Rekia Boyd
On Monday, Judge Dennis Porter made a decision that shocked lovers of justice across the nation. Presiding over the case against Chicago Police Officer Dante Servin, who shot and killed Rekia Boyd three years ago, Judge Porter dismissed all of the charges against Officer Servin,
because:
... prosecutors failed to prove that Dante Servin acted recklessly, saying that Illinois courts have consistently held that anytime an individual points a gun at an intended victim and shoots, it is an intentional act, not a reckless one. He all but said prosecutors should have charged Servin with murder, not involuntary manslaughter.
Servin cannot be retried on a murder charge because of double-jeopardy protections, according to his attorney, Darren O'Brien.
In other words, State's Attorney Anita Alvarez undercharged Dante Servin with a lesser crime that could not be proven whereas evidence and multiple eyewitnesses could show first or second degree murder. Come below the fold for more evidence that Alvarez deliberately undercharged Servin.
Rekia's family consistently asked Alvarez for this. Her brother, Martinez Sutton, stated:
“We asked for first-degree charges. We asked for second-degree charges and they said no. So we went with what they thought was best."
Attorney Sam Adam, Jr. came out and stated that he believed Anita Alvarez
deliberately tanked the case.
“To charge that as reckless conduct and not first-degree murder — either you’re doing it because you want to curry favor with the police department or you’re completely inept,” Adam said. “I think there’s no question it was deliberate. She wants to curry favor with the FOP. It took a $4.5 million settlement to get charges in this case. She was stuck in a hard place. If you charge first-degree murder, the FOP is mad at her. If you don’t charge anything, the community is upset. So you play the odds. That says you’re thinking about your job, not about what’s right.”
Another Chicago attorney, Bruce Mosbacher,
said the same thing,
“The State’s Attorney of Cook County did something very unusual, which is to charge an individual who shot a gun into a crowd with something less than first-degree murder. I haven’t seen that happen,” he said. “That’s very disturbing here, and it should be disturbing, and I can’t say that they were giving this officer a break, but it certainly looks like it.”
Now, we have proof that State's Attorney Anita Alvarez knew full well what she was doing when she undercharged Officer Dante Servin.
On January 23rd, 2010 Miguel Adorno fired his gun under his arm, much like Dante Servin claimed to, at a party in Chicago. A bullet hit Shannon Fanning in the arm. Nobody died, but Miguel Adorno was charged and convicted with attempted murder and given a mandatory 15-year prison sentence.
On June 14th, 2013, Miguel Adorno appealed this decision, stating that he was overcharged and over-sentenced for something was purely reckless. When you see what the state argued (full document embedded below), it'll blow your mind.
According to defendant's testimony, the people chasing him were right on his heels, therefore defendant knew he was firing the weapon in their direction when he reached into the trunk and fired the gun under his arm without looking.
Illinois courts have clearly and consistently held that when a defendant points a firearm in the direction of an intended victim and fires the weapon, he has not acted recklessly. People v. Sipp, 378 Ill. App. 3d 157, 166 (2007). Because defendant knowingly fired his gun in the direction of the crowd, a reckless conduct instruction was not appropriate. We do not find the court abused its discretion in refusing to instruct the jury on reckless conduct. [...]
The evidence elicited in this case shows that defendant knew the victim and others were present in the general vicinity of the apartment building, and defendant fired his weapon multiple times in their direction. [...]
Furthermore, specific intent to take a human life is a material element of the offense of attempted murder, but the very fact of firing a gun at a person supports the conclusion that the person doing so acted with the intent to kill.
In other words, the state argued that it would be wrong to charge Miguel Adorno with anything less than murder since he knowingly fired his gun into a crowd. His appeal was denied and he is in prison to this very day serving 15 years for shooting someone in the arm.
Yet State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, who willfully charged Miguel Adorno with attempted murder and cited case after case in his appeal, explaining why shooting his gun into a crowd required a felony murder charge, then contradicted her very own legal precedent by charging Officer Dante Servin with recklessness in a case in which he not only shot someone in their arm, but also shot Rekia Boyd in the head and killed her.
Are you following me here?
Anita Alvarez not only knew it was wrong to charge Officer Servin with the lesser crime of recklessness, she has a documented history of making the case that shooting into a crowd requires one to be charged with murder.
See the full case below.
1110028_R23-2
