TRIAL DATE IS SET FOR FORMER CRUZ PROSECUTORS
PRETRIAL ISSUES COULD DELAY SEPT. 14 START
April 9, 1998 (DuPage section, p. 1)
By Ted Gregory, Chicago Tribune Staff Writer.
Lawyers from both sides have agreed to a tentative trial date of Sept. 14 for three former prosecutors and four DuPage County sheriff's officers charged with railroading one-time murder suspect Rolando Cruz.
That date, however, depends on whether the attorneys can adhere to the informal schedule they made Wednesday.
The Sept. 14 date is six months later than the original trial date of March 10, which passed while attorneys argued over a range of pretrial issues. Those included allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, whether the County Board would pay defense attorneys' fees, requests to dismiss charges and requests of the judge to reconsider decisions.
A number of other pretrial issues make it unclear whether the new date is any more valid than the original one, and attorneys on Wednesday began debating one of those issues: the legal justification for allowing defendants' statements as evidence.
Defense attorneys are asking special prosecutors to specify the legal basis for presenting defendants' statements into evidence, but prosecutors are contending the request is too broad and must be whittled by the judge in a series of hearings.
The next status date in that debate is set for May 19. Arguments on that issue may run for weeks.
In addition, the attorneys must determine whether the defendants will receive separate trials, whether they will seek to move the trial outside DuPage County and whether they will select a trial by jury or by a judge.
The time needed to resolve those disputes has prompted at least one of the attorneys in the case to speculate that trials will start next year.
Another complication that had arisen earlier in the case resurfaced at Wednesday's hearing. Attorney Paul DeLuca, who represented DuPage Sheriff's Detective Warren Wilkosz, asked the county to pay his $3,200 legal bill. Wilkosz was not indicted but testified at length to the grand jury that investigated the Cruz case.
Judge William A. Kelly, who is presiding over the case against the seven men charged with railroading Cruz, said he would withhold ruling on DeLuca's request until the DuPage County Board made a definite decision on retaining an attorney who was appointed to advise the board about whether it should pay the legal fees of all seven defendants.
By paying DeLuca, the county could bolster the argument by defense attorneys that they too should be paid by the county, a contentious issue among County Board members.
The seven men are charged with fabricating evidence that implicated Cruz in the kidnapping, rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville Township in 1983. They also are charged with concealing evidence that might have cleared Cruz.
Cruz of Aurora was twice convicted and condemned to death for the crime but appealed both verdicts and won acquittal at his third trial in November 1995. The acquittal led to a grand jury investigation of the Cruz case, which yielded the seven men's indictments in December 1996.
Jeanine Nicarico's murder remains unsolved.
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