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Author
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Topic: Is 61 years in prison enough retribution?
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Paper Trail
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posted July 28, 2007 08:49 AM
Notorious triple murderer William Heirens seeks parole yet again
By Michael Higgins
Tribune staff reporter
DIXON, Ill. - William Heirens, his legs swollen from diabetes, pushes himself slowly in his wheelchair toward his visitors at the state prison.
"I figure I'll be getting out this year," he predicted last week in a Tribune interview. "It's a bad thing on the reputation of Illinois that they lock people up forever."
Heirens has served more than six decades in prison—longer than any other inmate in Illinois history—for one of the most shocking murder sprees in Chicago annals.
With the Illinois Prisoner Review Board set to rule Thursday on yet another parole bid by Heirens, the case raises fundamental questions about justice and punishment, rehabilitation and retribution.
Heirens has spent a virtual lifetime, from age 17 to 78, as a model prisoner. He was even the first Illinois inmate to earn a college degree behind bars.
Now Heirens' advancing age is forcing the state to decide what his efforts at rehabilitation are ultimately worth. Has he earned a measure of mercy in his final years, or do his crimes carry a price that can never be paid?
While his lawyers argue that Heirens should be freed because of good conduct and his failing health, the murder victims' relatives, who have long fought to keep him behind bars, say they live in fear of the day he might be released.
"There can be no sense of security if he gets out," said James Degnan, who was born after his sister Suzanne died at the hands of Heirens.
Cook County prosecutors argued to the board this spring that his crimes were too heinous to be forgiven.
Heirens pleaded guilty in 1946 to killing two women in their homes and strangling 6-year-old Suzanne Degnan, whose body was dismembered and disposed of in city sewers.
"For heavens sake, catch me before I kill more," read a chilling message scrawled in lipstick on the wall of one victim's apartment. "I cannot control myself."
Heirens was sentenced to three consecutive life terms. But under the law of the day, life didn't mean life without parole.
Claims of innocence
In dozens of hearings since the 1960s, the review board has repeatedly denied him parole, in part because he insists he is innocent—a claim he repeated in last week's interview.Despite that, some board members have praised and encouraged him, including one who in 1975 called Heirens "a good example of what rehabilitation is all about."
He can be set free if the parole board determines that he presents no risk to the public and his release would not "deprecate the seriousness of his offense or promote disrespect for the law," according to Illinois law.
Even Nathan Leopold, whose 1924 murder with Richard Loeb of a 14-year-old boy was Chicago's original "crime of the century," was paroled after serving 33 years in prison. He had been sentenced to life plus 99 years in prison.
"It's a problem that's been with us forever," said Andrew Leipold, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "You want to punish for what's been done. You also hope to rehabilitate. You want to send a deterrent message. . . . There's no agreed measure of what's the proper balance."
Change in strategy
At the latest parole hearing, Heirens' lawyers shifted tactics, downplaying his claims of wrongful conviction and emphasizing his poor health and years as a model prisoner.
Heirens long ago met the criteria that would win parole for any other inmate, said his attorney, Steven Drizin, a professor at Northwestern University Law School.
"When the Bill Heirens case is mentioned, the blindfold is taken off Lady Justice," he said.
But county prosecutors, in opposing Heirens' release, said his murders, particularly the grisly Degnan killing, was a defining moment in post-World War II Chicago, in essence robbing the city of its innocence.
"His crime spree changed the way people thought, the way they acted, the way they lived," Assistant State's Atty. Gina Savini said in papers filed with the parole board. "Children who were once free to play outside were kept inside. Doors that were once left opened were now locked and bolted."
He is "a creature . . . not worthy of living among the civilized," the prosecutor wrote.
An accomplished burglar
Heirens was a student at the University of Chicago—and already a seasoned burglar by his own admission—when Josephine Ross, 43, was fatally stabbed and Frances Brown, 32, was shot and stabbed six months apart in 1945.
Then in early 1946, an intruder used a ladder to climb into the window of another home and strangled Suzanne Degnan.
For months, newspapers headlined the story as the police investigation foundered. In June 1946, police were called to a burglary in Rogers Park and found Heirens armed with a gun. Police said he tried to shoot the officer, which Heirens denies, but the gun misfired.
In the days that followed, police and prosecutors trampled Heirens' rights, interrogating him for hours in his hospital bed, searching his dormitory room without a warrant and forcibly injecting him with sodium pentathol, so-called truth serum, to try to extract a confession, courts have found.
Prosecutors even pushed Heirens to make a public confession at a news conference. When he didn't cooperate, they pulled a more favorable plea bargain off the table.
After he pleaded guilty in September 1946 to the murders and numerous burglaries, prosecutors took him to the Degnan home to re-enact the crime for the press.
"A lot of what happened then [with the media] would not be allowed today," conceded Colin Simpson, an assistant state's attorney leading the state's opposition to Heirens' parole. "But those were different times."
Heirens has spent the last 60 years trying to undo his guilty pleas. He said he made a false confession and then, amid the media frenzy, despaired of ever getting a fair trial.
Through the years, Heirens became a jailhouse lawyer who, he says, won many other inmates their freedom. But his numerous bids for a new trial of his own have failed, stymied by his decision to plead guilty, his confession and damaging fingerprint evidence left in two of the murders. His print was found on a ransom note in the Degnan murder, but his lawyer contends the evidence may have been falsified.
Ryan denies clemency
Even then-Gov. George Ryan, who cleared Death Row in 2002, refused to grant Heirens' clemency, despite Northwestern lawyers calling his case "one of the grossest miscarriages of justice in the history of the United States."
Today, Heirens largely uses to a wheelchair because of diabetes. His speech is slowed by age, but he is mentally alert and speaks confidently about his case.
His manner is polite and folksy, but he flashes resentment when the topic turns to the conduct of his lawyers and the news media in 1946.
He lives in a hospital section at the Dixon state prison. Heirens said he writes about five letters a day to friends and cousins and reads Prison Legal News from front to back.
In the interview last week, he fondly recalled his days long ago at the state prison in Downstate Vienna when he and other inmates traveled with a guard to pick apples at an orchard, address Christmas cards at a nursing home and shop.
If released, Heirens said he wants to travel the world, preferably by train.
"I'd just like looking out the window and seeing things go by," he said
mjhiggins@tribune.com
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TVMattNYC
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posted July 28, 2007 09:54 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Paper Trail:
Heirens was sentenced to three consecutive life terms.
No.
61 years is not three consecutive life terms.
Nice try, though.
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Angel's Hell
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posted July 28, 2007 04:57 PM
I'd say if they had an airtight case, and convicted him of murdering and dismembering a six year old, he should never go free.
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ISTHISTHINGON?
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posted July 28, 2007 05:23 PM
They should have chopped him up years ago and dumped his parts in the Prison sewer system. Sorry, I feel no sympathy here.
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sonorandesert
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posted July 29, 2007 01:42 AM
quote:
Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
quote:
Originally posted by Paper Trail:
Heirens was sentenced to three consecutive life terms.
No.
61 years is not three consecutive life terms.
Nice try, though.
"Heirens was sentenced to three consecutive life terms. But under the law of the day, life didn't mean life without parole
These days it's "Life with the possibility of parole, after 25 years"...
Those days were "LIFE". Three of them at that.
These day's, he would still have to serve at the least, 14 more years.
Then again, those days, if one were sentenced to death, sentence was carried out in, like, 3-5 years.
Nice catch.
[ July 29, 2007, 01:47 AM: Message edited by: sonorandesert ]
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TVShootist.
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posted July 29, 2007 02:16 AM
I say let the old bastard go. He's old, confined to a wheelchair and will probably be dead in a few years anyways.. I doubt he is a threat to society.
[ July 29, 2007, 02:17 AM: Message edited by: TVShootist. ]
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Major Woody
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posted July 29, 2007 03:57 AM
quote:
Originally posted by TVShootist.:
I say let the old bastard go. He's old, confined to a wheelchair and will probably be dead in a few years anyways.
Awww, you old softy.
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Angel's Hell
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posted July 29, 2007 04:45 AM
quote:
Originally posted by TVShootist.:
I say let the old bastard go. He's old, confined to a wheelchair and will probably be dead in a few years anyways.. I doubt he is a threat to society.
But if he is a sexual predator, and he likes to kill, he will do it at his first chance. It's that old doughnut, about the frog and the scorpion who begs for the ride across the river, swearing he won't sting the frog to death. When the frog gets stung he asks the scorpion why. The scorpions response: it's in my nature.
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Diplomat
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posted July 29, 2007 05:53 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Angel's Hell:
I'd say if they had an airtight case, and convicted him of murdering and dismembering a six year old, he should never go free.
Amen.
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"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery" -- Winston Churchill
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Dap
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posted July 29, 2007 08:18 AM
The people he killed don't get a second chance, why should he? I don't care how old he is, he's still an evil person.
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TVShootist.
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posted July 29, 2007 09:25 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Angel's Hell:
quote:
Originally posted by TVShootist.:
I say let the old bastard go. He's old, confined to a wheelchair and will probably be dead in a few years anyways.. I doubt he is a threat to society.
But if he is a sexual predator, and he likes to kill, he will do it at his first chance. It's that old doughnut, about the frog and the scorpion who begs for the ride across the river, swearing he won't sting the frog to death. When the frog gets stung he asks the scorpion why. The scorpions response: it's in my nature.
I don't think he was a sexual predator, don't see that in the story... he just simply killed two women and then strangled a 6 year old and dismembered the body.
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cinehead
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posted July 29, 2007 10:16 AM
quote:
Originally posted by TVShootist.:
he just simply killed two women and then strangled a 6 year old and dismembered the body.
Just? Simply? I guess that's no bid deal to you.
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Diplomat
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posted July 29, 2007 10:24 AM
quote:
Originally posted by cinehead:
quote:
Originally posted by TVShootist.:
he just simply killed two women and then strangled a 6 year old and dismembered the body.
Just? Simply? I guess that's no bid deal to you.
Geez, if he killed only three people, he's probably a nice guy. It would behoove us to free this poor victim of society in the interest of social justice and the common good. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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"I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."
William F. Buckley, Jr.
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery" -- Winston Churchill
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TVShootist.
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posted July 29, 2007 11:29 AM
quote:
Originally posted by cinehead:
quote:
Originally posted by TVShootist.:
he just simply killed two women and then strangled a 6 year old and dismembered the body.
Just? Simply? I guess that's no bid deal to you.
Well come on, it's not like he sexually molested someone. Besides, it happened in 1945.. who cares? Most people that were alive in 1945 are old and senile. The rest of us are young and just don't care what happened in 1945.
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Angel's Hell
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posted July 29, 2007 11:32 AM
TV Shootist, I somehow think that kiling the women does imply a sexually violent nature, given that he's a male and the age of his youngest victim. It's likely if he was raping them, they did not release the info to the press in order to spare the families some modicum (???) of discomfort. It's like you are asking to discriminate why people would kill serially: sex or something else? Well, it's actually all about control and domination, in either a rape/murder or a serial case. Hope, if your mother or wife or gf ever gets raped, that they get the sterotypical rapist, the largest group who has some kind of whacked out fantasy about his victim that they are his love object. And not he five percent worst case scenario rapist that kills his victims as part of his rape scenario. (That's all stuff from John Douglas, btw. Although I'm sure he would never have actually *said* that!)
Now, why do you have any sympathy at all for this fellow? I know he's human, we all are. How young was he when this crime was committed?
Okay, so your argument is should the 76 year old man have to pay for what the 15 year old boy did?
Actually, that's a damned good question.
[ July 29, 2007, 11:33 AM: Message edited by: Angel's Hell ]
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Pro
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posted July 29, 2007 12:21 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Angel's Hell:
Okay, so your argument is should the 76 year old man have to pay for what the 15 year old boy did?
Actually, that's a damned good question.
It is, but really should be if the 76 year old man should pay any more for what the 15 year old did.
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TVMattNYC
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posted July 29, 2007 02:27 PM
quote:
Originally posted by TVShootist.:
quote:
Originally posted by cinehead:
quote:
Originally posted by TVShootist.:
he just simply killed two women and then strangled a 6 year old and dismembered the body.
Just? Simply? I guess that's no bid deal to you.
Well come on, it's not like he sexually molested someone. Besides, it happened in 1945.. who cares? Most people that were alive in 1945 are old and senile. The rest of us are young and just don't care what happened in 1945.
Oh, well if there was no sexual nature to the killings, that makes it OK! Especially since it happened back in the '40s, when murder didn't hurt as much.
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Diplomat
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posted July 29, 2007 02:31 PM
Thanks for the historical perspective, Matt. I guess if we weren't around then, it couldn't possibly have hurt as much or been as heinous a crime as we've heard.
The original article is all but portraying this man as a victim. He's a murderer. It amazes me how many people want to cut a murderer some slack.
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"I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."
William F. Buckley, Jr.
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery" -- Winston Churchill
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Pro
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posted July 29, 2007 03:22 PM
It would also be cutting the people of that state some slack. It costs to incarcerate. And its not as if there is plenty of room in prisons.
Not to metion the medical care he will require while a "guest of the state".
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cinehead
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posted July 29, 2007 03:25 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Pro:
It would also be cutting the people of that state some slack. It costs to incarcerate. And its not as if there is plenty of room in prisons.
Not to metion the medical care he will require while a "guest of the state".
Then maybe we should do away with life sentences. Maybe we should just sentence people to terms like "when we aren't so angry about what you did" or "when your so old and feeble we're not afraid of you anymore".
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Pro
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posted July 29, 2007 03:41 PM
I don't agree with "life without the possibility of parole". That gives the prisoner NO incentive.
If a "lifer" has shown - over the course of decades and decades - that he is no longer a threat....and he is in his last years of life....I say why not? Keeping him any longer would just be for revenge.
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TVMattNYC
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posted July 29, 2007 03:44 PM
quote:
Originally posted by cinehead:
quote:
Originally posted by Pro:
It would also be cutting the people of that state some slack. It costs to incarcerate. And its not as if there is plenty of room in prisons.
Not to metion the medical care he will require while a "guest of the state".
Then maybe we should do away with life sentences. Maybe we should just sentence people to terms like "when we aren't so angry about what you did" or "when your so old and feeble we're not afraid of you anymore".
Or we could EXECUTE them.
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Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
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Angel's Hell
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posted July 29, 2007 04:44 PM
Incentive for what? Do you understand what personality disorder is, and how unlikely it is that someone with one, sociopathy/psychopathy (3 kills its guaranteed) will ever get better? In treatment, are you ready those of you in therapy with PDs, 88 percent of people get no relief for their problems. That is because a personality disorder is their "personality!" It's not easily changable. I know, I know, the behaviorists come along and say "you are your reinforcements" but in all honesty there is a lot of recidivism. For example, with drinking or drug use, people backslide a lot. (Not necessarily because it's a PD, but because the cures are just not there.) Or therapy for other things on a behavioral basis, sometimes it works but for a limited period of time. Psychologists KNOW this!
And for this killer, well the only thing he has going for him is that he did his crimes at a young age. But if they are right, and he's not experienced some real growth, and I don't see how, but just tell me if you know, I would not feel safe with him on the streets.
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TVMattNYC
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posted July 29, 2007 04:46 PM
Or we could EXECUTE them.
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Angel's Hell
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posted July 29, 2007 04:48 PM
TVMattNYC
What? Execute sociopaths? At birth? When they hit grade school? When? And what purpose does it really serve to kill someone who kills? What kind of moral lesson is that for society at large???
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TVMattNYC
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posted July 29, 2007 06:27 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Angel's Hell:
TVMattNYC
What? Execute sociopaths? At birth? When they hit grade school? When? And what purpose does it really serve to kill someone who kills? What kind of moral lesson is that for society at large???
What kind of "moral lesson" is that?
This isn't about teaching "moral lessons".
This is about preventing future murders.
[ July 29, 2007, 06:28 PM: Message edited by: TVMattNYC ]
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cinehead
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posted July 29, 2007 06:50 PM
This is why I'm against the death penalty.
quote:
BOSTON -- A federal judge on Thursday ordered the government to pay $101.7 million in the case of four men who spent decades in prison for a 1965 murder after the FBI withheld evidence of their innocence to protect an informant.
Peter Limone, Joseph Salvati and the families of the two other men who died in prison after being convicted in a 1965 slaying had sued the federal government for malicious prosecution.
They argued Boston FBI agents knew mob hitman Joseph "The Animal" Barboza lied when he named the four men as killers. They said Barboza wanted to protect a fellow FBI informant, Vincent "Jimmy" Flemmi, who was involved in the slaying.
Salvati and Limone were exonerated in 2001 after FBI memos dating back to the Deegan case surfaced, showing the men were framed by Barboza.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said Thursday that the FBI encouraged perjury, helped frame the four men and withheld for more than three decades information that could have cleared them.
"The FBI's misconduct was clearly the sole cause of this conviction," she said.
The government had argued federal authorities had no duty to share information with state officials who prosecuted Limone, Salvati, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco. Federal authorities cannot be held responsible for the results of a state prosecution, a Justice Department lawyer argued.
"The government's position is, in a word, absurd," Gertner said.
Limone and Salvati stared straight ahead as the judge announced her ruling, but an audible gasp was heard from the area where their friends and family were sitting when Gertner said how much the government would be forced to pay.
"Do I want the money? Yes, I want my children, my grandchildren to have things I didn't have, but nothing can compensate for what they've done," said Salvati, 75.
Salvati was sentenced to life in prison as an accessory to murder. He was released from prison when his sentence was commuted in 1997, after serving a little more than 29 years. Limone served 33 years in prison before being freed in 2001.
"It's been a long time coming," said Limone, 73. "What I've been through -- I hope it never happens to anyone else."
Justice Department lawyer Bridget Bailey Lipscomb declined immediate comment on the ruling.
*a note: these guys were originally given a death sentence until Massachusetts ruled it unconstitutional.
$101 million is nice, but I would rather have the 29 years of my life back.
Also, I think a death penalty is the easy way out. I'm all for letting a convicted murderer just rot for the rest of his life - even if he lives for a really long time.
[ July 29, 2007, 06:53 PM: Message edited by: cinehead ]
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TVShootist.
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posted July 29, 2007 07:08 PM
quote:
Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
quote:
Originally posted by TVShootist.:
quote:
Originally posted by cinehead:
quote:
Originally posted by TVShootist.:
he just simply killed two women and then strangled a 6 year old and dismembered the body.
Just? Simply? I guess that's no bid deal to you.
Well come on, it's not like he sexually molested someone. Besides, it happened in 1945.. who cares? Most people that were alive in 1945 are old and senile. The rest of us are young and just don't care what happened in 1945.
Oh, well if there was no sexual nature to the killings, that makes it OK! Especially since it happened back in the '40s, when murder didn't hurt as much.
Exactly! Glad someone agree's with me.
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Pro
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posted July 29, 2007 07:19 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Angel's Hell:
Incentive for what? Do you understand what personality disorder is, and how unlikely it is that someone with one, sociopathy/psychopathy (3 kills its guaranteed) will ever get better? In treatment, are you ready those of you in therapy with PDs, 88 percent of people get no relief for their problems. That is because a personality disorder is their "personality!" It's not easily changable.
Now hold on. I didn't say it should be automatic. And if 80% are a still a threat after 30 or 40 years, what about the other 20%? It should be determined on a case-by-case basis. And in THIS case, where a 76 year old man has been a model prisoner for 61 years, and is now mostly confined to a wheel chair - and in all liklihood, doesn't have that many years left - I see no compelling reason to keep him locked up. This is a case where parole for a "lifer" would be acceptable.
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TVMattNYC
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posted July 29, 2007 07:24 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Pro:
quote:
Originally posted by Angel's Hell:
Incentive for what? Do you understand what personality disorder is, and how unlikely it is that someone with one, sociopathy/psychopathy (3 kills its guaranteed) will ever get better? In treatment, are you ready those of you in therapy with PDs, 88 percent of people get no relief for their problems. That is because a personality disorder is their "personality!" It's not easily changable.
Now hold on. I didn't say it should be automatic. And if 80% are a still a threat after 30 or 40 years, what about the other 20%? It should be determined on a case-by-case basis. And in THIS case, where a 76 year old man has been a model prisoner for 61 years, and is now mostly confined to a wheel chair - and in all liklihood, doesn't have that many years left - I see no compelling reason to keep him locked up. This is a case where parole for a "lifer" would be acceptable.
Think of all the money we could have saved if they'd executed him in 1949.
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Pro
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posted July 29, 2007 09:06 PM
But thart would be wrong. IMO, the state has no right to execute anybody.
It is one of the few issues that I strongly disagreed with Bill Clinton's view.
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Diplomat
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posted July 29, 2007 09:07 PM
I don't believe this man had the right to execute anyone.
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"I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."
William F. Buckley, Jr.
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery" -- Winston Churchill
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Pro
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Member # 5396
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posted July 29, 2007 09:12 PM
Nor do I. Two wrongs don't make a right, though.
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Diplomat
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Member # 2560
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posted July 29, 2007 09:15 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Pro:
Nor do I. Two wrongs don't make a right, though.
I think the man should have been locked away and never given any sympathetic publicity. He took a little girl's life and appears unrepentant.
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"I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."
William F. Buckley, Jr.
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery" -- Winston Churchill
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TVMattNYC
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Member # 4950
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posted July 29, 2007 09:18 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Pro:
But thart would be wrong. IMO, the state has no right to execute anybody.
I'm sure the state would beg to differ.
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Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
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Pro
Open Line Veteran
Member # 5396
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posted July 29, 2007 09:24 PM
quote:
Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
quote:
Originally posted by Pro:
But thart would be wrong. IMO, the state has no right to execute anybody.
I'm sure the state would beg to differ.
Most states would, yes. Especially needle-happy Texas. They line 'em up in Huntsville.
Still doesn;t mean it's right. It's revenge, pure and simple.
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Dap
Member
Member # 15678
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posted July 30, 2007 08:57 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Diplomat:
quote:
Originally posted by Pro:
Nor do I. Two wrongs don't make a right, though.
I think the man should have been locked away and never given any sympathetic publicity. He took a little girl's life and appears unrepentant.
I agree. So the man is old now, that doesn't mean he has changed his spots or makes what he did less heinous. He was sentenced to life. Life sentences should mean you die in prison, period.
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The Mockingbird
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Member # 6852
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posted July 30, 2007 09:07 AM
A guy who goes on a killing spree is absolutely the kind of person we should be locking away in our prisons.
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Shot A Load
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Member # 2729
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posted July 30, 2007 09:14 AM
Instead of arguing about whether or not he is still a bad person or not, why don't we look at how sentencing is given in other cases. If a man gets out earlier on similar crimes why not this man? There doesn't seem to be any consistancy in many states. I've seen people get probation for certain crimes while others will do time. I've noticed leniency with regards to women, people who have better socioecinomic backgrounds and people who have churches behind them. Sometimes just having the right kind of people show up in support can sway a sentencing.
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That reporter gives skanks a bad name!
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