| | CHICAGO – The trial of a co-accused in the murders of seven Brown’s Chicken restaurant employees, including two Filipino high school students, is getting closer after the Illinois Appeals Court reversed a March 31st a ruling by a judge who threw out the video confession of James Degorski, citing civil rights violation.
If Degorski appeals the ruling before the Illinois Supreme Court, his trial before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Gaughan in Chicago, Illinois will likely be delayed for a few more months.
However, if he does not appeal, which is very unlikely, Degorski can be tried in earnest by Judge Gaughan. A phone call placed on Degorski’s defense lawyer, Mark A. Levitt, by this reporter for comment was not returned.
Juan Luna, Degorski’s co-accused in the case, had already been convicted by Gaughan last year. Luna is now serving his life sentence at Stateville state prisons.
Degorski was scheduled to be tried early this year. But the trial was postponed as parties awaited the ruling of the Appellate court, which overturned the ruling of Gaughan that showing the confession of Degorski that he committed the crime before the jury will violate Degorski’s Miranda Rights.
In a decision that reinstates the prosecution's strongest evidence against Degorski, the appellate court ruled Monday that jurors can watch a videotape in which James Degorski acknowledges his role in the 1993 slayings.
Degorski, now 35, admitted in the 4 1/2-minute video, that he killed two of the seven people slain at the Palatine fast-food restaurant. Judge Gaughan had thrown out the tape last year, saying authorities should have reread the defendant his rights before filming the statement.
A videotaped confession helped prosecutors convict Luna in a jury trial last May.
Prosecutors video recorded Degorski shortly after he was arrested in May 2002. It shows Assistant State's Attorney Michael McHale -- now a judge -- describing the crime to which Degorski has allegedly confessed off-camera: "During the robbery, you shot two people in the cooler, and Juan shot the other five ... Is that correct?"
"Right," Degorski says.
McHale then gives Degorski his Miranda rights, at which point Degorski cuts off the interview. But Appellate Judge Denise O'Malley said Degorski already had been given his Miranda warnings while in custody.
Prosecutors appealed the decision and argued that authorities informed Degorski of his rights several times in the hours before the cameras were turned on. In a 2-1 opinion Monday, the panel overturned Gaughan's decision and agreed the Miranda warnings had not grown stale over the course of the interrogation.
Appellate Justice Denise O'Malley wrote in the ruling, "We hold that the evidence demonstrates that [the] defendant had not become unaware of his constitutional rights and knew that he was in custody and being interrogated as a suspect in the murders."
The decision is a boost for the prosecution, which has no physical evidence linking Degorski to the crime scene. His co-defendant, Juan Luna, was convicted last year largely because prosecutors could tie him to the murders through DNA and a palm print found on a discarded napkin.
Without the video, the prosecution's case against Degorski depends largely on testimony of two women who contend he confessed his involvement to them.
Jurors in the trial of Luna considered the testimony of the two women unreliable and did not present their testimony.
Assistant State’s Atty. Allan Spellberg said, "We felt the video was important enough [to the case] to appeal. The law didn't require the rights to be readministered."
Degorski's attorneys, however, argued the Miranda reading had grown stale in the 18 hours between his last warning and the video recording. For much of that time, Degorski was out of the interrogation room and sleeping in a holding cell.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Jill McNulty sided with Gaughan and the defense team.
The brief video contrasts sharply with the 45-minute statement given by Luna the same day at another police station. In that tape, Luna gives a detailed account of the events in the restaurant, including how he slit the throat of store owner Lynn Ehlenfeldt but blaming Degorski for most of the killings.
Luna was sentenced to life in prison last May after a lone juror's vote spared him from the death penalty. Degorski, who has pleaded not guilty, also faces the death penalty if convicted.
The January 1993 massacre of seven people has been one of the Chicago area's most notorious unsolved crimes. Police believe that the slayings happened shortly after 9:10 p.m. on Jan. 8, when the killers forced at gunpoint the franchise co-owner Lynn W. Ehlenfeldt to open the safe that yielded from $1,800 to $1,900.
When Ehlenfeldt, 49, hesitated, Luna, who was no longer an employee of the fast food chain at the time, admitted slitting her throat. Then, Luna and Degorski ordered her husband and co-owner, Richard E. Ehlenfeldt, 50, of Arlington Heights; and their five employees: Guadalupe Maldonado, 46, of Palatine, the cook; Michael C. Castro, 16, and Rico L. Solis, 17, both Palatine High School students working there part time; and Palatine residents Thomas Mennes, 32, and Marcus Nellsen, to get inside the walk-in freezer and they alternated and killing them with a single six-shooter .38 caliber revolver obtained by Degorski.
Castro’s father, Manny, is a native of San Miguel, Bulacan, Philippines. Solis is a native of Makati City. (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net) | |
