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player ready...It’s a stretch when a lawyer who wins his spurs as a prosecutor critiques a murder defense-and does so from the witness stand.
But that’s what veteran trial attorney William Kunkle did at a federal habeas corpus hearing last week, when he was called to give his opinion on how an inexperienced trial lawyer had in fact adequately represented a client who wound up on Death Row.
Attorney Thomas McGinnis, he said, had done an effective job for the defendant, convicted child slayer Durlyn Eddmonds, despite having never defended a murder case before.
The fact that the defense lawyer did not ask for either a mental fitness examination of his client or a “cooling off” delay between the guilty verdict and the death penalty phase didn’t detract from an effective performance at the 1980 bench trial before Criminal Court Judge John J. Crowley.
Eddmonds’ habeas lawyers, Richard Cunningham and Jeff Urdangen, have asked U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen to order a new trial for Eddmonds or an alternate sentence, based on alleged ineffective assistance of counsel.
Kunkle is a partner at Pope Cahill & Devine who gained notoriety as a trial prosecutor before leaving the Cook County state’s attorney’s office for private practice. He was hired by his old employer and the Illinois attorney general’s office to review the case.
His findings, elicted by Special Assistant State’s Atty. Marie Czech and questioned by Urdangen, included some hunches.
Asked why a defense lawyer would opt for an immediate death penalty hearing, Kunkle suggested McGinnis did not want to “make waves” and “must have had a gut feeling” he was doing the right thing.
Andersen is to hear closing arguments Aug. 5.
Fight over Duke will: A team of lawyers at Katten, Muchin & Zavis-headed by William Doyle Jr., Lee Ann Watson and Donald Egan-is scheduled to file a brief this week in response to attempts to overturn tobacco heiress Doris Duke’s $1.2 billion will.
Duke’s former financial adviser-who once was co-executor and co-trustee of the will-claims Duke may have been poisoned and has asked a New York City judge if he can engage in discovery before the will is settled. Duke died last October, and she left most of her estate to charity and educational foundations.
She also left $5 million to her butler and made him executor of the foundation positioned to control most of the estate. The Katten lawyers are representing the butler and U.S. Trust Co. of New York, which is co-executor of the estate. Doyle is the lead trust and estates lawyer; Watson and Egan are litigators.
They are “politely refusing all requests for interviews,” but are expected to present an affidavit from Duke’s doctor by Friday that maintains the allegations are unsupported and preposterous. The judge has told both sides to be prepared to argue their positions Aug. 24.
– Rudnick & Wolfe partners Seymour Simon and Thomas F. Geselbracht will share with a state task group Wednesday their knowledge about siting a low-level radioactive waste facility. Simon chaired the State Siting Commission, which rejected a proposed site near Martinsville two years ago and is the predecessor of the Illinois Low-Level Radioactive Waste Task Group. The pair also will help evaluate proposed sites. . . . Veteran prosecutor Thomas Epach, saying his trial talents were being wasted, has resigned from the Cook County state’s attorney’s office after compiling an enviable record of convictions. His successor, Assistant State’s Atty. Edward N. Pietrucha, is the fifth prosecution supervisor in the Rolling Meadows courthouse in the last 14 months. . . . Former Senior Assistant Illinois Atty. Gen. John W. McCaffrey has joined Hopkins & Sutter as partner and will work closely on business regulatory issues. He was lead attorney and a key negotiator in Commonwealth Edison’s recent $1.3 billion rate-issue settlement.