You be the judge: Should James Ealy have been let go?
James Ealy, 42, is charged with murdering Mary Hutchison at a north suburban Burger King last week. Twenty years ago, the Illinois Appellate Court overturned his conviction in a quadruple murder case, throwing out the evidence against him. Based on the court's opinion and interviews with lawyers involved, here is what each side argued.
The police acted within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution, properly questioning him, getting his permission for searches that produced evidence against him and reading him his rights before he confessed.
Reversing Ealy's conviction would be unwarranted and would return a violent criminal to the streets.
On Aug. 16, 1982, police discovered the bodies of Christine, Mary Ann, Cora and Jontae Parker in their apartment in the Rockwell Gardens housing project. Each had been strangled, and Jontae, a 3-year-old boy, had been raped.
While interviewing neighbors that afternoon, police met Ealy, then 17. He lived in the building and had been dating 15-year-old Mary Ann Parker.
Detectives Terrence Thedford and Patrick Harrington went to Ealy's apartment -- where he lived with his mother -- the following night. Mrs. Ealy invited them in. The detectives asked Ealy to come to the police station but never said he had to go with them.
At this point, Ealy was not under arrest. The detectives did not handcuff him. They did not pull their guns.
Thedford and Harrington took Ealy to Area 4 headquarters and put him in an interview room. They asked him where he was early the morning of Aug. 16. The story Ealy gave didn't jibe with facts given by his mother, who by this time had showed up at the police station.
Detectives Ralph Vucko and Victor Switski joined the case. The next day, while still in custody, Ealy signed two forms giving them permission to search his bedroom without a warrant. They found a bundle containing two lengths of khaki material, a knife handle and other items. Part of the khaki -- the belt from a raincoat -- had been found embedded in Mary Ann Parker's neck.
Ealy was not under arrest until 4 a.m. on Aug. 18, after detectives found the bundle. Up to that point, he was free to leave Area 4 any time he wanted.
Vucko and Switski read Ealy his Miranda rights and he confessed. He confessed again in the presence of prosecutors and a court reporter.
Ealy was actually under arrest from the moment police brought him to the station on the night of Aug. 17 -- even though police lacked probable cause to arrest him. He was not free to leave, as the prosecution contended. Because the confessions and evidence stemmed from an improper arrest, the appellate court must disallow it and reverse Ealy's conviction.
Under the law, evidence obtained unlawfully must be excluded by a court. There is no other way to deter police officers from violating constitutional rights. If officers know evidence will be allowed no matter what they do, they will feel free to arrest people without justification, and search people's homes without getting a search warrant.
The Bill of Rights protects the people against "unreasonable searches and seizures." In the 1961 case Mapp vs. Ohio, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled evidence obtained in violation of these rights must be excluded.
The prosecution admits the police had no probable cause to arrest Ealy when they took him from his mother's apartment to Area 4. Yet he was under arrest from that moment. No reasonable, innocent person would have believed they were free to leave the police station.
While Ealy was detained, officers interrogated him for 18 hours straight, depriving him of food and water, and not allowing him to sleep. Only once during that period was he allowed to use the bathroom. Detectives took away his underwear and gym shoes, leaving him behind a locked door for long periods of time.
Ealy's mother repeatedly asked to see her son while he was in custody, but the police refused to let her.
Not only did the police arrest Ealy unlawfully, the consent forms and continued questioning shows they were fishing for evidence to establish probable cause. Having intimidated Ealy, they scared him into signing the search forms. Only after they searched his apartment did they find their probable cause.
At the time of the Parker killings, Ealy was out on bond on a sexual assault charge. In 1983, he was convicted of that charge and sentenced to 23 years. He served nearly 10 years in prison and was released in 1993, according to the state Corrections Department.
Ealy went back to prison in 1996. This time the charge was unlawful use of a weapon and aggravated unlawful restraint, according to the Corrections Department. In that case, Ealy pulled a gun and knife on a prostitute and said it was the last day of her life. He drew a 10-year sentence and served nearly three years, getting out of prison in 1999.
Eric Herman