In a proceeding connected to allegedly corrupt cop Reynaldo Guevara, a judge vacated Thomas Sierra’s 1997 conviction in a gang-related slaying.
According to evidence presented by Mr. Sierra’s attorneys, Chicago Police detectives conducted biased lineups as they investigated the 1995 murder of Noel Andujar, who was fatally shot in Logan Square. One witness said that detectives prompted him to select a picture from a photo lineup; another witness testified that Mr. Guevara “pointed to a picture and told him to pick that person.” Earlier, in a 2013 hearing, Mr. Guevara asserted his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination when a lawyer asked him if he had framed Mr. Sierra. After reviewing the entire record, Illinois District Judge James Obbish said that Mr. Guevara’s testimony consisted largely of “bald-faced lies” and was not credible in any case. Based on all the factors, Cook County prosecutors said they would not re-try Mr. Sierra, who was recently paroled.
This case is the third murder conviction that Cook County judges have recently thrown out based on fabricated police evidence.
Questioning Lineups in Chicago Criminal Cases
Police lineups are staples of both TV criminal cases and the real ones in court. Generally, both live lineups and photo lineups are admissible. Despite their widespread use, there are some lingering questions about the reliability of these lineups. Some of them include:
- Memory Degradation Rate: Many jurors assume that memories fade slowly over time, but in fact, the so-called “forgetting curve” drops precipitously in the first 24 hours, almost as sharply over the next few hours, and after three or four days, recall is almost zero in many cases.
- Cross-Racial Identification: If a white person views 10 black men who are all about the same age, height, weight, and so on, all 10 will basically look alike to the witness. That is not a function of racial animus but rather of biology. The results are usually about the same even if the hypothetical white person has happily lived in a black neighborhood for many, many years.
- Suggestive Lineups: Most lineups are inherently suggestive, as many detectives essentially encourage the witness to “pick the guy out of the lineup.” Other prompts include stacked lineups and second-chance identifications (e.g. “are you sure it wasn’t Number Three?”)
One Supreme Court Justice famously called eyewitness identification in Illinois the most compelling and most unreliable bit of testimony that occurs in a criminal case.
Approaching Revocation/Resentencing Hearings in Chicago
Absent extraordinary circumstances like the ones in the above story, if a jury has already declared the defendant guilty and the only issue is something like reviewing a prison sentence or revoking probation, it is usually a mistake to re-try the case. Instead, an experienced attorney focuses on Eighth Amendment issues, such as cruel and unusual punishment, in these instances.
Note that there are two issues in Eighth Amendment proceedings. “Cruel” punishment may be something that is excessively long; “unusual” proceedings often involve using laws in the way that they are not normally used.
Connect with Assertive Lawyers
Improper police procedures often taint criminal prosecutions. For a confidential consultation with an experienced criminal law attorney in Schaumburg, contact Glasgow & Olsson.
(image courtesy of Aaron Mello)