Ted Kuhl

Ted Kuhl: Wrongly Convicted

What are the basic duties of the State’s Attorney Office? What would be at stake if there was an admission that they put an innocent person in prison? Is there the fortitude of character in Winnebago County’s Office to do that in Ted Kuhl’s case? Just how political is this office?

The slogan that reads as a bi-line to the Winnebago County State’s Attorney Office is “The duty of the Prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely to convict.” It sounds good. It even plays well to the people at large. But, is it truthful? Truth isn’t something you’ll hear spoken of in legal circles too much. In fact, a popular TV character that portrays an L.A. lead Prosecutor of high profile crimes, named Shark, has a saying that he feeds to his underling Prosecutor lawyers: “truth is relative; pick one that works.” Does that only play in Hollywood though, or does it depict reality, at least to some degree?

When truth is not a principle function of the courts, justice is next to impossible to achieve, and impossible to guarantee by any part of the Judiciary. If it is true (no pun intended) then in order for justice to be the objective, it is imperative to have as much evidence admitted into trial as possible (assuming it is real evidence, and not contrived or manufactured out of whole cloth). Yet, Motions in Limini are sought by Prosecutors every day. Limini is a Latin term that means “to limit”. Hence, a Motion in Limini is an effort to remove certain pieces of evidence, people, words and phrases, etc. from the forthcoming trial. Truth and Justice are not mutually exclusive; they are mutually inclusive. One without the other is incomplete.

Another tactic the Prosecution uses is to make circumstantial evidence by spinning a story that seems plausible and that fits the facts from a certain vantage point, in order to bridge a gap in their theory. For example, if you have familiarized yourself with the Ted Kuhl case, you’ll know the police never recovered the gun that killed Janet Nivinski. The police investigators reconstructed the scene, which put Mr. Kuhl in a position that would have required him to shoot Ms. Nivinski left handed – in the dark. Okay, fine (for now). Let’s ask the next question: did Mr. Kuhl’s hand and arm test positive for gunshot residue? Ooooops! Either the police didn’t test him for that, or they did and they left it out of their report. Not to worry though, the police tested his clothing and it came up negative for gunshot residue (and blood spatter). So, in light of that how do they stick with their theory, given the hole that shoots through it (pun intended)? One would think that they were counting, either, on a jury that is gullible, or a defense attorney that was incompetent…maybe both.

Let’s pile on a little bit: added to the circumstantial story above, Ted Kuhl was never in a position that he could have gotten rid of the gun in a place the police would not have found it. All of the cars were searched (even though the police report doesn’t reflect that – problematic in itself). With Mr. Kuhl’s car parked 45 yards from the victim, and next to Rick Mueller’s car, just exactly where was the gun put? It defies reason that Ted Kuhl shot Janet Nivinski, and then hid the gun, ran toward Dennis’ Video Game Arcade, rush back the other way to were Janet laid in a pool of blood to try and give attention to her, all within 12 seconds of the shot, according to parking lot video surveillance footage. I’m sure Ted was a great guy and all, but it is plain old impossible to accomplish all of the running, hiding and throwing in just 12 seconds – he’s not Superman. Add to that, if you’ve ever shot a gun, the RUSH it provides? Can you imagine the adrenaline that Ted Kuhl would have had to suppress if he did all of that? Even more, if Rick Mueller had the murder weapon thrown in his car, why didn’t he produce it for police as the lynchpin of Ted’s guilt? The Prosecution’s story is not a possibility!!! This, by the way, is only one of many such problematic issues within the body of “evidence” presented to the jury: too many to include here.

Back to reality: why would Mark Karner and Glen Weber, Assistant Winnebago County State’s Attorney Prosecutors, feel like they could spin that story? Is Albert Altamore really that bad of a defense lawyer that he would make such “rookie” mistakes as to not challenge this unreasonable foolishness? What was going on that Altamore would not point out gaping holes in the Prosecution’s theories? It is baffling to the thinking person to learn the made-up deceit that, in the end, passed as “justice”. How could this be? The reasonable average person doesn’t want to think that there is some nefarious plot to cover some insider’s mistakes or worse, but one has to wonder…what went on here, for which an innocent man has spent 10 years in prison for a crime he didn’t do? Remember, “truth” has little relevance in the court room.

There’s no doubt there’s plenty of blame to go around, but who of these people can honestly say they didn’t have a hand in sending an innocent man to jail?

• Winnebago County State’s Attorney, Paul Logli
• Assistant Winnebago County State’s Attorney, Mark Karner
• Assistant Winnebago County State’s Attorney, Glen Weber
• Defense and Appellant Lawyers, Albert Altamore, Dan Cain and Peter Nolte
• Judge Morrison
• Chief of Loves Park Police, Patrick Carrigan
• Loves Park Mayor, Lindberg
• The County and Loves Park Investigators assigned
• Who else……..

When the search for the truth is compromised or removed from the judicial process, justice will always suffer; and in this case, justice suffers right along with Ted Kuhl.