QUESTIONABLE JUDGMENT
Cook County circuit judge seeking retention in November had 34 decisions struck down in 6 years
Thirty-four times in the past six years, the Illinois Appellate Court has upended decisions by Cook County Circuit Judge Maura Slattery Boyle based on her errors, overturning her decisions at a pace far higher than that of other judges.
Slattery Boyle is one of the six Cook County criminal court judges who will be on the ballot in November, seeking retention. The other five have had their verdicts reversed or cases sent back for new hearings a combined total of 38 times during the same period.
Five times, in the interest of impartiality, the appeals court decided Slattery Boyle shouldn’t be allowed to hear cases it sent back, handing them to other judges instead.
In three of those cases, the defendants ended up being exonerated.
That’s according to a review by Injustice Watch that also found Slattery Boyle imposes harsher sentences than her colleagues. Compared with the 23 other Criminal Division judges who have presided over 1,000 or more cases in the past six years, she issues the most severe sentences, the examination of data released by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office found.
Slattery Boyle declined an interview request. In a written statement in response to questions, she said the appellate court upheld her rulings in the “vast majority of cases” and defended her sentencing practices. She also said attorneys have asked that her cases be reassigned to another judge only a small percentage of the time — “a clear indicator that defendants, defense attorneys and the state’s attorney’s office do not view me [as] unfair, harsh or difficult.”
Slattery Boyle grew up in Bridgeport, two blocks from the home of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley. She graduated from John Marshall Law School in 1993 and went to work for the state’s attorney’s office.
In 2000, at 33, she ran for judge with the backing of Cook County Commissioner John Daley, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s brother. “I’ve known her all my life,” he said at the time. “She has a very good background.”
The alliance of bar associations that rates Cook County judicial candidates has an agreement that it will not rate any candidate favorably who has fewer than 10 years of court experience. Slattery Boyle, who did not seek the endorsement, was given negative ratings.
She won anyway. Six years later, as she was running for retention, Patrick Slattery, her brother, was convicted of fraud for giving city jobs to former campaign workers for then-Mayor Richard M. Daley.
That year, the Chicago Council of Lawyers — one of the bar groups that rates judicial candidates — said Slattery Boyle possessed “good legal ability” and that lawyers praised her for “being even-tempered but firm.”
In 2012, the organization again rated her “qualified,” saying lawyers praised her for “her improved knowledge of the law, preparedness and diligence, integrity and fairness on the bench.” It said, “Attorneys on both sides of the aisle appear to think that she is fair.”
In recent years, though, her work has drawn criticism from appellate judges and some defense lawyers. One of them, Jennifer Bonjean, called it “a miserable experience” to be in front of Slattery Boyle, saying, “I knew from the minute we walked in that courtroom we would not get a fair forum.”
Bonjean represented Armando Serrano, who had been convicted along with José Montañez of murder in the 1993 killing of Rodrigo Vargas. The two had been sentenced to 55 years in prison largely on the statement of a supposed eyewitness, who, years later, recanted, saying a disgraced former Chicago police detective, Reynaldo Guevara, had encouraged him to give a false statement.
After the witness recanted, Serrano and Montanez challenged their convictions. At court hearings in 2013, Slattery Boyle sharply restricted the testimony she would allow, then dismissed the case before the hearing was complete, saying their evidence “entirely fails to support their allegation” that Guevara forced the witness to falsely implicate them.
On appeal, a three-judge panel of the Illinois Appellate Court called that decision “truly puzzling.” Written by Appellate Judge John B. Simon, the decision said Slattery Boyle “turned a blind eye to much of the evidence and also refused to admit probative, admissible evidence that, when evaluated under the proper standard, is damning. “
The following month, after the appellate court sent the case to another judge, both men were freed when the prosecutors chose not to contest the case further.
In another case, in 2015, the appellate court found Slattery Boyle “abused her discretion” by disqualifying attorneys from the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project from handling post-conviction proceedings for Ricardo Rodriguez, who said he, too, was wrongly convicted based on
evidence fabricated by Guevara.
Expressing concern that the pro bono lawyers unethically stepped in while Rodriguez was being represented by a private attorney, Slattery Boyle referred the attorneys for possible disciplinary action and removed them from representing Rodriguez in his efforts to overturn his conviction.
The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission found no wrongdoing by the attorneys. And an Illinois Appellate Court panel reversed the judge’s ruling, restored the attorneys from the Exoneration Project and ordered the case be assigned to a new judge.
In March, the state’s attorney’s office agreed to support overturning the verdict without the hearing ever taking place.
In 2016, the appellate court found fault with Slattery Boyle for letting a jury hear that a defendant, Joe Rosado, previously had been charged with a crime but not allowing the jury to hear that a jury found him “not guilty” of the earlier charge.
Slattery Boyle had been the trial judge for the prior case and said the prosecution “did not handle that case correctly because the evidence . . . was quite clear.”
In reversing the conviction, the appellate panel opinion, authored by Judge Michael B. Hyman, said, “Outward appearances would suggest that the trial court changed its evidentiary rulings in the second case to ensure that Rosado was not acquitted again.”
A review of data from the state’s attorney’s office shows Slattery Boyle also sentences more harshly than other judges. More often than not, she sentences defendants to prison terms longer than the median given by other Cook County judges and she overwhelmingly favors prison time over probation, especially for minor offenses.
Slattery Boyle disputes that, writing that “your assessment that I impose harsh sentences is based on incomplete data” that didn’t take into account that some judges are assigned to courtrooms where they tend to hear less serious cases.
But the analysis did factor in the category of crime to ensure the comparison of sentences given by judges was fair. It showed Slattery Boyle issues more severe sentences compared to all of the other Criminal Division judges who also have issued more than 1,000 sentences in the past six years.
In 2014, an Illinois Appellate Court panel overturned the conviction of Oscar Flores for murder and attempted murder, ruling that Slattery Boyle had wrongly permitted a videotaped confession to be introduced at his trial even though detectives obtained the statement after Flores had invoked his right to remain silent.
The appeals court judges also cautioned her about allowing, at retrial, social media posts by a user named “Little Rowdy,” who appeared to brag about the shooting. Police contended that Little Rowdy was Flores. But the appellate panel wrote that the captions accompanying the posts “should not be admitted at trial” since prosecutors couldn’t show Flores had written them.
Assistant State’s Attorney Eric Leafblad called Robert Macias, who had been separately tried and convicted as the driver, as a witness even though Macias’s lawyer said her client wouldn’t testify. Despite objections, Slattery Boyle allowed Leafblad to ask Macias about the killing and his association with Flores.
She also permitted Leafblad to ask a detective whether Macias had identified Flores as Little Rowdy, as well as questions about the captions the appeals court had found were inadmissible as evidence.
The jury convicted Flores a second time. Assistant Public Defender Julie Koehler then filed a motion asking that the case be reassigned, saying Slattery Boyle could not be “fair and impartial in the case” and that “her prejudice was evidenced throughout the trial.”
The motion included a juror’s statement that the judge had gone in to the jury room after the verdict and told jurors Flores previously confessed on videotape but that the appellate court had suppressed the evidence based on a “loophole.”
Koehler’s motion was denied, and Slattery Boyle sentenced Flores to 80 years in prison. The state appellate defender is preparing an appeal.