Former death row inmate wants new trial

Former death row inmate Ronald L. Kliner will be back in a suburban courtroom Friday asking a judge to toss out his conviction for a notorious Palatine Township murder-for-hire.

Kliner, 56, wants a new trial on charges he served as hit man in the February 1988 slaying of Dana Rinaldi, who was shot five times in the head as she pleaded for her life outside her home. Prosecutors said the former Des Plaines resident was hired by the 28-year-old victim's husband, who wanted out of his marriage and was willing to share a $130,000 life insurance payout to make it happen.

Kliner was sentenced to death after a jury convicted him of murder in 1996, but that was commuted to a life sentence in 2003 by former Gov. George Ryan.

His bid for a new trial hinges on claims Cook County prosecutors failed to give his defense lawyer information undermining the credibility of a key witness. The witness, Kliner's uncle and former Chicago cop John Apel, was one of three who testified Kliner bragged about killing Rinaldi.

Also convicted were Chicago firefighter Michael Permanian, who authorities said recruited Kliner and drove him to the murder scene, and Rinaldi's husband, Joseph Rinaldi. He pleaded guilty and testified against the others to avoid the death penalty. All three were childhood friends.

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Prison for ex-cop

A former Elk Grove Village police officer has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing his wife in suburban Cincinnati.

A Hamilton County, Ohio, judge handed down the sentence last week, about a month after Jeffrey Hawkins, 58, pleaded guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the April 2016 killing of Jo Ann Hawkins.

Jeffrey Hawkins worked as an Elk Grove cop from 1990 until 1999, when he resigned amid an internal investigation into accusations he punched a suspect in the face during an arrest. He later headed security for the Field Museum before moving to Ohio.

Authorities said Hawkins killed Jo Ann Hawkins, then called 911 and calmly told a dispatcher, “I just shot and killed my wife.” He later told police she had cleaned out their bank account on his birthday and refused to talk to him in the hours before the shooting.

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Snapchat warning

Arlington Heights police and other suburban departments issued warnings to parents this week about a new Snapchat feature that could reveal the exact location of a child using the popular social media app.

The latest update of the image messaging app includes a tracker called “Snap Map” that allows users to see their friends' whereabouts, right down to the exact street and, if you zoom in enough, a house, police said Wednesday in a Facebook post.

Police recommend that parents make sure kids using the app have their location set in “Ghost” mode, which blocks others from seeing where they are. To do this, police said, make sure the app is updated, go to selfie mode on the camera and zoom out. That will give users the option of changing the settings for who can see their location.

<h3 class="leadin">Not just another's day work

As Lisle Deputy Police Chief Ron Wilke points out in a recent note to us, performing heroic lifesaving actions comes with the territory of being a police officer.

But he thought - and we agree - his department's officers deserve some extra pub for helping save two lives in just three days last week.

The first occurred after a June 20 road-rage altercation left a man with 10 stab wounds, including a punctured lung. Among the first officers on the scene was the department's lead first-aid instructor, whose prompt treatment enabled paramedics to take the victim more quickly to a hospital. He's expected to make a full recovery, Wilke said.

The second occurred about 3:20 a.m. June 23, after a man who has type I diabetes was reported missing by his wife during a heavy rainfall.

Officers traced his cellphone to an area near the DuPage River, off Maple Avenue. After searching the muddy riverbanks for two hours, a police sergeant found him on the muddy riverbank - moaning, shivering and unresponsive, due to having low blood sugar. He was spirited to a waiting ambulance for treatment.

“We think that is extraordinary, and are extremely proud of our officers for their efforts!” Wilke wrote.

<h3 class="leadin">Reader mail

Retired Kane County defense lawyer Kathleen Colton let us know she was no fan of an item in our June 2 column about former client Amy Zuniga, an Aurora woman found not guilty by reason of insanity in the fatal stabbing of her cousin.

We wrote how a judge recently gave Zuniga permission for unsupervised travel on the grounds of the Elgin Mental Health Center, where she's been held since 2015, and supervised visits away from the center. We also mentioned police thought Zuniga was suffering psychotic side effects from using her grandchild's ADHD medication when she killed 68-year-old Reynaldo C. Galvan in October 2013.

“I believe that it was irresponsible to put into your story the amateur psychological opinion of a responding officer, especially since there was absolutely no evidence presented at trial which bore on that issue,” Colton wrote to us.

“At a time when persons with mental illness are still stigmatized and often not appropriately treated, I believe that printing the erroneous speculative opinion of a police officer does not live up to your high journalistic standards.”

Objection noted, counselor.

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