 Cline was arrested on Aug. 26, 2009, and charged with felony
murder in the death of 2-year-old Lucas Alberts. The toddler was
the son of Cline's girlfriend Jody Alberts and had been left in
Cline's care while Alberts attended the Illinois State Fair in
Springfield on the evening of Aug. 22.
Early in the morning of Aug. 23 the child was admitted to the
emergency room at Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital in Lincoln after
his mother found him unresponsive when trying to wake him from
sleep.
Alberts was transferred to OSF St. Francis in Peoria and was a
patient in the pediatric intensive care unit, where he died in
mid-afternoon.
Attorneys for the prosecution are Jonathan Wright of the state's
attorney's office and Ed Parkinson, appellate prosecutor. Cline is
being represented by Springfield attorneys Jay Elmore and Jeff
Page.
With Judge Thomas Harris presiding and a jury of 15 -- 10 women and
five men -- the morning testimony included Detective Paul Adams and
Chief Ken Greenslate of the Lincoln Police Department and Dr.
Channing Petrak, the attending pediatric doctor at OSF.
Adams' testimony included a slide tour of the Cline home and
identification of two rat cages that Cline has said the young child
fell into on the evening of Aug. 22.
Adams identified the locations of furniture, the rat cages and
blood evidence found.
He also recounted to the court his questioning on Cline on the
morning of Aug. 23 outside his home. According to Adams, Cline was
asked to exit his home and sit with Adams in his squad car. He was
read his rights and then questioned about what had happened to the
child the night before.
It was also noted that Cline had been drinking rum early that
morning. Adams confirmed that Cline told him this and that his
breath smelled. When asked if the search of the home found a bottle
of rum, the answer was no. When asked if the officers had observed a
bottle of rum in Jody Alberts' home, the answer was "yes."
Adams, who was questioned by Wright, confirmed that there had
been conversations with the neighbors who lived in close proximity
to Cline in an apartment building on 14th Street. He also testified
that accounts of Cline's activities the night of Aug. 22 by the
neighbors differed from Cline's own account.
Adams was asked to recount what he had been told by neighbors,
but the defense objected to the line of questioning, saying it was
hearsay. The question was withdrawn, and Wright rephrased it, asking
if Adams had received information from the neighbors that was in
conflict with what he'd been told by Cline. Adams answered
"yes."
When Elmore cross-examined Adams for the defense, he walked
through the timeline on the morning of Aug. 23. Adams said he'd
received a call to ALMH at 6:50 a.m., arrived at 7:15 a.m. and
talked to the attending doctor.
He was asked if he went to Cline's apartment, then to the home of
Jody Alberts and finally if he returned to Cline's, and Adams
answered "yes" to all.
Adams testified that he stayed outside of Cline's home until a
search warrant arrived at 11:04 a.m. He verified that from his
vehicle he could see only the front door of Cline's apartment and
was unable to know if there were any comings and goings from the
back door.
Elmore walked through the order of events that led to Cline being
questioned. He recounted that Greenslate entered the apartment and
escorted Cline out to Adams.
He asked if Cline went freely to the detective's car, if he was
cooperative and if he talked willingly to Adams. Adams responded
that he did.
When Elmore asked Adams if the rat cage in the courtroom was the
one found in Cline's apartment, Adams confirmed that it was. Elmore
then asked Adams to verify the visible dent caused on the cage when
the youngster fell on it. Wright objected to the question, which
Elmore rephrased by saying: "This is the cage you found, and the
cage is dented." Adams confirmed the dent.
Elmore also asked if Cline told Adams he did not see the child
fall because he had his back to the cages. He referred to Cline
saying it happened so quickly he didn't see what happened.
Adams said that Cline did say that it happened quickly but seemed
pretty clear on the details of the alleged accident.
It was also noted by Elmore that Cline told Adams the child hit
his face and was bleeding from the mouth, thus the blood stains on
the carpet.
He then asked Adams if Cline's demeanor changed when he was asked
if he had hit the child. Adams said that it did. Cline became upset
and said he did not strike Lucas, did not touch him.
Elmore asked if Adams was in the apartment during the search, and
Adams affirmed. Elmore asked if Cline was cooperative then, and
again Adams confirmed that he was.
When Greenslate took the stand, he was questioned by Wright.
During his testimony, Greenslate recounted going to the hospital
for a possible abuse case, calling in Adams and then going to the
Cline home.
He said that when he arrived at the Cline home, the vehicle owned
by Cline was parked outside. Greenslate, accompanied by Officer
Devore, knocked on the door and announced as police but got no
answer. He also tried to telephone Cline and again got no answer.
Greenslate left to get a search warrant and returned
approximately 90 minutes later. He once again knocked and announced,
then used a key provided by the building manager and entered the
home.
Greenslate explained the process of "clearing" inside the home,
saying he had his weapon drawn as is standard procedure. He entered
the home and did not find Cline on the main floor. He then stood at
the stairwell and announced himself again and ordered anyone
upstairs to show themselves. Cline then came into view. Greenslate
ordered his show of hands and told him to come down the stairs, and
Cline did so.
Greenslate was asked if neighbors' accounts of where Cline was
late in the evening of Aug. 22 were in conflict with what Cline told
the officers, and Greenslate confirmed that they were.
When Elmore questioned Greenslate, he asked if Cline had been
cooperative in coming downstairs and outside, and Greenslate
confirmed he had.
He also asked if Cline's bed upstairs looked as if it had been
slept in. Greenslate said he couldn't recall. Elmore showed him a
picture of an unmade bed and asked if it was Cline's. Greenslate
said it appeared to be.
Jury hears testimony from first medical professional
Dr. Channing Petrak was the last person to take the stand before
the noontime break.
For the prosecution, Petrak was questioned by Parkinson. He first
established her creditability as an expert witness and asked if she
had been called on in other cases as an expert. She confirmed she
has testified a total of 23 or 24 times in her career.
He asked her to confirm that in those cases she had been accepted
as an expert on child abuse, and she confirmed she had.
During her testimony, she recounted the first contact with the
child in the intensive care unit and confirmed that his mother was
with him at the time.
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Going through several slides, she identified and described
bruising on the child. She identified bruising on the buttock,
shoulder, right arm, right flank, high on the chest, the lower
chest, right hip, abdomen above the hip, bruises on the shins and
the base of the scrotum. She also identified lacerations at the base
of the penis and a tear inside the mouth in the upper area.
Additional bruising was noted on the child's face and described
as linear. She said the facial bruising was not consistent with
hitting an object that was a single plane, because the first bruise
just below the cheekbone was straight, while the additional bruising
lower on the face and along the jaw was curved.
Petrak was asked if CT scans and MRIs were performed, and she
confirmed they were done at OSF to determine if there were brain
injuries. She confirmed a subdural hematoma and said there was an
edema or swelling of the brain.
She was asked if the injuries sustained by the child could have
been caused by a fall, and she said she was confident that they
could not. In her professional opinion, Lucas Alberts' injuries were
not accidental.
Parkinson recounted that when Jody Alberts left her son with
Cline, she said he was fine, but by 5:30 the next morning he was
having difficulty breathing and was unresponsive to his mother. He
asked if that description was symptomatic of a brain injury, and
Petrak confirmed it was. Parkinson asked if the child could have
been injured days earlier and the doctor said no, the symptoms of
brain injury would have been almost immediate.
Finally, Parkinson asked if the child suffered a retinal
hemorrhage, and she confirmed that he did.
Elmore cross-examined Petrak and began by asking if her testimony
was based on her own professional opinion. She confirmed that it
was. He then asked if there are differing opinions concerning head
injuries, and she said "yes."
He asked if her report on Lucas Alberts stated that his injuries
were consistent with abusive blunt force trauma, and she answered
"yes."
He asked if there is an ongoing debate in the medical profession
regarding fatalities resulting from short falls. Petrak said that
fatalities from short-distance falls are approximately 1 in 1
million.
Elmore asked Petrak to review an article written by a Dr. John
Plunkett and published in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine
and Pathology. He offered that Plunkett studied 18 cases of
short-distance falls, from a few inches to a few feet, where
children had died.
Elmore reviewed the cases and drew similarities between them and
Alberts' and asked Petrak to confirm. In most cases she responded
with, "Yes, it is what he says." At one point she added to her
testimony, "He says 'yes'; I disagree," to which Elmore quickly stated
he didn't ask her for her opinion.
He finally concluded that based on the study it was hard to say
whether Alberts died of accidental or non-accidental blunt force
trauma.
Elmore also asked Petrak to answer a series of questions with
simple "yes" or "no" answers, but she was unable to do so. He called
on Judge Harris to instruct the witness. Harris asked if the
questions could be answered simply "yes" or "no," and Petrak said
they could not. Harris instructed Elmore to move on to another line
of questions. Elmore argued that the witness was taking over, and
Wright immediately objected to the statement. Harris sustained
objection and instructed Elmore to move on.
Elmore left the article written by Plunkett and moved on to two
others that once again offered opinions that opposed Petrak's.
One article was written by Dr. Scott Denton of Peoria and stated
that in infants and toddlers, loss of consciousness happens less
frequently in short falls. Petrak again confirmed, saying, "That is
what he says, yes."
Elmore then said Denton's article states that it is a widely held
dogma that the person the child is with when it loses consciousness
is the perpetrator, but that Denton goes on to say that is not
necessarily true.
At that point, Parkinson objected to the line of questioning,
saying that Denton is on the list of witnesses to appear before the
court, and he saw no reason to be going through this with Petrak.
Elmore moved on to a third article and went through much of the
same type of questioning, drawing for the last time the point that
where blunt force trauma due to short falls is concerned, there is
controversy, and Petrak confirmed this.
He then moved on to the rat cage and the size of Cline's hands,
asking if she had measured the spaces on the wire of the cage and if
she had measured Cline's hands. She answered "no" to both.
He also asked if she had done any studies on injuries from rat
cages, and she answered "no." He asked if she'd written any articles,
and she again answered "no."
When Elmore finished, Parkinson did a redirect, calling back the
article written by Plunkett. He went through a number of cases and
asked Petrak to verify that in the short-fall scenarios, the child
had lost consciousness within a short period of time. Some of the
cases reported loss of consciousness "immediately," others within 10
to 15 minutes and in one case within three hours.
He also asked if she knew of any studies that had been done on
rat cages, and she said she did not.
Elmore countered, drawing attention to a case in Plunkett's study
where the child didn't show symptoms until two days after the
fall. He also asked if Petrak's report said anything about the marks
on the face being from a hand, and she said "no."
Parkinson countered once again, drawing attention to a page of
Petrak's report that mentioned strangulation. Elmore objected before
the question was completed, and Parkinson said he'd strike the
question.
This completed Petrak's testimony, and the jury was then afforded
a lunch break.
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