Friday, January 27, 2012
 
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Harris brothers' trial and attorneys hang in limbo

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[January 27, 2012]  Thursday morning, Christopher and Jason Harris were back in court, appearing before Judge Thomas Harris separately for status hearings that had been postponed from December. 

The two brothers are being charged with the 2009 murders of five members of the Raymond Gee family of Beason. The two are each facing a long list of charges ranging from multiple counts of murder to criminal sexual assault, home invasion and robbery. 

In this case, attorneys have been dealing with over 12,000 pages of written discovery and mounds of physical and forensic evidence. 

At their last hearing in October, Judge Harris ordered the attorneys for the prosecution and defenses to meet together outside the courtroom and devise a manner of streamlining all the materials that have been collected. 

With Christopher Harris being the first to appear on Thursday morning, the judge asked if the attorneys had done their assignment. 

Speaking on behalf of the prosecution, Illinois Assistant Attorney General Michael Atterberry confirmed that the group had met in Springfield on Dec. 9 and had made considerable progress in streamlining the evidence. Atterberry said the attorneys had spent several hours together working though organizing the massive pages of discovery plus over 300 CDs of additional information. 

Harris asked if any indexing of the evidence had been completed, and Atterberry said indexing had been provided by the state. 

Atterberry also indicated additional discovery had been added to the case and two more CDs. He said the prosecution had also added two more witnesses to their case and had provided information about all of the aforementioned to Christopher Harris' attorney, Jay Elmore. 

Elmore was asked to confirm he had received the information, and he said that he had. 

With that business completed, the judge moved on to discussing the issue of funding for the eventual trials of Christopher and Jason Harris. 

Up until July of last year, the two brothers were eligible for the death penalty under Illinois law. As such, the funding for their defense was being provided through a special cash pool on the state level. 

The Capital Litigation Fund provided money to pay for investigation assistance, the testimony of expert witnesses, forensic and DNA testing, mitigation specialists, and other trial-related necessities. In addition it provided the paycheck for public defenders. 

When Gov. Pat Quinn signed an act last year to abolish the death penalty in Illinois, that pool of funds was also abolished, effective Jan. 1, 2012. 

With the funding gone, the burden falls on the county to come up with the money needed to proceed in this case in a fair and equitable manner. 

Judge Harris said there have been discussions at the county board level on how to raise funds for the two trials of the Harris brothers, but to date nothing has been resolved. 

In addition, he noted he has contacted a number of parties, including some larger law firms who might take on some pro bono work, the Northwestern University Law School, he's sought to find available public defenders in other counties, and he has talked to Sen. Larry Bomke and Rep. Bill Mitchell about getting assistance on a state level. He said thus far none of those efforts have borne fruit. 

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In addition, Harris said that "a significant issue regarding representation has come up on this case." He said he could not go into the full details at this point but that a resolution would be necessary before the courts could move forward. 

Harris said that under the circumstances, he didn't see a need to continue holding hearings for case management. He asked if the defense and prosecution agreed and was told they did. 

Therefore, the case of Christopher Harris is hanging in limbo until the issue with representation is resolved. Harris also indicated there would need to be hearings in the near future regarding this issue. 

When Jason Harris was brought into the courtroom, the judge confirmed with Jason's attorney, Steven Skelton, that Skelton had participated in the meetings of the attorneys on Dec. 9, and he confirmed that he had. 

The judge said it had always been the intent of the courts and attorneys to try Christopher Harris first, then Jason. He said because of the circumstances with Christopher's case, additional hearings had been postponed indefinitely. 

He asked Skelton if he felt a need to go to separate case management for Jason Harris. 

Skelton said he was torn on the issue, but "the state wishes for Christopher to go first and we do go along with that, so we see no need to now go ahead of Christopher." 

Atterberry said he, too, was comfortable with waiting for the issues in Christopher's case to be resolved. 

It was decided there will be no more case management or status hearings for either of the two brothers, at least until after hearings to address the representation issues in the case of Christopher Harris. 

[LDN]

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