On Friday, June 18, 2004, a Cook County jury concluded that Assistant Public Defender Michael Halloran was not professionally negligent in connection with his representation of his former client Richard Johnson. The jury’s verdict was the culmination of eight years of legal proceedings in what is thought to be the first legal malpractice action brought against a public defender in Illinois. Among other things, the case resulted in a decision by the Illinois Supreme Court that public defenders are not immune from suit, and subsequent legislation by the Illinois General Assembly that granted public defenders a limited form of immunity.
The defense of Assistant Public Defender Halloran was handled by Steven Puiszis (lead trial counsel), and Matt Walsh of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP.
In 1991, Richard Johnson was arrested in Miami, Florida, for the rape of a 21-year-old graduate student at the University of Chicago, which had occurred 11 months earlier, after his name and photograph appeared on the TV show America’s Most Wanted. He was subsequently indicted not only for that rape, but also for the deviate sexual assault of a 14-year-old Hyde Park girl in a separate and unrelated incident. Both criminal cases were assigned to Judge James Schrier. Mike Halloran, then an assistant public defender assigned to Judge Schrier’s courtroom at the criminal courthouse at 26th and California, was appointed to represent Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson’s claim of legal malpractice focused on the way certain serology evidence was handled at his underlying criminal trial. During discovery in the criminal case, several reports from the Chicago Police Department Crime Laboratory were given by the State’s Attorney’s Office to Attorney Halloran following testing of the victim and the defendant’s bodily fluids as well as clothing recovered from the victim. Those lab reports indicated that both the victim and Mr. Johnson were “non-secretors,” whereas the person who deposited the semen recovered from the victim’s clothing was a “secretor.” However, an enzyme found in Richard Johnson’s blood (PGM 1+) matched the enzyme found in the semen recovered from the victim’s clothing. Assistant public defender Halloran spoke to his supervisor, and with another public defender who was knowledgeable about serology issues, concerning how to best handle the serology evidence in light of the conflicting nature of the lab reports. A decision was made to move to exclude the serology evidence at Johnson’s criminal trial and focus the defense on the weakness of the victim’s identification and not turn the criminal case into a battle of experts. The victim never mentioned a scar on Richard Johnson’s forehead or his mustache in any of her descriptions of the attacker to the police. The victim changed her description of the height and weight of her attacker within hours of the incident and also changed her description of the attacker from dark to medium colored skin tone. She also stated that the attacker had shaving bumps and Richard Johnson had none. Judge Schrier granted the Motion in Limine to exclude the serology evidence and Mr. Johnson waived his right to a jury trial. In 1992, the case was tried as a bench trial before Judge Schrier who found Johnson guilty of aggravated criminal sexual assault, armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping and home invasion, and sentenced him to 36 years in prison. Mr. Johnson’s conviction was affirmed on appeal.
Mr. Johnson’s second criminal case was then transferred to Judge Fiala where a jury trial was held and Johnson was found not guilty. After being sent to Stateville, Mr. Johnson claimed he began using cocaine on a daily basis and became addicted to the cocaine while in prison. Several years later, DNA testing demonstrated that Richard Johnson did not commit the crimes. He was then released from prison and subsequently pardoned by Governor Jim Edgar.
Summary judgment was originally granted to the defendants based upon the State Lawsuit Immunity Act. The Illinois Supreme Court in Johnson v. Halloran, 194 Ill.2d 493 (2000) ruled that public defenders were county rather than state employees and, therefore, did not enjoy immunity from suit and reversed the entry of summary judgment for the defendants. Following that appeal, plaintiff’s claim that his public defender was negligent for not ordering DNA testing prior to his underlying criminal trial was dismissed because DNA was not admissible in the First Judicial District at that time (although other appellate districts had ruled to the contrary).
At Mr. Johnson’s civil trial, counsel for Mr. Halloran demonstrated that his defense of Richard Johnson in the underlying criminal trial was complicated by virtue of the fact that Johnson had a prior burglary conviction and because he provided an alibi to the police and prosecutors which subsequently turned out to be untrue.
At this civil trial, counsel for Mr. Halloran demonstrated that the serology evidence did not exclude Richard Johnson as the perpetrator of the rape and that the match of the enzymes would have been used by the prosecutors at the underlying criminal trial to corroborate the victim’s identification of Mr. Johnson. By filing the motion in limine, Mr. Halloran was able to exclude the only evidence that would corroborate the victim’s identification of Richard Johnson as the man who raped her. The jury agreed and concluded that Michael Halloran complied with the applicable standard of care by filing that motion and by excluding the serology evidence at the underlying criminal trial
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