Former DuPage assistant public defender testifies in 2002 murder hearing
A fledgling assistant public defender in 2004, without a felony case under his belt, John Casey asked to be the second chair attorney in the murder case against Randy Liebich.
His supervisors allowed him on the team with former assistant public defender Ricky Holman and Liebich was convicted of first-degree murder for killing 2½-year-old Steven Quinn Jr. and sentenced to 65 years in prison.
Now 14 years later, DuPage Judge John Kinsella is presiding over a hearing to decide if Liebich should be granted a new trial.
The Second District Appellate Court ordered the hearing in March 2016 to determine whether Liebich should be granted a new trial on the basis of ineffective representation. He is now represented by the University of Chicago Law School's Exoneration Project.
In its 2016 ruling, the appellate court found Holman and Casey failed to adequately investigate alternate scientific explanations that could have explained the boy's internal brain and abdominal wounds and, ultimately, his death.
Casey, now in private practice, testified Wednesday that he was "scared" of his star witness, forensic pathologist Dr. Shaku Teas, and relied on her to provide the sole information regarding Quinn's medical records and pathology.
Instead, Casey said, the defense relied on the theory that Steven's brain injury and abdominal wounds were old wounds inflicted by the boy's mother, Kenyatta Brown,
"It was our position that there were no real signs of trauma that were new," Casey said. "And the marks on his body, I argued, were older."
Casey said he is still "convinced (Liebich) is innocent."
Prior to Casey's testimony Wednesday, Dr. Patrick Lantz, a forensic pathologist from North Carolina's Wake Forest Baptist Health system, testified that after examining all of Quinn's records, his opinion is that the cause of Quinn's death could only be classified as undetermined.
Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan, the former Cook County assistant medical examiner who performed Quinn's autopsy, said Tuesday that her initial opinion that Steven died of multiple injuries due to blunt force trauma to his head and abdomen has not changed.
Prosecutors maintain Liebich does not deserve a new trial and was accurately convicted of beating his girlfriend's young son on Feb. 8, 2002, while caring for him in the couple's Willowbrook apartment while she was at work. The boy died three days later.
At Liebich's 2004 trial, doctors counted 42 injuries on the toddler's 44-pound body.
Thursday's testimony resumes at 10 a.m. with Teas expected to take the stand. Casey is expected to resume his testimony at 1:30 p.m.