Court-appointed appeals lawyer for AJ Freund's mother wants off case
The court-appointed appeals lawyer for the mother of slain 5-year-old Crystal Lake boy AJ Freund is asking to withdraw from the case because it lacks merit, according to recent court filings.
JoAnn Cunningham wrote in a recent letter to a McHenry County court that she needs the reports of doctors who examined her after he son's 2019 death to respond to her appellate lawyer's "Finley motion."
A Finley motion is filed when an appellate lawyer wants to withdraw from a case because there is belief that it is frivolous or "there are no meritorious issues to raise on appeal," said Richard Kling, a defense attorney and clinical professor of law at Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law. Kling is not affiliated with Cunningham or her case.
McHenry County Judge James Cowlin last week granted Cunningham's request for reports from a psychological evaluation written Jan. 24, 2020, as well as an addendum to that report dated July 9, 2020. She also sought an evaluation written by a psychiatrist and a substance abuse evaluation written by another doctor on Dec. 19, 2019, as well as a letter written by a chaplain and a presentence investigation report.
Cunningham, 40, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison for the April 15, 2019 killing of AJ in the family's Crystal Lake home. Prosecutors say Cunningham beat and berated AJ and made him stand in a cold shower before putting him to bed cold, naked and wet.
Cunningham and AJ's father, Andrew Freund Sr., later reported him missing. The boy's body was found several days later in a shallow grave near Woodstock, where his parents ultimately admitted burying him.
Andrew Freund Sr., 64, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty in September 2020 to aggravated battery to a child younger than 13 causing permanent disability, involuntary manslaughter of a child who is a family member and concealment of a homicidal death.
Last year, Cunningham filed a handwritten post-conviction petition, saying, among other things, that she was not represented properly by her assistant public defender, her constitutional rights were violated and she was suffering postpartum psychosis and heard and saw demons before killing her son.
"Her participation in the offense was a direct result of her suffering from postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis," she wrote.
The now retired McHenry County Judge Robert Wilbrandt rejected the petition, writing her claims "do not provide the 'gist' of a meritorious claim of substantial deprivation of a federal or state constitutional right and that they are patently without merit."