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Murder I Hearsay LAW

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« on: June 02, 2008, 08:27:44 pm »

Search     chicagotribune.com  Web enhanced by  Login or register GET HOME DELIVERY  Updated: 55 minutes ago
 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-peterson-law-both-03-jun03,0,7562180.story


Proposed law targeting Drew Peterson may get another chance
Measure would allow judge to consider hearsay testimony if a witness' disappearance is caused by illegal means
By Erika Slife | Tribune reporter
7:27 PM CDT, June 2, 2008
 Legislation that could affect a possible prosecution of former Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Drew Peterson stalled in the Illinois Senate when lawmakers ran out of time before adjournment over the weekend.

"We have hit a snag," said the bill's chief sponsor, state Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi (D- Joliet).

The measure, backed by the Will County state's attorney's office, would allow a judge to decide whether hearsay testimony could be admitted into court if it is proved that the defendant contributed to the disappearance of a witness by illegal means. The bill was amended to apply only to first-degree murder cases.

Peterson, 54, is a suspect in the Oct. 28 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy, who was 23 at the time. Authorities are also reinvestigating the 2004 mysterious death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, 40, who was found drowned in an empty bathtub in her home. Her death, initially ruled an accident, was classified a homicide in February.


Drew Peterson news Both women had told family and friends that they were fearful of Peterson. Stacy Peterson also told her minister that Peterson allegedly confessed to her that he killed Savio, according to the minister.

Wilhelmi said he is confident that the bill—which initially passed the Senate 56-0 and cleared the House, with amendments, 110-1—could easily pass out of the Senate again later this month.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich is expected to call lawmakers back to Springfield to deal with lingering issues over the state's budget, and Wilhelmi said he will lobby to get the measure, which is now back in the Senate Rules Committee, before the Senate for a full vote.

The Senate must agree to the amended version the House voted on.

"I'm going to push very hard to have the motion to concur come out of Rules and go to [the Judiciary Criminal Law] committee and then go to the floor of the Senate and get that done," he said. "So by the end of June, we should be done."

Will County State's Atty. James Glasgow said he is also confident that the bill, which would amend the state code of criminal procedure, will land on the governor's desk for consideration.

"We've fine-tuned it and made it more narrow than originally proposed," he said. "This is an area that's very sacred in the law—a right to cross-examine—and that's why we've built these safeguards into the law to make sure that it's constitutional."

Under the latest proposal, prosecutors would have to convince a judge at a pretrial hearing that the defendant murdered the witness to prevent testimony that could be heard in court. Prosecutors must also prove that the "time, content and circumstances of the statements provide sufficient safeguards of reliability" and that the interest of justice would be best served.

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« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2008, 09:25:25 pm »

i hope this gets passed!!
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« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2008, 12:21:31 am »

Yes, Probably another reason things seem to be moving slow.
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« Reply #3 on: August 07, 2008, 12:34:45 pm »

Proposed Law May Make Peterson Prosecution Easier

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/drew.peterson.gun.2.771114.html
Judge To Rule On Drew Peterson Gun Charge July 30
JOLIET, Ill. (CBS) ― Drew Peterson was in court Monday, asking a judge to throw out a weapons charge against him.

In May, Peterson, whose fourth wife Stacy disappeared Oct. 28, was charged with unlawful use of a weapon for possessing a short-barreled assault rifle. Subsequently, a grand jury indicted him.

Peterson's attorney, Joel Brodsky, has asked the court to dismiss the charges because, as a former police officer, Peterson is exempt from such restrictions.

The Will County State's Attorney's Office said federal law does not supercede the state's ban on such weapons.

"I can't believe it," Peterson said of his potential five-year sentence if he is found guilty. "It's hard to believe."

Peterson spoke briefly with reporters while being escorted by his attorneys from the court building.

Peterson's attorneys say that although their client owned the weapon, he used it as part of his SWAT duties, and cited a Bolingbrook police memo as proof.

"Clearly, when the chief of the Bolingbrook police said that they had no idea about Drew's AR-15, he was not being… he was being disingenuous," attorney Joel Brodsky said.

Judge Richard Schoenstedt said he would announce his ruling at the end of the month.

Prosecutors would not comment on court proceedings Monday, and said they would weigh in when the judge makes a decision.

The judge did agree to modify Peterson's bond so he can travel out of state with his children on vacation.

State police are investigating the mysterious March 2004 bathtub drowning of Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio.

The drowning was first ruled an accident but in the wake of Stacy's disappearance was determined to be a homicide.
 
Meanwhile, on the governor's desk is a piece of legislation that could aid any prosecution of Peterson.

Now anything Savio told others about fearing for her life may end up being admissible in court, if a bill sponsored by Joliet Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi is signed into law.

"If she were to have made statements prior to her death that said to a third person she feels she's going to get murdered, and those statements pass the reliability threshold, those statements will come into court," Wilhelmi said.

It's called hearsay testimony and it's important because statements that Savio and Stacy Peterson allegedly made to family members, friends, clergy members and others about Drew Peterson and his alleged threats currently aren't admissible in court.

But if the law passes, what Stacy Peterson told her pastor about her husband's whereabouts the day before Savio was found dead could possibly be used against him.

Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow helped craft the legislation and said it might be the difference between 60 years in prison and getting away with murder. He wouldn't say anything about the Savio or Peterson investigations but said he hopes this law will lead to cold case breakthroughs.

"We urge all our local police departments to go through their cases and see if there might be one that's been sitting on the shelf that might be reinitiated based on this additional evidence that might be brought into court," Glasgow said.

The law was passed by the general assembly almost unanimously. If signed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich, it will go into effect immediately.

Glasgow said if that happens, it would amount to one of the most momentous changes to the law he has seen in his decades-long law enforcement career.

CBS 2 West Suburban Bureau Chief Mike Puccinelli and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.

(CBS 2, the Naperville Sun and the Aurora Beacon-News are news partners covering stories in the western suburbs. Send story tips to tips@cbs2chicago.com. (© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2008, 08:18:50 pm »

Peterson's Law is no silver bullet


http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2008/11/petersons-law-is-no-silver-bullet.html

This print column is a version of a blog entry from Friday. That entry has source documentation and a longer discussion of the legal issues.

Last week, the General Assembly passed a law aimed squarely at one man: Drew Peterson.

Senate Bill 2718 is an amendment to the criminal code that broadens the circumstances under which courts can admit hearsay evidence against an accused person.

Basically, if a suspected evildoer kills a witness to prevent that witness from testifying against him, then previous statements that witness made to others may be introduced as evidence.

The bill was widely known as "Drew Peterson's Law" because its biggest advocate was Will County State's Atty. James Glasgow, whose office is trying to build a case against former Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Drew Peterson. The 2004 death of Peterson's third wife, Kathleen, was ruled a homicide this year, and the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy, remains a mystery. He has not been charged in either case.

Before Stacy disappeared, she reportedly told others of incriminating statements made by her husband, including that he was responsible for Kathleen's death. And though Glasgow and legislative sponsors of the new law won't say so directly, it's clear that their theory is that this reform will make it easier to get those statements admitted into evidence and to prosecute Drew Peterson.

I wouldn't bet on it.

The 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that a person accused of a crime has the right "to be confronted with the witnesses against him."

This guarantee is to give the accused the "opportunity not only of testing the recollection and sifting the conscience of the witness, but of compelling him to stand face to face with the jury," as the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in 1895. It allows the jury to "look at [the witness], and judge by his demeanor upon the stand and the manner in which he gives his testimony whether he is worthy of belief."

The 1895 case was one of many in which the high court has tried to define exceptions to the general prohibition on hearsay. One of them, as suggested by Drew Peterson's Law and already part of our common law, is that a defendant gives up the right to confront a witness if he has committed an act, such as murder, intended to prevent that witness from testifying.

The key here is intent. It's circular to argue that a defendant murdered his victim to prevent his victim from testifying at his murder trial. And it's perverse to presume someone guilty of murder in order to slip in evidence designed to prove him guilty of murder.

Just last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a California court erred in admitting into evidence statements that a fearful woman had made to a police officer about her ex-boyfriend three weeks before she was murdered, allegedly by that ex-boyfriend.

Given that opinion, it looks as though the only way Drew Peterson's Law can be used against Drew Peterson is if prosecutors can convince a judge that Peterson killed Stacy, the missing fourth wife, in order to prevent her from testifying that he told her he killed Kathleen, his third wife.

The problem with that theory is Kathleen's death was still considered an accident and her case was long closed when Stacy disappeared. Establishing witness elimination as a motive under those circumstances will require so much speculation that it will resemble a newspaper column more than a court hearing.

It'll take more than Drew Peterson's Law to nail Drew Peterson.


ADDITIONAL NOTES FROM INTERVIEWS FOR THIS COLUMN:

Ill. Rep. James Durkin (R-Countryside) was one of the cosponsors of the bill in the house. He pointed out that there has long been a principle in common law that a defendant may forfeit his "confrontation" right by related wrongdoing. But under the Supreme Court's Crawford decision (2004) that wrongdoing must be designed to prevent the witness from testifying.

Durkin, a former prosecutor, said the new law -- which he did not call Drew Peterson's Law -- would therefore be unlikely to be used to prosecute Peterson for the murder of his missing wife, Stacy:

"But if they can show that [Peterson's] missing wife made a statement that would implicate him in the murder of [his third wife], they might be able to argue that he killed her to keep her from testifying in that case," Durkin said.
 -
Ill. Rep. Careen M Gordon (D-Coal City), also a former prosecutor, was the chief sponsor of the bill in the House.   

She said that even though hearsay evidence has been allowed into cases under common law in Illinois, it was "necessary" to write the permission and provisions into the statutes in order to give guidance and reassurance to trial judges.   She said it would provide "an important new tool for prosecutors," but stressed that  it  was an idea "that had been around for a few years" and wasn't directly releated to the Peterson case.       

DePaul University Law School professor Leonard Cavise told me he believes that Drew Peterson's Law "is a violation of Crawford (v. Washington, a 2004 U.S. Supreme Court case.

That case, Cavise said, "singlehandedly changed the analytical framework" in which courts are to view the 'confrontation clause."  Prior to that, the 1980 case of Ohio v. Roberts was controlling, and that was comparatively loose and allowed in to evidence statements that appeared trustworthy.

"Giles [v. California 2008]  made Crawford even stronger as far as defendants are concerned," Cavise said.

To get hearsay testimony into evidence now, Cavise said, the Supreme Court has laid out a two part test. "Part one, did the defendant cause the unavailability of the witness. And Part two, if he did cause it, did he do so with the intent to prevent that witness from testiffying."

Cavise noted the irony that the author of these strong protections for defendants was Justice Antonin Scalia, "who, nine times out of ten will interpret the rules to allow things into evidence when there's a dispute, really stepped up on this issue. And the liberal justices have been on the other side."

Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow disagreed with Cavise that Drew Peterson's Law (my term, not his) would not pass muster with the Supreme Court.

He said he attended the oral argument in Giles v. California and in his reading of the ruling, the court is providing just the sort of roadmap for prosecutors who want to put hearsay testimony into evidence that's spelled out in Drew Peterson's Law.  He called the new law "a phenomenal tool," though actually fairly narrow in application.

He would not discuss his evidence or plans in the Peterson case, but assured me that the new law would be applicable to old cases.

I asked him if he would be attempting to use the law to introduce the alleged statements of Stacy Peterson (the missing 4th wife) in a prosecution of Peterson for the murder of Kathleen Savio {the slain third wife).

"If he did kill Stacy Peterson, he killed his alibi in Kathleen Savio," Glasgow said. He advised those interested in gaining insight into Drew Peterson's character to watch the movie "Internal Affairs."  "The character played by Richard Gere is a window into Drew Peterson's soul," he said.


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shark
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« Reply #5 on: November 27, 2008, 01:00:16 am »

Ok, I will be looking for this movie for all of us..

INTERNAL AFFAIRS MOVIE IS LOCATED ON MY YOUTUBE PAGE.
STOP BY AND WATCH IT......


http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=606AE423FF01BAFE

« Last Edit: November 27, 2008, 01:01:36 am by shark » Report Spam   Logged
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