People v. Spreitzer
| Citation | 123 Ill.2d 1,121 Ill.Dec. 224,525 N.E.2d 30 |
| Decision Date | 23 March 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 63423,63423 |
| Parties | , 121 Ill.Dec. 224 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Edward SPREITZER, Appellant. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Illinois |
Charles M. Schiedel, Deputy Defender, Office of the State Appellate Defender, Supreme Court Unit, Springfield, Charles Hoffman, Asst. Appellate Defender, Office of the State Appellate Defender, Chicago, for appellant.
Neil F. Hartigan, Atty. Gen., Roma J. Stewart, Sol. Gen., Terence M. Madsen, Scott Graham, Asst. Attys. Gen., Chicago, for appellee.
Together with codefendants Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis, the defendant, Edward Spreitzer, was indicted in the circuit court of Du Page County for the knowing murder (Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 38, par. 9-1(a)(2)) and aggravated kidnapping (Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 38, par. 10-2(a)(3)) of Linda Sutton. The circuit court granted the defendant's motion for a severance and accepted his waiver of a jury trial. After a bench trial, the defendant was found guilty of both charges. The State then requested a death penalty hearing and the defendant elected to be sentenced by a jury. Upon proof that the defendant was 18 years of age or older at the time of the offenses and that he had committed multiple murders, a statutory aggravating factor (Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 38, par. 9-1(b)(3)), the jury found the defendant eligible for the death penalty. After hearing evidence in mitigation, the jury found that there were no mitigating factors sufficient to preclude a sentence of death. The circuit court imposed a sentence of death and 60 years in prison for aggravated kidnapping. The death sentence has been stayed (107 Ill.2d R. 609(a)) pending direct review by this court (Ill. Const.1970, art. VI, § 4(b); 107 Ill.2d R. 603).
At the defendant's bench trial, the State presented the following evidence. The victim, Linda Sutton, was last seen alive at 11 p.m. on May 23, 1981, in Chicago. Her partially decomposed body was found seven days later in a field east of the Brer Rabbit Motel in Villa Park, Illinois. Her breasts had apparently been amputated, and her hands were cuffed behind her back. A coroner's autopsy established that her death was probably caused by several stab wounds in her chest.
In November of 1982, after an investigation by Chicago law enforcement authorities into a series of similar homicides, the defendant confessed to participating in the killing of Linda Sutton.
On November 5, 1982, the defendant spoke with Chicago Detective Thomas Flynn and Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Richard Beuke. He gave them a statement which contained the following facts.
In May 1981, the defendant was living in the Brer Rabbit Motel and working at Winchell's Donut Shop. While working there he met a man named Robin Gecht, who occasionally visited the shop, usually after midnight. On one particular night, when the defendant's car would not start, the defendant left work after his supervisor, who had promised to give him a ride into Chicago, failed to show up. Seeing Gecht in the area, the defendant asked him for a ride into Chicago, and Gecht agreed.
After they had been riding together in Gecht's van for some time, they decided to "pick up some whores." When they reached the corner of Broadway and Addison streets in Chicago, Gecht "took him to the back of the van and told him that when they found a whore they wanted to get * * * (the defendant) would get into the back of the van and stay there until he heard two taps to the side of the van, and when he heard the two taps, he was to get out of the van and come and help Gecht." Gecht said that they would "take care of the whore." He assured the defendant that the defendant would not "get into any trouble."
After the defendant had entered the rear of the van he heard Gecht speaking with someone whom the defendant described as having a black female voice. She entered the front part of the van. After a brief discussion, overheard by the defendant, Gecht gave her "a couple of pills." The three then drove west for approximately 30 minutes. When the van stopped, the defendant heard two taps and he left from the rear of the van, meeting Gecht outside the front passenger door. Gecht was holding a pair of handcuffs and a knife. A black woman, whom the defendant later identified from a photograph as Linda Sutton, was sitting in the front passenger seat. Gecht pulled her out of the van, handcuffed her wrists, and then pushed her into a wooded or "bushy" area a short distance from the van.
After Gecht and Sutton had been in the bushes for five minutes, the defendant heard Sutton moaning and saying: Hearing Gecht whistle, the defendant went over to the bushes, where he saw that Gecht had severed one of Sutton's breasts and was "having sex" with the area where the breast had been severed. Sutton's severed breast was lying next to her on the grass.
Gecht told the defendant to get some wire from the van. The defendant returned from the van with the wire, which Gecht then used to sever Sutton's other breast. The defendant then "had sex" with the area where the other breast had been severed. After the defendant had finished, Gecht picked up the wire and the two severed breasts. Sutton was still in the bushes with her hands cuffed behind her back. The two men left the scene, and Gecht drove the defendant to the defendant's mother's home.
In a second statement, the defendant gave a differing version of these events. This second statement was given to Assistant State's Attorney Beuke on November 8, 1982. In this statement the defendant maintained that Andrew Kokoraleis was also present when Sutton was picked up. When Sutton began to scream, Kokoraleis punched her, knocking her into the rear of the van. As she continued to scream, Kokoraleis and the defendant "punched her several times in the face until she shut up." They then drove to the Brer Rabbit Motel and took her to the defendant's room. After she was gagged and handcuffed to the bedposts, Gecht, Kokoraleis, and the defendant each sexually assaulted her. At several points Kokoraleis stuck a "Coke" bottle into her vagina. Later they took her from the motel and killed her as the defendant had described in his earlier statement.
The defendant also testified in his own behalf. He admitted the truth of the statement of November 5, but retracted the statement of November 8. He admitted that he had, supposedly on Gecht's orders, removed Sutton's remaining breast with the wire he had taken from the van. He also admitted placing his erect penis in the wound on Sutton's chest where her breast had been, and leaving it there for some period of time shorter than five minutes.
The circuit court judge found the defendant guilty of the murder and aggravated kidnapping of Linda Sutton.
The defendant raises only one challenge to his conviction. He claims that the prior involvement of Du Page County Public Defender Peter Dockery as a prosecutor in his case disqualified Dockery and all assistant defenders in his office from representing the defendant. The facts pertinent to this claim follow.
At the time of the defendant's indictment, the Du Page County public defender, Frank Wesolowski, was appointed to represent the defendant. Wesolowski assigned the defendant's case to Assistant Public Defender Edward Ward. On June 4, 1985, Ward advised the court that he had resigned his position as an assistant public defender but that he would continue to represent the defendant until a replacement had been hired. Two weeks later, on June 18, 1985, Wesolowski himself appeared on behalf of the defendant and informed the court that he would be assigning the defendant's case to Assistant Public Defender Carol Anfinson. Wesolowski also informed the court that he had hired Peter Dockery, formerly an assistant State's Attorney in the office of the State's Attorney of Du Page County, to replace Ward. According to Wesolowski, Dockery was "very much involved" in the decision to charge Spreitzer for the murder of Linda Sutton. Wesolowski then stated, and the assistant State's Attorney present agreed, that Dockery could not be assigned to the case because of a conflict of interest stemming from his former involvement in the case's prosecution.
Ward continued to represent the defendant by special appointment until September 23, 1985. On that date, Ward was allowed to withdraw and the public defender's office was reappointed to represent the defendant. Assistant Public Defender Anfinson then filed her appearance on the defendant's behalf. By early February 1986, prior to the start of the defendant's trial, Dockery had become the Du Page County public defender and his name began to appear as the defendant's attorney on pleadings filed by the defense. His name first appeared on such a pleading on February 12, 1986.
While the defendant claims he was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel by a conflict of interest, he has not made entirely clear the nature of the conflict being alleged. It is clear that the conflict is premised upon Dockery's personal involvement in the decision to charge the defendant, and not merely upon his employment as an assistant State's Attorney at the time the defendant was charged. However, the defendant has not made clear when Dockery's association with the public defender's office triggered the alleged conflict. At times, the defendant seems to be arguing that the conflict was created when Dockery was appointed to be an assistant public defender; more often he appears to be arguing that the conflict was created when Dockery became the public defender and the head of the public defender's office. He explicitly divides his argument into the claim that Dockery's status as the public defender disqualified "Dockery," i.e., the office of the public defender,...
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U.S. v. Director of Ill. Dept. of Corrections, 95 C 3913.
......He said the van was similar to one which police later found being driven by Edward Spreitzer and belonging to Robin Gecht. . On October 10, 1982, Lori Borowski's remains were discovered in an unused portion of a cemetery. The ...Finally the Court rejected, as it had in other cases, a constitutional challenge to the Illinois death penalty law. People v. Kokoraleis, 132 Ill.2d 235, 138 Ill.Dec. 233, 547 N.E.2d 202 (1989). . After denial of his post-conviction petition, Kokoraleis ......
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