Injustice Watch (https://www.injusticewatch.org/news/page/2/)
Randy Liebich was convicted in 2002 of murdering two-year-old Steven Quinn, based on head injuries that doctors identified after Quinn, unresponsive, was rushed to the hospital. That conviction was overturned amid doubts that the injuries implicated Liebich, who had been caring for Quinn, as the murderer.
The medical examiner whose testimony in DuPage County post-trial proceedings on whether convicted murderer Randy Liebich should be granted a new trial told Injustice Watch on Thursday that she is concerned the investigation into the death of toddler Steven Quinn was inadequate.
Randy Liebich, convicted in 2004 of beating to death his girlfriend’s two-year-old son, awaits a decision by a DuPage County judge on whether his conviction will be overturned based on available medical evidence calling into question whether the child could have been injured while in Liebich’s care. Defense attorneys did not present such evidence at the original trial.
Cook County became the first Illinois county to bar detention of pre-teenagers when it unanimously passed the resolution on Wednesday. Juvenile Justice experts said it is only the latest of measures that put Cook in the vanguard of reform on issues of juvenile detention.
Carl Williams was convicted of being part of a group that committed a carjacking, rape, and murder. Three members of the group said he was involved, and he confessed. But the three other suspects, and Williams, have since said he had nothing to do with it, and that Chicago police coerced their statements. After years of delay, Carl Williams’s day in court approaches.
Two law professors studied 12 years of police complaint data and discovered officers with the most civilian complaints were more likely to later engage in acts that led to major lawsuits. The number of complaints against Van Dyke, the authors found, put him in the top three percent, a level that made him more likely to be the subject of civil rights lawsuits and payouts.
Traditionally Cook County Circuit Court judges easily win retention every six years, with voters paying little attention to those races at the bottom of their ballots. This year, however, a confluence of events may change all that.
A lawsuit contends the Illinois Department of Corrections halted a debate program not for security, but because prisoners had found a way to raise concerns with legislators and other state officials.
Court data since 2001 shows the growing diversity on the bench. In recent years the percentage of African Americans has leveled off, but percentage of Hispanics, Asian-American judges has jumped.
The Illinois governor said he could not support giving jail inmates easier access to vote, as long as the bill also included a provision that required corrections officials to make sure prisoners knew their voting rights upon release. The bill’s disappointed sponsor contends that the bill only required corrections officials to put voting rights literature into the packet handed to prisoners as they are freed.