Date: 08 Jan 97 15:36:01 EST From: "Thomas J. Gradel" <76573.2076@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Walter Stewart ((Following is the news release about the hearing on Walter Stewart's lawsuite challenging the composition of the Illinois Supreme Count and its rulings upholding his conviction and death sentence)). NEWS RELEASE For Immediate Release From: Gradel Communications ( 12 - 27 - 96 ) For: Friends of Walter Stewart Contact: Tom Gradel at 773-561-1040 State's Failure to Remap Judicial Districts Could Nullify Inmate's Conviction and Death Sentence Chicago, Ill., Dec. 27 -- An inmate on Death Row in the state penitentiary in Pontiac, Ill., filed a lawsuit yesterday asking the Cook County Circuit Court to overturn his conviction and death sentence because the Illinois Supreme Court has been illegally constituted since before it issued key decisions in his case. In a complaint for Writ of Habeas Corpus, Walter Stewart argued that Illinois judicial districts have not been remapped to reflect population changes since 1964 and that by 1980, four of the five districts failed to meet Illinois Constitutional requirements that the districts be of substantially equal population and failed to meet the U.S. Constitutional requirement of one-man, one-vote. In the complaint, Stewart's attorney David C. Thomas, said two Illinois Supreme Court Justices were elected from judicial districts that violated the Illinois Constitution and therefore were not properly in office in 1984 and 1988 when the justices affirmed Walter Stewart's conviction and sentence of death. "Courts have consistently held that illegally constituted tribunals lack jurisdiction to hear cases and case law supports our position that the Supreme Court's decisions on Stewart's appeals were invalid," David Thomas said. "We are asking that Walter Stewart's conviction and death sentence be overturned, or at least set aside until he receives a hearing on his appeal within a reasonable period of time before a properly constituted Illinois Supreme Court," Thomas added. The Illinois Supreme Court itself has warned of its illegal composition. In the court's 1978 report to the Illinois legislature, then Chief Justice Daniel Ward warned that the failure to redraw judicial boundaries would result in a constitutional violation. Justice Ward, who died in 1995, also noted that the Illinois General Assembly had been aware of this disparity and that in the early 1970s lawmakers scuttled two plans to redraw the districts. Last February, Illinois Supreme Court spokesperson John Madigan told several news reporters "that it's been 18 years since Justice Ward's recommendation and the legislature hasn't done anything about it." Ward's recommendation has never been rescinded according to Madigan. Walter Stewart is a 41-year-old African American. He was 24 in 1980, when he was arrested and charged with murdering two people during a jewelry shop holdup in Berwyn, Ill. In his brief and hurried court appearence later that year, Stewart's attorneys urged him to enter a blind guilty plea without any plea negotiations. His attorneys also failed to investigate his family history and failed to present mitigating evidence before the judge sentenced Walter to death. "Many defendants whose crimes were similar to Walter's received prison sentences instead of death," according to David Thomas who began representing Stewart in 1989. Today's complaint was filed in the Cook County Circuit Court. Thomas Fitzgerald, Chief Judge of the Criminal Division, assigned the case to himself and scheduled oral arguments on the complaint for 9 a.m, Monday, December 30 in court room 101 at 26th and California. David Thomas is a clinical professor of law at IIT/Chicago-Kent College of Law. He also teaches courses in criminal procedure. Since he began practicing law in 1968, Thomas has represented plaintiffs in federal civil rights litigation and defendants in criminal cases. In 1982, he successfully brought a civil rights action in which the Seventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed action of the District Court granting preliminary injunction ordering the lifting of "deadlock" at Pontiac Penitentiary. In 1985, Thomas successfully argued a case before the Illinois Supreme Court which ruled that a state statute restricting demonstrations on public roadways was invalid because it was unconstitutionally vague.