Resolution hard to get in Staker case
It's a tragic case, no matter how you look at it.
An 11-year-old girl is raped, repeatedly stabbed, strangled and left to die in a Waukegan apartment bathroom.
Who killed Holly Staker? Why? And how come it's taken nearly 17 years to determine those answers?
Daily Herald legal affairs writer Tony Gordon explains the case in great detail in today's newspaper and online. The case is complicated. The prosecution believes they have the killer. Yet two prior convictions have been thrown out against Juan Rivera, who was 20 at the time of the murder. His defense team says the evidence shows Rivera did not commit the crime.
The Staker case is perhaps not as well known as the Jeanine Nicarico case. But there are similarities to the Naperville case - a young girl is brutally murdered, original convictions overturned and a new trial slated to begin this year, 26 years after this crime. The overturned convictions of people on death row led, in part, to the moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois. It also reminded all involved in the state judicial system that to send someone to prison for life - as Rivera would be if he is convicted again - or to death row, we need to be sure that person is guilty, no matter how long it takes to find out.
The delays and lengthy appeals don't help families like the Nicaricos or Stakers, who have waited a long time to see justice. But if, in the end, the right person is found guilty or the wrong person is not, that has to be the goal.
And the jury needs to be sure before rendering its verdict. Leonard Cavise, a law professor at DePaul University, who believes someone else must have committed the murder, told Gordon: "Of the top 10 things that a jury will become involved with, a raped and murdered 11-year-old girl is number one or number two. They will get angry, and they will want somebody to pay."
Somebody should pay, that is not debatable. Two juries have decided Rivera is guilty, based in large part on a confession. Prosecutors from Lake County believe that confession is still the linchpin in finding Rivera guilty.
But he won on appeal. DNA evidence on semen collected excludes Rivera. An electronic monitor Rivera was required to wear shows he was at home. The defense team, which includes lawyers from the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University and the Chicago law firm Jenner and Block are confident that evidence will clear their client.
Yes, the case is complicated. The jury will need to take its time and weigh all the evidence at the appropriate time. And when this third trial is completed, all we can ask is that the outcome, whatever it is, be conclusive.
The defendant and the family of Holly Staker deserve as much.