MOUNT VERNON — A state appeals panel has ordered further proceedings in a convicted murderer’s appeal for post conviction relief.
On June 9, 2008, in St. Clair County Circuit Court, Tiffany Hall pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and one count of intentional homicide. Authorities say in 2006 Hall killed her pregnant friend and that woman’s fetus, then later murdered the woman’s three other children. In exchange for her plea, prosecutors withdrew notice of intent to seek the death penalty, agreeing to a minimum sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.
That September, Hall moved to withdraw her guilty plea, but Judge Milton Wharton denied her request. In 2012, Hall filed a petition for post conviction relief and asked to have a new defense lawyer appointed, alleging her earlier lawyers failed to properly investigate her mental health.
Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court
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When a judge dismissed that petition, the Fifth District Appellate Court remanded the request for further proceeding, at which point it was assigned to Circuit Judge Zina Cruse. In March 2015, Cruse appointed post conviction counsel. In January 2016, the state moved to dismiss that lawyer’s amended petition, calling into question its purported insanity defense and saying Hall never alleged her pleas were coerced or involuntary, undercutting her claim of having ineffective representation.
Hall later asked to have her new lawyer removed from the case. Cruse did not grant that request but continued to communicate with her attorney regarding an amended petition. In September 2016, the state filed a second motion to dismiss Hall’s request for relief. Cruse granted that motion in January 2017, prompting Hall to again appeal to the Fifth District.
Justice James Moore wrote the panel’s opinion on that appeal, issued Jan. 3. Justices Judy Cates and Mark Boie concurred.
According to the panel, the appeal centers on whether Hall’s lawyer failed to make necessary amendments to her petition, included available supporting evidence and “reframe a potentially meritorious claim.” The panel agreed Hall’s post conviction lawyer didn’t amend her petition to include allegations that absent her trial lawyers’ errors she wouldn’t have pleaded guilty and she could have pleaded innocent or offered a plausible defense.
"In this case, the state pointed the error out to post conviction counsel in paragraph 17 of the state’s first motion to dismiss, contending that post conviction counsel had 'failed to demonstrate or even to allege in the amended petition that, but for her attorney’s alleged ineffectiveness, she would have insisted on going to trial,’ and that he had ‘offered no evidence as to a plausible defense in either series of murders and offered no evidence in support of her bare allegation of actual innocence in the murders,'" Moore said.
Although Cruse gave the post conviction council deadline extensions, the petition amendment in questions never materialized. Moore said the lawyer’s other errors compounded the petition’s problems at the trial court level, demonstrate additional unreasonable assistance of counsel and justify remand for further second stage proceedings with new counsel.