POST: "Richard Schmack the Maria Ridulph Case: When A Prosecutor Gets It," published by Mimesis Law on March 29, 2016;
GIST: "On a snowy night in 1957, Maria Ridulph disappeared from a street near her house in the small town of Sycamore, Illinois. Her body was found a few months later. Over the next half-century, the case would travel from unsolved mystery to the oldest cold case conviction in the country to the epitome of a wrongful conviction. Jack McCullough was ultimately convicted of Ridolph’s murder. In a hearing scheduled for today, a judge is expected to overturn that conviction. The journey from that snowy night to this hearing has involved about every issue in the criminal justice system, from “noble cause corruption” to suggestive identification. But the most important issue in the case has been the behavior of DeKalb County State’s Attorney Richard Schmack. The hysteria of a high-profile criminal case and public sentiment against the defendant is enough to make an elected prosecutor run for the hills. Had Schmack done that, McCullough would have likely served the rest of his life sentence and no one would have been the wiser. Instead, Schmack put the ethics of being a prosecutor ahead of the politics of prosecuting and scored a win for the criminal justice system..........The investigation that had initially cleared McCullough was not considered the second time around, because the records were too old. Old records are to be expected when a murder is prosecuted over fifty years later.... Schmack’s extensive review of the evidence revealed that, while there was no rush to prosecute McCullough, there was certainly a rush to convict him. In consenting to McCullough’s petition for relief, Schmack made a difficult and unpopular decision. Maria’s family was expectedly unhappy with the decision. “He’s thrown out all of the evidence that’s been presented in court,” Mr. Ridulph said of the prosecutor. “It’s been a very trying day, and we feel helpless because we have no one representing the victim or us as victims in these proceedings because Richard Schmack, as the state’s attorney, is acting as the defense counsel.” And that statement says everything you need to know about Schmack. He was not representing the victims. Of course, he wasn’t representing McCullough either. He was representing the system he was elected to represent. Schmack takes this seriously, despite the fact he is going to suffer some blowback for making this decision. This is the opposite of noble cause corruption. Wrongful convictions, along with many of the other perceived cracks in the justice system, occur when prosecutors and law enforcement blindly pursue a result at the expense of the process. Schmack did the opposite. Instead of allowing public pressure and bias to force a result, Schlack reviewed McCullough’s conviction for the truth. He made a very unpopular decision. In today’s world, he may very well have ended his career as the elected State’s Attorney. This is unfortunate. A prosecutor like Schmack sets the bar high, which is where it should be.
The entire post can be found at:
"http://mimesislaw.com/fault-lines/richard-schmack-the-maria-ridulph-case-when-a-prosecutor-gets-it/8180#comment-211
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The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
