Woman freed on plea deal after serving 19 years for McHenry murder
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[June 23, 2021]
By SARAH MANSUR
Capitol News Illinois
smansur@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD — A woman found guilty of a
McHenry County murder had her conviction vacated last week after serving
19 years of her 27-year sentence and maintaining her innocence
throughout her imprisonment.
With the help of the lawyers from the Illinois Innocence Project,
Jennifer McMullan was released from prison June 16 as a result of a plea
agreement entered in McHenry County court.
McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally’s plea deal to grant
McMullan’s release and vacate her murder conviction depended on if she
agreed to plead guilty to an armed robbery charge in the case.
Stephanie Kamel, one of McMullan’s attorneys at IIP, said her client
faced an extremely difficult decision of whether to accept a plea to a
lesser charge or remain wrongfully imprisoned for years to come.
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“Driving her decision was her father, whose health is deteriorating
rapidly due to Alzheimer’s disease,” Kamel said in a news release.
“While we would like to have seen Jennifer’s conviction vacated with no
plea agreement required, we are glad she is finally free and reunited
with her family after an almost 20-year absence.”
McMullan was one of four people — along with Kenneth Smith, David
Collett and Justin Houghtaling — who were arrested for carrying out the
attempted robbery and fatal shooting of Raul Briseno at a McHenry
restaurant in March 2001.
McMullan’s release comes less than two months after a federal appeals
court released Smith from prison and vacated his murder conviction,
overruling prior Illinois state courts’ decisions in his case.
The convictions of McMullan and Smith were based on Houghtaling’s
confession to police days after the murder. Houghtaling, who confessed
in exchange for a lesser sentence, later recanted his confession.
He initially claimed that he and Smith robbed the restaurant while
McMullan and Collett waited in the getaway car.
Houghtaling pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 20 years in
exchange for testifying against the others. Collett also pleaded guilty
and was sentenced to five years.
After McMullan and Smith were found guilty at trial, their appeals
focused on an alternate group of suspects — known as the DeCicco group —
who confessed to the murder on multiple occasions but also later
recanted.
Smith’s first conviction was overturned on appeal, resulting in a second
trial in 2008 where he was found guilty but his conviction at the second
trial was also overturned.
He was convicted again at his third trial in 2012 and sentenced to 67
years in prison, but the conviction was yet again tossed out on appeal.
The federal appeals court’s decision in April was a result of Smith’s
appeal of his third conviction.
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Attorneys for Smith and McMullan argued that the
police overlooked credible confessions from members of the DeCicco
group that contained details about the crime that police withheld
from the public.
Specifically, the police withheld the fact that Briseno suffered a
head wound consistent with being hit with a gun, and that Briseno
had yelled to a passing car to call the police after he chased the
two masked robbers from the restaurant.
The federal appeals court’s opinion admonished the Illinois court
for being “not just wrong, but unreasonable,” in upholding Smith’s
conviction, despite Houghtaling’s recanted confession that was
“riddled with holes” and evidence corroborating the DeCicco group’s
confessions.
Based on the totality of the evidence presented at Smith’s trial —
the DeCicco group’s confessions along with weakness of the other
evidence — no rational jury could have found Smith guilty, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit found in its 33-page opinion.
“Houghtaling’s inconsistencies take on a special significance in
light of the DeCicco evidence—evidence that builds a narrative
largely free from the holes that fill Houghtaling’s confession. With
such a serious possibility of a third party’s guilt…we are convinced
as an objective matter that no rational trier of fact could have
found Smith guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” according to the
opinion issued April 29.
Kenneally said in a statement that he disagrees with the opinion
that overrules the decisions of three separate McHenry County
juries.
“We are increasingly distressed at the recent trend of remote
judges, years and decades later, elevating their own judgments of
selectively considered evidence and witness credibility over those
of ordinary citizens to reach preferred case outcomes,” Kenneally
said in the statement.
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The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision that no rational jury
could convict Smith forecloses the immediate possibility for
Kenneally to put Smith on trial for a fourth time.
Kenneally said his office is reviewing its legal options and
determining whether to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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