US ex rel. Silagy v. Peters
| Decision Date | 29 April 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 88-2390.,88-2390. |
| Citation | 713 F. Supp. 1246 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, ex rel. Charles SILAGY, Petitioner, v. Howard PETERS, III, and Neil Hartigan, Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Central District of Illinois |
Timothy Gabrielsen and Patricia G. Mysza, Springfield, Ill., for petitioner.
Jack Donatelli and Michael Singer, Asst. Attys. Gen., Chicago, Ill., for respondents.
FINAL ORDER
This is a habeas corpus proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. For the reasons stated in this order, the writ will issue directing that the petitioner be resentenced within 120 days.
In the late hours of February 13 and the early hours of February 14, 1980, in Vermilion County, Illinois, two women were brutally beaten and murdered. The petitioner, Charles Silagy, was prosecuted for the murders and convicted. There is no doubt that Silagy killed the two women.
In his voluntary confession to the police, Silagy described what he did to the first victim:
She ... got a little rowdy with me, and I slapped her glasses off of her face, and ... she said somethin' else, and I reached up with my left hand and grabbed her by the throat and started choking her. My truck done a spin-around, and killed itself, and I ... shut it off and started chokin' her ... some more, and kept chokin' her and ... a car come up from the south, and so I acted like we was makin' out, and the car was ... all clear, and I commenced chokin' her with my left hand, and ... then I decided I didn't have enough room, or somethin' ... in the truck ... so I ... fought with the door for a little bit, and I got it open from the outside, and ... because it will not open from the inside. Had to crank the window down ... and all this time I still got ahold of her throat. And chokin' her. And so I throwed her out on the ground and ... I got outta the truck, and I started a-stompin' on her and jumpin' up and down, and on her head, and ... then I drug her across the road, and she was still breathin', so I ... took out my pocket knife and opened it and pulled her coat and blouse away, and stabbed her approximately five or six times in the chest ... on the ... left ... left-hand side ... and ... then I left her lay there....
Record at C-386.
He also told how he killed the second victim:
So I reached down and ... picked her up and ... started to pick her up, and she turned a table over, and ... I tried to ... take her to the door, and she wouldn't let go of that table, and finally I got her broke loose from the table, and I throwed her over toward the TV, which was back to the east, which the door is to the northwest .. from where we were originally. And ... I, uh ... throwed her down, and her head hit the coffee table, and I went over, and ... kicked her a couple o' times in the head, and then I proceeded to go to a ... drawer, to where the silverware ... the big knives and butcher knives and utensils were kept at ... it was separate from the spoons and forks and things like that. And ... picked me out a knife that I knew would ... not bend, and ... I went back over and snatched her blouse on the left side and yanked it back, and ... stabbed her ... four times continuously in the chest.
Record at C-387.
In the sentencing stage of the case,1 Silagy elected to proceed pro se. Silagy told the jury during the first phase, where it was determined that his offense was one to which the death penalty could apply:
As you have been instructed, there is two different verdicts. I instruct the jury to apply themselves and think back to your verdict that was rendered yesterday. Take all those items into your mind studying them very closely. Upon examing sic those items, do not hinder, do not look at me for sympathy because I don't want it. I ask you to look at it from my standpoint. There is two victims in this crime; they can not ask for sympathy because they are dead. Thank you.
In the second phase, to determine whether the death penalty should be imposed, Silagy addressed the jury and said:
The jury granted Silagy's request and returned verdicts finding unanimously that an aggravating factor existed warranting imposition of the death penalty and that no mitigating factor existed to preclude imposition of that penalty. The trial judge entered judgment on the verdicts and sentenced the petitioner to be executed.
The petitioner sought to overturn the judgment in the Supreme Court of Illinois but his conviction was affirmed. People v. Silagy, 101 Ill.2d 147, 77 Ill.Dec. 792, 461 N.E.2d 415 (1984). The petitioner also sought post-conviction relief in the trial court without success, and the post-conviction judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Illinois. People v. Silagy, 116 Ill.2d 357, 107 Ill.Dec. 677, 507 N.E.2d 830 (1987).
On November 7, 1988, the petitioner sought habeas corpus in this court to overturn his conviction. Silagy makes five main contentions in support of his petition that center on the following occurrences during the trial proceedings:
1. The psychiatrists who were appointed by the court to examine Silagy and to assist him with his defense of insanity were not professionally competent. Silagy argues that the physicians, in making their diagnoses, relied on false information given to them by Silagy and reached professionally unacceptable opinions about the petitioner's psychiatric state. As a result, Silagy's rights to due process, to equal protection, and to effective assistance of counsel were abridged.
2. The clerk of the state court jury commission arbitrarily excluded from the jury venire all persons seventy years of age and older. That practice, Silagy argues, deprived him of a jury venire made up of a fair cross section of the community, taking away his Sixth Amendment rights and his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights.
3. Juror misconduct deprived him of his due process rights and his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.
4. The trial court committed constitutional error by permitting Silagy to represent himself in the sentencing phase of the trial. The trial judge made no determination, the petitioner asserts, of his mental competency to refuse the assistance of counsel and to elect not to offer any evidence in mitigation in the sentencing proceeding. This resulted in a loss of the petitioner's Fourteenth Amendment due process rights and his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
5. The prosecution did not give notice that the psychiatrists' testimony would be relied upon by the State to support a finding of an aggravating circumstance to warrant the death penalty. The petitioner's statements to the psychiatrists were introduced in evidence against him. The petitioner says that these occurrences violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and his right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment.
The petitioner raises two further claims. The first concerns Illinois' abandonment of electrocution as a means of execution and the second deals with erroneous testimony that the two victims were siblings.
Finally, the petitioner attacks the constitutionality of the Illinois death penalty statute. He argues that it vests unrestricted discretion in the prosecutor to seek the death penalty and lacks basic notice requirements that result in Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment violations.
Prior to trial, in anticipation of raising an insanity defense, the petitioner moved for the appointment of psychiatrists. The trial court ordered Drs. Daniel Pugh and Arthur Traugott of the Carle Clinic in Urbana to examine Silagy to determine whether he "lacked a substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law as a result of mental disorder or mental defect at the time of the offenses charged in this case." (Record at C-53.) The parties agree that the doctors, in formulating their diagnoses, relied to some extent on statements made by Silagy that were later found to be false. The petitioner now argues that because the court...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Romano v. State
...189, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2932, 49 L.Ed.2d 859, 883 (1976). He urges us to adopt the reasoning of the District Court in Silagy v. Peters, 713 F.Supp. 1246, 1258 (C.D.Ill.1989), aff'd in part, rev'd in part, 905 F.2d 986 (7th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1110, 111 S.Ct. 1024, 112 L.Ed.2d 1106......
-
Lambright v. Lewis
...905 F.2d 986, 993-94 (7th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1110, 111 S.Ct. 1024, 112 L.Ed.2d 1106 (1991), and reversing in part 713 F.Supp. 1246 (C.D.Ill. 1989). This Court agrees and denies sentencing claim 12 on the M. Discriminatory Imposition of the Death Penalty (Claim 13) Lambright c......
-
People v. Del Vecchio
...United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, filed April 29, 1989, in the case of the United States ex rel. Silagy v. Peters, (C.D.Ill.1989), 713 F.Supp. 1246. In that case the court held the Illinois death penalty statute (Ill.Rev.Stat.1979, ch. 38, par. 9-1) unconsti......
-
People v. Franklin
...penalty and that the statute lacks adequate notice provisions as to when the death penalty would be sought (United States ex rel. Silagy v. Peters (C.D.Ill.1989), 713 F.Supp. 1246), claims this court has consistently rejected (see People v. Silagy (1984), 101 Ill.2d 147, 161-62, 77 Ill.Dec.......