GUILTY IL - Riley Fox, 3, Wilmington, 6 June 2004

[lisag]

And Lisa I, too, can state with 100% certainty that I am NOT SB.

Who is SB anyway? Obviously, if you thought I was SB, he or she must be equally as charming, delightful and intelligent as I am.

If you look through past threads, in the months after Rileys murder, you will see posts from her. I am sure many of her bad posts were deleted, though... She was banned and tried to re-register under a couple more different names. Everytime, she was busted and banned again.. She was Roxy 77 or something similar - and there was another name that escapes me now..
She then went on to another website, golfmom - you remember that, lol - and started bashing people here... The people there couldn't handle her either and she eventually went away. You joined shortly after and I think I made mention of your posts sometimes being similiar to hers...
WE all get sarcastic and such, but there is just something about your posts that remind me of hers...
So, yes, in many ways she was as equally charming, delightful and intelligant as you... And some days, you've got her beat...

 

[golfmom]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-hayes_27_bdjan27,0,4738192.story

A detective at the center of the Kevin Fox prosecution—which fell apart before Fox could be tried in the slaying of his daughter—also was a key figure in three other major cases that ended in acquittal, failed appellate review or collapsed before trial.

In three of the four cases, Will County Sheriff's Sgt. Edward Hayes, a 19-year department veteran, ended up the focus of federal civil lawsuits.

-----
Before the failures in the Fox and Operation Sleepover cases, defendants in two murder cases from the late 1990s went free. Hayes was a detective involved in both.

In a 1997 case, a Manhattan Township man acquitted of killing his wife claimed in a civil rights suit that Hayes withheld evidence and misled witnesses, prosecutors and a forensic pathologist. (Sound familiar?) A judge dismissed the allegations before trial, determining there was probable cause to arrest the defendant.

In a 1999 case, a man was set free after an appellate court overturned his murder conviction. The man alleged he had been beaten during his interrogation, and the court said Hayes and another detective who elicited his confession failed to prove the man was not.

----
Though Hayes' fellow officers back him in that case, the same cannot be said of his former colleagues from the Alsip Police Department in the mid-1980s. Hayes was fired in that village for allegedly hitting two men with a baton after they were subdued and handcuffed.

Working off duty as a security guard at a banquet hall, Hayes and another moonlighting officer in December 1986 broke up a fight and arrested two men who tried to interfere, court documents stated. While both men sat on the floor, handcuffed behind their backs, Hayes made vulgar insults and hit them with a baton, causing both to bleed, records stated.

One man needed eight stitches for a head wound, a police report stated.

"Uncontradicted evidence established [Hayes'] commission of a battery on two unarmed, handcuffed prisoners who were offering no resistance," the 3rd District Illinois Appellate Court ruled in upholding the firing.

 

[golfmom]

I don't know how I missed these tidbits reading through the article:

When Hayes fought his firing in court, then-Chief Warner Huston said Hayes was named in nine of Alsip's 26 "use-of-force" reports from 1984 to 1986.

..............

While the appeal was pending, Hayes in 1989 was hired by the Will County department by a previous sheriff. In his application, Hayes disclosed his firing in Alsip, Kaupas said. The sheriff might not have been aware of the issue, Kaupas added, saying he did not know about it until the Tribune brought it to his attention.

Hayes remains one of three supervising sergeants in the detective division.

 

[genecam]

I don't know how I missed these tidbits reading through the article:

When Hayes fought his firing in court, then-Chief Warner Huston said Hayes was named in nine of Alsip's 26 "use-of-force" reports from 1984 to 1986.

I liked this quote in the article the best. It's what I've been saying all along about Hayes and the other 5 detectives in the Fox case.

"Chief Huston stated there were 35 sworn officers and plaintiff's conduct here 'has no place in professional law enforcement,' " the unanimous appellate opinion said.

I'm not surprised that the professional standards in the Will County Sheriff's Office are so much lower than those of the Village of Alsip Police Department.

And Kaupas didn't know why Hayes was fired from Alsip until the Tribune told him. What a clueless wimp.

 

[genecam]

WE all get sarcastic and such, but there is just something about your posts that remind me of hers...
So, yes, in many ways she was as equally charming, delightful and intelligant as you... And some days, you've got her beat...

I suppose this is as close as I'll ever get to getting a compliment from you.:laugh:

 

[golfmom]

WC is lucky that all of this wasn't brought in to the civil trial. Sounds like the jury let WC off easy in light of Hayes history.

Kaupas said there is no proof of misconduct by Hayes. "How do you address something that never occurred?"​

Ironically, Hayes investigated something that never occurred and destroyed peoples lives, and spent the counties money during "Operation Sleepover." Which AGAIN was just before an ELECTION.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=4721863

November 2, 2006 -- Police raided seven hotels in the southwest suburbs Thursday in what police call a massive credit card theft operation.​

Just before the election occurred we were treated to news clips of swat teams descending on hotels and arresting those accused of scamming consumer credit cards. Unfortunately, the crime never occurred. The informant was peeved at the hotels for pressing charges on a $9,700 bill he skipped out on ... and concocted this whole bloody mess. Which Hayes fell for hook-line-and-sinker trying to make a "name" for himself. He investigated nothing and came away with t.v. time, arrests, and a swat team.

Our buddy Hal from the Trib outlines the unraveling here:

http://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2007_1st/Feb07_IDTheftDropped.html

It's disturbing is that Kaupas once again has stuck his head in the sand and denied even the possibility of any wrongdoing by Hayes. I suspect these, as mega-disastrous cases, are just the tip of the iceberg. Frankly, it's amazing that these have even risen to the surface considering how the Herald News protects WC officials and LE.

JMO

 

[golfmom]

When Hayes fought his firing in court, then-Chief Warner Huston said Hayes was named in nine of Alsip's 26 "use-of-force" reports from 1984 to 1986.

"Chief Huston stated there were 35 sworn officers and plaintiff's conduct here 'has no place in professional law enforcement,' " the unanimous appellate opinion said.

1. Over a two-year period there were 26 complaints and a total of 35 sworn officers. What is the average number of complaints per officer?
   
   26 Complaints divided by 35 sworn officers = .74 complaints average per officer during the two year period.
   
   
2. If an officer received nine of the 26 complaints, what percentage of complaints did he receive?
   
   The officer represented 35 percent of the complaints received by that department.

Bonus Essay Question: If one of the officers received nine of the 26 complaints what conclusion could you draw to and why? Extra points awarded for an illustration of a duck in a microwave.

 

[genecam]

Bonus Essay Question: If one of the officers received nine of the 26 complaints what conclusion could you draw to and why? Extra points awarded for an illustration of a duck in a microwave.

My stab at anwering the bonus:

26 total complaints minus 9 complaints against Hayes = 17 complaints against the rest of the officers

35 officers minus 1 (Hayes) = 34 other Alsip police officers

17 complaints divided by 34 officers = an average of 0.5 complaints per officer for all of the other Alsip police officers besides Hayes at that time, versus 9 complaints against Hayes.

If one were to do a statistical analysis of this situation, the norm would be an average of .74 complaints per officer (26/35). The other 34 officers were 32 percent BELOW the norm for average number of complaints per officer. And Hayes was 1,129% ABOVE the norm for the average number of complaints per officer during this time period.

That differential would be off the charts, but should have certainly raised a red flag for anyone considering hiring Hayes for another position in law enforcement (i.e., the Will County Sheriff). Especially since there was an Illinois Appellate Court opinion issued directly bearing on his conduct.

Yes, Will County was lucky that this didn't come out during the civil trial. However, it is another indicator that, if the county persists in the folly of appealing the decision, it is going nowhere, and will probably end up costing the people of Will County another 5 million dollars in addition to the $15.5 million judgment already against them. And the Operation Sleepover civil suits look like sure winners for the plaintiffs also.

And let's not forget three other civil suits possibly on the horizon against the Sheriff for two beatings by jail guards, and a rape in the jail while the guard on duty was looking the other way.

And 85,000 people voted for that turkey Kaupas in the last election. To quote a variant from the London Times headline about the last U.S. Presidential election - makes you wonder how 85,000 people can be so stupid.

Sorry I'm not a very good illustrator. I'll have to pass on the extra points for drawing a duck in a microwave.

 

[golfmom]

Sorry I'm not a very good illustrator. I'll have to pass on the extra points for drawing a duck in a microwave.

:clap: :clap: :clap: Maybe we can just play a round of ....

:woohoo: duck ... duck ... duck ... goose ! ! ! ! :woohoo:

 

[golfmom]

FYI: Other news sources are picking up the story on Hayes and I just saw it this morning on a local news report.

 

[genecam]

FYI: Other news sources are picking up the story on Hayes and I just saw it this morning on a local news report.

I saw it on the NBC Channel 5 Chicago 10 PM news last night (Sun 1-27).

Also, last night, I was watching the ID Channel, 48 hours hard evidence program. It was about the Stephanie Crowe murder case of 1998. It showed the Escondido, CA police interrogation of her brother and two of their friends for about 12-14 hours each and how the police elicited false confessions from two of the three. Also, there was DNA from Stephanie on the clothes of a stranger who, ultimately was convicted of her murder.

There were startling similiarities to the Fox case - 14 hour interrogation, false confession, local police using improper interrogation techniques, denying the boys' requests to see their parents, the boys saying I will tell you what you want, but it's a lie, etc., etc.

The main differences were: the entire interrogations were videotaped, the local law enforcement authority turned the investigation over to the state Attorney General when they realized they couldn't do any more with the investigation after charges against the boys were dropped when the DNA evidence results came in, a very good State Police Officer reviewed the tapes of the kids' interrogation and publicly criticized the interrogation techniques of the local police. He also pursued the investigation and didn't let the trail go cold and brought enough evidence against the man with Stephanie's DNA on his clothes so that he was ultimately convicted.

I see that there is a thread here on WS on the Stephanie Crowe case, so you all probably know this, so I am probably just going over old news. But I found this show fascinating last night. There was excellent police work in this case that ultimately brought to justice Stephanie's killer.

 

[genecam]

Genecam you never seem to amaze with your views. Apparently we are going to have to disagree on just about everything again. Pop pschcology..never. not worth my time opinions.. oh yes.. I have them and they are strong just as yours are. We both feel very strongly on this issue and therefore our feelings tend to run hot on this particular case. So please reserve leaving something callous when I say that while I respectively appreciate your views I do not always agree with them. But I love the spirited debate and precision with you always post. Even though it make my blood boil sometimes. I hope that now that this trial is over for now that you and I and the others on this board can focus on making sure that LE starts to do their job correctly and find this little girls killer..

Crash - all disagreements aside - what happened to your signature quote about the duck in the microwave?

Much as I'd like to claim it, you were the originator of it. You've got to find or make a drawing of a duck in a microwave and post it here. It would be a real hoot.

Golfmom and I are getting so far off-topic here with a discussion about poultry preparation that the mod squad is going to chase us all off to the jury room or the parking lot.

But get that duck first.

 

[crash676]

I don't know where it went.. I just noticed it myself.. Will definitely look into it.. Oh there it is put in there instead..

 

[golfmom]

I don't know where it went.. I just noticed it myself.. Will definitely look into it.. Oh there it is put in there instead..

I googled myself silly looking for a duck in a microwave. I'm going to have to get my little artist to illustrate one for me. :crazy:

 

[genecam]

Finally! An Open Line comment in the Joliet Herald News today about the impropriety of the priest who is the Will County Sheriff's Chaplain commenting on the Fox case. I'm glad to see that there is at least one person in Will County who is appalled by this.

. . . . Regarding the Jan. 15 view by the Rev. Vytas Memenas, I'm appalled that a reverend would offer his views in the newspaper regarding the Kevin Fox situation. It's totally inappropriate. A man of God is not to make judgment on anyone in any way. He should keep his preaching for the pulpit, not in the newspaper. Memenas admits he had no part in the investigation. That brings me to question how would he know what's on the taped confession. Does he realize that the tape was made after the comment that hadn't been determined by a jury to be an unethical interrogation of Fox? I applaud the Foxes for taking on such a huge fight. Their victory sends a message to the law enforcement community that its citizens will not tolerate its abuse of power. . . . .

 

[golfmom]

I get the heebie jeebies thinking of Mock sitting on a bench.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ritacco_16jan16,1,6254730.story

Ten months after presiding over the trial of a man accused of aggravated battery for allegedly slugging his neighbor during a land dispute, Will County Circuit Judge Robert Livas declared a mistrial Tuesday in the 3 1/2-year-old case.
-----
Tuesday's ruling was the latest twist in a case that has been fraught with delays, allegations of prosecutorial misconduct and claims of political interference. The alleged victim, Mundt, is the brother of Wilton Township Supervisor Alan Mundt.
-----
Five months after that handoff, Livas concluded that Assistant State's Atty. Phil Mock should have told Ritacco's attorney that in February 2005, he met with Ritacco and a case witness who said Ritacco acted in self-defense when he punched Edward Mundt. Livas, however, said that alleged error was not significant enough to warrant dismissal of the charges against Ritacco.

Ritacco, meanwhile, has noted Alan Mundt's political office and has argued that Will County sheriff's police were not fair in handling his dispute with the Mundts.

 

[genecam]

I get the heebie jeebies thinking of Mock sitting on a bench.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ritacco_16jan16,1,6254730.story

Ten months after presiding over the trial of a man accused of aggravated battery for allegedly slugging his neighbor during a land dispute, Will County Circuit Judge Robert Livas declared a mistrial Tuesday in the 3 1/2-year-old case.
-----
Tuesday's ruling was the latest twist in a case that has been fraught with delays, allegations of prosecutorial misconduct and claims of political interference. The alleged victim, Mundt, is the brother of Wilton Township Supervisor Alan Mundt.
-----
Five months after that handoff, Livas concluded that Assistant State's Atty. Phil Mock should have told Ritacco's attorney that in February 2005, he met with Ritacco and a case witness who said Ritacco acted in self-defense when he punched Edward Mundt. Livas, however, said that alleged error was not significant enough to warrant dismissal of the charges against Ritacco.

Ritacco, meanwhile, has noted Alan Mundt's political office and has argued that Will County sheriff's police were not fair in handling his dispute with the Mundts.

Well you don't have to worry about getting the heebeejeebies, Elizabeth Dow won. She will face the Democrat, Associate Judge Jeff Allen, in the November general election. I hope Allen wins.

Of course this means that Mock will likely continue as an Assistant State's Attorney, which still leaves him in a position to ruin a lot of people's lives. And he appears to be well practiced at that.

 

[genecam]

Robert Milan is the First Assistant Cook County State's Attorney. He ran in the Democratic primary this past Tuesday for the State's Attorney nomination and lost to Anita Alvarez, the number 3 person in the Cook County State's Attorney's office. I did not vote for either of them, as I think they are part of the prosecutorial misconduct problem rampant in that office, and not part of the solution.

However, Milan does have one outstanding redeeming feature. He was the prosecutor in the Corinthian Bell false confession case. Instead of reacting like the Will County guys, he learned from his mistake and developed a training class curriculum on false confessions for Cook County prosecutors. He summarized some of the points he makes in this training recently in an article published earlier this year in "The Practical Prosecutor" professional journal. This is the link to the summary.

http://www.milan08.com/articles.htm#confession

Among the cases he mentions is, of course, the Fox case:

"Kevin Fox confessed on videotape, after a more than 14-hour interrogation, to the rape and murder of his 3-year-old daughter, Riley. But he was released last week after DNA tests failed to link him to the crime.

Right now, the top priority for Will County law enforcement officials is to identify Riley Fox's killer. After that, it should be to identify what went wrong in the Fox interrogation and figure out whether interrogators acted improperly.

And learn how to avoid the next false confession. A close examination of the final videotaped statement of Fox would be a good place to start.

Would someone who had completed Milan's training session have made a similar mistake? That's hard to say. But it's worth taking a look at what Milan has learned and what he imparts to prosecutors. He provides a sound guide for prosecutors, as well as for any of us who try to weigh likely guilt or innocence in a high-profile crime."
. . .

"- Beware of clean rap sheets. "If his criminal history is incompatible with this crime, give the case a closer look."

- Beware of what happened at the very beginning of the investigation. Was the suspect identified through a detective's confidential informant? By an eyewitness who picked out his mug shot? Many wrongful prosecutions go awry at the outset of the investigation. Prosecutors should interview those informants or eyewitnesses themselves. They should visit the scene to determine whether the witness could have seen the crime and the suspects.
. . .

"- Beware of charging a suspect before all the physical evidence is tested. "Uninformed decisions lead to wrongful convictions."
. . .

"- Beware of alibis that can't be disproved. Two witnesses may identify a suspect from a lineup. Even then, if the suspect's alibi stands up, proceed cautiously.

This isn't a prescription to avoid prosecutions. It's a cautionary note about the most dangerous patterns that can lead to wrongful convictions. As police and prosecutors in Will County are learning, and as Robert Milan learned long ago, nothing poses a greater threat to public confidence in law enforcement than a case that unravels before our eyes."


Very interesting advice and guidance from a highly-regarded subject matter expert. And what is Will County doing? Are they following Milan's expert advice? Have they learned from their mistake here?

Well. . .not exactly.

Did the prosecutor who evaluated this case check out the detectives' work and the circumstances surrounding the case and the confession to prevent the case from going awry from the beginning, as Milan so strongly suggests? Doesn't seem like it. In fact, the prosecutor who evaluated the case after Glasgow took office said that he could prove Kevin guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And who was that prosecutor? Why, none other than the great Phil Mock, who wanted to be a judge. And, from other posts on this thread, we all know what happened to him. I think old Phil would have flunked Milan's class. If he was lucky he might have gotten a free retake.

The State's Attorney and the Sheriff continue to fully back the actions of the detectives in the interrogation and arrest of Kevin Fox, stating that they acted appropriately. And they are vowing to pursue a "fierce" appeal of the jury verdict that awarded Kevin and Melissa Fox $15.5 million due to the detectives' misconduct.

And Sheriff Kaupas, in particular, continues to play the ostrich role and buries his head in the ground whenever the subject of misconduct in his office comes up. It's either such a big office that he can't keep track of what all 500 of his employees are doing at all times - even the detectives investigating one of the biggest and most politically charged murder cases ever in the county - or else what happened is always someone else's fault. In Kaupas's case, you can be sure that there is no sign on his desk that says "the buck stops here."

 

[golfmom]

Just an interesting article that made me think of Kevin's case.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/feb/09/prosecutorial-misconduct-ineffective-defense/

First, we have a scourge of prosecutorial misconduct that has permeated our justice system for decades all over the country. Prosecutors commit misconduct because they know they can get away with it, and even if caught the courts probably will do nothing about it.

More than 60 years ago, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerome Frank wrote: "This court has several times used vigorous language in denouncing government counsel for such conduct as that of the United States Attorney here. But, each time, it has said that, nevertheless, it would not reverse.

 

[golfmom]

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/news/820484,4_1_JO01_FOX_S1.article

CHICAGO -- Will County's first appeal against the $15.5 million judgment awarded to the parents of Riley Fox has been thrown out of court.

But Will County State's Attorney's spokesman Charles B. Pelkie said the dismissal would not stop the appeal process.

"This (particular) appeal was filed before the case first went to trial, and the basis for it hasn't gone away," he said.

------- More at link ----

Qualified immunity
The appeal was filed in October when the county lost a motion asking for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. Qualified immunity shields police officers from being sued for violating an individual's constitutional rights provided they are following "clearly established law."

On Wednesday, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the defendants' claims of their right not to be tried was moot, since the trial has already occurred.

Gerald Haberkorn, an attorney with the firm representing the county said the ruling was not unexpected.

"The appellate court will still rule on the issue of qualified immunity. (The dismissal is) clearly not a ruling on the merits of the appeal," he said.

Pelkie said qualified immunity and other issues raised during the trial will now be part of the post-trial appeal.

"Our other appeals have not yet been filed because they are still in post-trial motion," he said.