Sheriff Calls for Senior Prosecutor to Resign Over His Comments About Child-Murder Case Evidence
In an unusual move, a sheriff in suburban Chicago is calling for a top county prosecutor’s resignation after a Sunday magazine article in the New York Times (reg. req.) reported his thoughts about the evidence in a controversial child rape-murder case.
An article in the Chicago Tribune yesterday doesn’t detail why Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran thinks what he calls “inappropriate statements” by Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Mermel need to be addressed in this manner.
However, Curran told the Daily Herald that “there has been a 16-year history of outrageous statements to the press from Mr. Mermel,” subsequently adding: “I am disgusted by his comments and feel that they undermine the constitutional process of a fair trial.”
Mermel’s boss, State’s Attorney Michael Waller, could not be reached for comment, the Daily Herald says. Mermel has worked as a prosecutor in Lake County since 1990.
Mermel is not quoted in the articles about Curran, but told the Times earlier this year: “We don’t fold our tents and run. We don’t quaver because somebody holds up three letters: DNA.”
Apparently referring to to evidence that shows someone other than thrice-convicted defendant Juan Rivera had intimate contact with the 11-year-old victim around the time of her death, the prosecutor theorized she was sexually active and hence evidence that she was with someone else was irrelevant.
“The example I like to give people is next time you go to a motel room, bring a plastic bag, because the dirtiest thing in that room is the remote control. Everybody has sex and then rolls over and goes, ‘I wonder what’s on?’ ” Mermel told the Times. “OK, so you can find DNA in the form of sperm from 10 different people in that room from that remote control or even on a person who has touched it. And that woman gets murdered in that room tonight, and you are going to have a lot of DNA. Is it all going to be forensically significant?”
Rivera also had an alilbi provided by an ankle monitoring bracelet that reportedly showed he was at home at the time of the crime. The prosecution speculates that it might have been malfunctioning or removed.
His conviction is now on appeal. His lawyers are asking that what they call a coerced confession be thrown out and also argue that DNA evidence excludes him as a suspect.
Additional and related coverage:
ABAJournal.com (Feb. 2009): “FBI Ordered to Do DNA Search to Help Suspect in Rape-Murder Case”
Chicago Sun-Times (opinion): “The evidence is in: These DNA theories are just stupid “
