After six hours of often rancorous proceedings, a Juvenile Court judge late Thursday ordered a 7- and an 8-year-old charged with murder to be released to the custody of their families–but only after custom-made electronic monitoring bracelets were strapped to their tiny ankles.
Judge Gerald Winiecki also imposed a 24-hour home confinement order and specified that neither boy can go outside, even to go to school.
“These two boys are charged with murder,” Winiecki said. Still, he noted: “The fact remains that these two boys cannot be placed in a locked facility. According to Illinois law, they can never be locked up.”
Although Winiecki said he did not intend for the home confinement to be permanent, his ruling could be interpreted to be in conflict with the state law prohibiting keeping children so young in a locked facility.
Winiecki’s decision, in advance of a possible trial, came after two child psychology experts testified they had evaluated both boys and determined neither was a danger to themselves or others.
Prosecutors had wanted the boys, charged in the slaying of 11-year-old Ryan Harris last month, to remain at a “sheltered facility” pending more extensive evaluations.
One expert said the 7-year-old, described by police as the aggressor in the slaying and the one who authorities say gave the more detailed statement implicating himself and his friend in the crime, has significant speech problems, both in understanding and in articulation. Dr. Louis J. Kraus also said the boy was virtually non-verbal unless his mother was present during interviews.
That opinion may be significant, noted Catherine Ferguson, one of the 7-year-old’s attorneys, because the boy’s statement was taken in a room with five Chicago police officers and outside the presence of his mother.
Winiecki’s ruling was met with relief by family members of the two boys’. At the defense table, the boys did not immediately react, unable to decipher Winiecki’s legalistic language.
More Top Picks Best Premium Grip Strengtheners For Arthritis Seniors
Within minutes, the boys, accompanied by their mothers, were led to an adjacent jury room where the electronic bracelets were strapped to their ankles. The bracelets will alert authorities if the boys go outdoors.
“We’re thrilled they’re going home finally, because these little boys didn’t do anything wrong,” Ferguson declared outside Winiecki’s courtroom.
She said the boys would be returning to some sort of normalcy, and she and co-defense lawyer Elizabeth Tarzia already had talked to the Chicago Public Schools about possible home-schooling.
The 7-year-old, upon learning he was being released to relatives, just seemed very tired, Ferguson said.
Maisha Hamilton Bennett, a clinical psychologist, testified that she had examined the crime scene photos of the slaying victim. Bennett said she believed Ryan’s injuries likely were not inflicted by the two boys, who are among Chicago’s youngest slaying suspects.
“It’s hard for me to believe,” she said, under questioning by one of the 8-year-old’s lawyers, R. Eugene Pincham. “It seems to me to be something an adult has done.”
Kraus, an expert in child and adolescent psychiatry, examined the 7-year-old in Hartgrove Hospital, the West Side psychiatric facility where the two boys have been kept since their arrest Sunday.
“I recommend that (the 7-year-old) be released,” he said. “I feel that he is not a dangerous person to society.”
Assistant Cook County state’s attorneys, whose number has doubled to four since the case first came to court Monday, launched an unsuccessful argument that the boys should not be released to their families until more extensive psychiatric testing be done. Prosecutors did not call any witnesses.
Kip Owen, chief of the state’s attorney’s delinquency division, said outside of court, “Obviously we’re disappointed.” He called the ruling a “rush to judgment.”
He said Winiecki did not receive adequate information on whether the children posed a danger to other children in the neighborhood. “It’s not a question of locking them up; it’s a question of assessing whether they are a danger to other children,” he said.
The long hearing was marked by several outbursts by defense and prosecution lawyers. Winiecki threatened to expel one prosecutor if she continued to interrupt the defense lawyers.
At 5:45 p.m., prosecutors announced, in dramatic fashion, they had just been handed “school records” that would provide new evidence the boys were dangerous. When offered an opportunity to describe that evidence, Assistant State’s Atty. Patti Sudendorf could only provide records showing the 8-year-old had no discipline problems, had missed 8 1/2 days of school and had grades that included an A, two B’s and a C.
A prosecution request for a one-day continuance to call witnesses to testify about school records was rejected by Winiecki.
The courtroom theatrics included Pincham’s attempt to go beyond the expert testimony by hauling in a scale from a physician’s office, which was dragged to the center of the courtroom. The 8-year-old was marched over to be weighed and have his height measured.
Pincham declared the boy weighs 56 pounds and stands 4 feet 2 1/2 inches. As the boy stood on the scale, he smiled broadly at his parents sitting in the front row.
Throughout much of the hearing, the boys sat patiently at the defense table, coloring and drawing pictures that they proudly presented to their parents during recesses. They also played with toy cars and fiddled with hats they were given.
As the hearing dragged on, they fidgeted, their heads dropped, and they appeared ready to fall asleep.
The 7-year-old began to cry twice, the last time at the conclusion of an emotional argument by Sudendorf, who invoked the “brutal attack” on Ryan. The girl’s seminude body was found July 28 behind a building at 6636 S. Parnell Ave. The girl suffered a skull fracture, and she was asphyxiated after her underpants were jammed in her mouth and leaves and grass stuffed in her nose.
“Are these children a danger to others? I submit to your honor, yes, they are,” Sudendorf said.
The next court appearance was set for Aug. 28.
“With electronic monitoring, the court will be able to monitor the whereabouts . . . 24 hours a day,” Winiecki said. “The whereabouts should not be out of the house.”
Lawyers for the 7-year-old said the boy would be kept with relatives at an undisclosed location instead of his home to avoid the news media.
The 8-year-old returned home with his parents Thursday night to a tight-knit household consisting of his parents, three siblings and maternal grandparents, said Juanita Jones, the boy’s paternal grandmother.
More Top Picks Best Spindle Sanders For Woodworking