tortured by police (almost always torture motivated by racism in Illinois) are guilty of the underlying crimes, but that in no way gives carte blanche for police officers to violate the United States Constitution and human rights. The idea that just because you are a murderer or some other type of violent criminal you have no rights and no right to complain about violence inflicted on you is ridiculous. One reason it is ridiculous is because inflicting more violence solves nothing and another is because actually hinders the ability to prove guilt in a court of law. This type of emotionally-driven garbage serves to help no one. It fools the so-called ‘real victims’ into believing shoddy and illegal police work actually put some in prison for a crime when in reality it just serves to raise more questions about the basic integrity of an investigation. Why take on a big, mostly-white and middle-class bureaucracy that may have screwed the pooch when you can blame the usually poor, usually black guy? That big bureaucracy, the police, will go along with you and so will the media and then you can get “closure.”
“Shyster lawyers dazzled by huge payoffs and thumb-sucking reporters notwithstanding, coercion in obtaining a confession should not trump unassailable evidence and post trial appeals.”
It is this type of attitude that perpetuates generations of violence and poor policing against often innocent victims and then victimizes other people (or re-victimizing them). There is no such thing as “unassailable evidence” when that evidence only comes to light as the result of an illegally coerced ‘confession.’
- Ghost - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 12:37 pm:
Do the menas justify the ends?
I do not mean to sound harsh or unsympathetic, but brinbing the victims into this analysis serves only the purpose of adding an emotional plea to approve of the torture if it was used. Otherwise they serve no purpose at this level. If we want to consider ignoring tortured confessions becuase of the nature of the crime and the surety that we got the correct individual, then why are we looking to see if confessions were developed by torture in the first place? If we say the ends does not justify the means, then we are not looking at guilt or innocence at this stage, just whether the invidual was tortured into a confession.
- anonymous - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 1:09 pm:
“coercion in obtaining a confession should not trump unassailable evidence and post trial appeals.”
Obviously spoken by a nonlawyer.
Coerced confessions are not supposed to ever be admissible.
“Unassailable evidence,” on the contrary, is always admissible, as long as it was obtained properly and meets basic evidentiary standards.
When people are coerced into confessing, and that is acknowledged/proven, and the confession is thrown out, the rest of the evidence against them does NOT just evaporate.
When cases are “spoiled” by disallowing all tortured evidence, that’s because the the tortured evidence was the ONLY or the FIRST evidence in the first place.
Those cases deserve to be spoiled. Or, rather, they deserve NOT to have been spoiled by the police/prosecutors in the first place, but once they have been spoiled, they’re done.
Go google “fruit of the poisonous tree” or something. We are supposed to let the rule of law run the courts, not mobs, vigilantes, and/or victims exacting the kind of justice they deem satisfying.
Otherwise we wouldn’t need courts.
- anonymous - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 1:21 pm:
The only *legitimate* interest of crime victims/relatives in a torture inquiry is to ensure that the torturers who are destroying, preventing, and papering-over the investigation and prosecution of violent crime perpetrators are exposed as spoilers, torturers, rulebreakers, shoddy investigators, shortcutters…and stopped.
Somehow that never seems to be Alvarez’s purpose in bringing up The Victiiiiims.
Wonder why.
- Jamie - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 1:32 pm:
Hang on a second…victims’ families have no voice? No say? Nothing to add?
I watched the goudie story twice. In the Goudie/I-Team story — the boy was a WITNESS to the crimes that the killers were convicted for. He was in the apartment the night the two men killed his father and sexually assaulted, then killed, his mother. And now, when the commission refers this case to a judge to consider a new trial….some here, and Zorn.. say this victim has no role in the process? He witnessed the crime (and although I dont know this to be true, i assume he testified as much at trial)..so torture or not, he knows who killed his parents. This is a long way of saing that maybe the commission should look at the whole case in considering whether torture claims rise to the level of sending them back for new trials. Seems to make sense, huh?
- charles in charge - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 2:07 pm:
–I am confused as to what is the confusion. Quinn will always jump on some faux populist thing….but it appears that the “victims” referred to in this state law are the victims of torture by law enforcement.–
Nice try. The law defines the term: “Victim” means the victim of the crime, or if the victim of the crime is deceased, the next of kin of the victim, which shall be the parent, spouse, child, or sibling of the deceased victim.
Good law or bad law, this commission apparently didn’t even use due diligence to TRY to contact victims, which is all the law required them to do. I’m not sure Thomas deserves to be defended here. If anything, the Commission’s failure to comply with a simple statutory requirement is likely to delay justice for victims of torture.
- Joan P. - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 3:47 pm:
It makes no sense whatsoever to require that the victim’s family be heard. It would be a rare case where they would have any information about whether or not a defendant’s confession was coerced.
- Demoralized - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 4:48 pm:
If it’s the law then the law should have been followed. But, I don’t see the relevance of the victim’s family testifying on whether a suspect was tortured. They don’t have anything useful to add to the inquiry.
- Juvenal - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 6:13 pm:
The Illinois Constitution protects the rights of murder victims and all other victims in the Bill of Rights.
This was not some minor technicality of some arcane statute that was breached.
- Rollo Tomasi - Monday, Sep 16, 13 @ 9:44 pm:
It’s possible, even probable, that Burge and his thugs used torture to “frame” guilty men. While admittedly irrelevant to the commission’s mission, the original victims still have a right to be heard.
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That’s a very interesting comment. I do remember that the FBI found that 100’s of people who said that Bruge mistreated them were found to be making false claims. He was retired and living out of state when they were arrested. But that does not excuse doing these things even to someone who is guilty.