JACKSON CO.—Now here’s some good news coming out of a southern Illinois county for once.
Michael Carr
Of course, it might be bad news for some people, especially those who’ve been skirting the law and subsequently, justice.
Newly-elected Jackson County State’s Attorney Mike Carr, whose fine assistance with the Raymond Martin federal case in 2010 you’ll recall being covered right here, has announced that he’s going to be utilizing the efforts of a grand jury in the county, apparently something his long-time predecessor, Mike Wepseic, did not do.
A grand jury is composed of 16 people chosen from the general public within the county (registered voters) and can literally be anyone—a farmer, a doctor, a stripper at the club in DeSoto—to whom information in a felony criminal case is presented by the prosecutor with no judge present. The person under suspicion of indictment can be present but doesn’t have to be. If he or she is present, his or her defense attorney is present as well. The grand jury is sworn to secrecy as to the proceedings, but transcripts are made of everything that goes on in the courtroom, and those are made available to the defense attorney, in particular if the defendant is not present. Those making up the grand jury are allowed to ask questions of witnesses, the defendant, and the prosecutor during the course of the proceedings. They then return a “true bill” or “no true bill” of indictment. Grand jury indictments and the proceedings that bring them about supersede a preliminary hearing against a defendant, and keeps the public from knowing a lot of what’s going on in a case, precluding that information from being disseminated until either discovery is presented, or until a jury trial actually goes down.
Regular readers will remember that Richland County prosecutor David Hyde brought in a grand jury to handle the case against Brandon Jenkins in December 2011. The grand jury was lied to repeatedly by witnesses, we learned in April and May of 2012, who upheld the fabricated story created by the criminal Earp gang about what actually took place the night of November 20, 2011. When it came to trial and evidence was presented to the contrary of the made-up story, all the grand jury witnesses and their testimony—which was read aloud to the jury during the course of the proceedings—was blown out of the water. So grand juries can work to the favor of the defendant as well as to the favor of the state. The onus is on the prosecutor to use them properly.
And we’re hoping Carr uses it properly. Because if he does, maybe a local case in Carbondale will be brought to justice and perhaps closure for an area family.
Molly Young
Regular readers will also be familiar with the case of Molly Young, who died of a gunshot wound to the head on March 24, 2012. Wepseic was in office when this occurred, and dealt with the “investigation” the Carbondale police “conducted. See, Young died at her former boyfriend’s apartment. The former boyfriend, Richie Minton, was a dispatcher for the police…and has family members well-connected with law enforcement in and around adjoining Franklin County. For all intents and purposes, it appears as though no one on the C’dale police wanted to piss off the Minton family, so they claimed that Molly’s death was from a “self-inflicted” wound…and though it happened right there in Richie’s apartment, he just slept through the whole thing and awoke to find his gf dead. Forensics, however, are showing that’s not possible. So far, the only real development in the case is that it’s been shown Molly couldn’t have, and didn’t, self-inflict that fatal wound. And since Richie’s roomie came home and was actually the one who found Molly’s body early that morning, that meant by default that Molly and Richie were the only ones in the apartment when she died…so if she couldn’t have killed herself, that leaves either one vicious weapon that finally proved the anti-gun weirdos right in that IT assaulted HER…or Richie did it, folks.
Richie Minton ostensibly at work at the dispatch center, this according to the MySpace caption. He doesn’t smile much, as he has nasty teeth.
Carr, therefore, can do with evidence what Wepseic refused to do: he can take the case in front of the grand jury. He can allow the “investigating” officials to get up on the stand and LIE to the grand jury, then present his own evidence to show how they’re lying. The grand jury, who probably won’t be all too happy that their day is being taken up for literally pennies on the dollar per hour (yes, they get paid for their service, but not much), will likely sit there in disgust that the C’dale police couldn’t do their freaking job a year ago and provide enough information for Wepseic to make an arrest….because many of them probably will have 21-year-old daughters and/or granddaughters whom they could easily envision in this situation, especially given the text messages that passed between Richie and Molly before she traveled to his apartment.
We can hope. Molly’s family can hope.
But it’s our sincere belief that the Young/Minton case is what prompted Wepseic to not run for another term last year. And we believe that the people of Jackson County put their faith in Carr instead of his challenger because Carr has proven himself in the federal court system, and there are a lot of spurious things going on in Jackson County that need the kind of attention and scrutiny someone of Carr’s caliber can provide.
We’ll see in upcoming weeks if this comes to pass. Good luck, Mike. And good luck to the Young family, who have been patiently waiting for answers to the death of their girl.