SUB-HEADING: "Posthumous bid to overturn 1961 Starved Rock conviction dismissed in La Salle County court."
GIST: "A judge refused Monday to reconsider his June 18 ruling against the late Chester Weger. Barring an appeal, Weger’s bid for exoneration is over.
Weger, who was convicted in 1961 of murdering a woman at Starved Rock State Park, died June 22. His death came just days after La Salle County Judge Michael C. Jansz rejected Weger’s attempt to overturn his murder conviction.
That ruling, and Weger’s death, set off a flurry of filings at La Salle County Circuit Court, including a motion to reconsider by Andy Hale, one of Weger’s lawyers. Hale asked Jansz to rethink his June 18 ruling and cited multiple reasons why Jansz ruled incorrectly.
But the special prosecutor’s office, in turn, argued Weger’s death effectively nullified the motion to reconsider. That, special prosecutor Colleen Griffin wrote in a recent pleading, should be the end of it.
Jansz agreed.
During an unscheduled conference call held Monday, Jansz granted Griffin’s motion and ruled that Weger’s conviction stands.
“The court finds [Weger’s] motion to reconsider is void and stricken from the record,” according to the entry in Weger’s record sheet, “since the motion to reconsider was filed after [Weger’s] death.”
Hale did not immediately return an email request for comment on whether he would challenge the Monday ruling, but he had, immediately after the June 18 ruling, pledged to continue pursuing Weger’s exoneration.
“That fat lady hasn’t sung,” Hale said then.
Weger spent almomst six decades in prison for killing Lillian Oetting, one of three women fatally bludgeoned in 1960. Although he confessed to all three murders, he recanted and spent the rest of his life arguing, with no success, that he had been framed or railroaded.
Tom Collins covers criminal justice in La Salle County.
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.shawlocal.com/illinois-valley/2025/07/01/la-salle-county-judge-ends-weger-case-says-motion-void-after-death/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html 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.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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