Appeals judges deal another loss to Lake County in DNA case

Appeals judges deal another loss to Lake County in DNA case


County is told to call for a hearing on Bennie Starks' lingering battery charge

By Dan Hinkel, Chicago Tribune reporter



10:17 PM CDT, June 20, 2012

Confronting a legal contradiction that lingered after DNA cleared a former Waukegan man of rape, appeals judges have ordered Lake County to address his call to dismiss a related battery charge.



In May, prosecutors dismissed charges that Bennie Starks raped a 69-year-old woman in Waukegan in 1986. After serving 20 years of a 60-year sentence, Starks was freed on bond in 2006, when the appeals court ordered a new trial, citing DNA tests that showed another man's semen in the woman's body.



But Starks' lawyers had to mount a separate challenge to his conviction for aggravated battery against the woman during the same incident. Starks and his attorneys argued it made little sense to hold him responsible for battering the woman once he was cleared of raping her.



On Wednesday, appeals judges said the DNA would likely change the outcome of a trial on the battery charge. They ordered Lake County to hold a hearing at which Starks' lawyers can argue for a new trial.



Given that prosecutors dropped the rape charges, Starks and his legal team hope they will move to vacate the battery conviction, which carried a 10-year term, rather than arguing against a new trial.



His lawyers said he served more than enough time to fulfill the sentence but wants the case off his record.



"I've got confidence that this will be over with this year," Starks said. "I just keep the faith because that's all that I can do."



Lake County prosecutors did not return calls for comment.



Starks, 52, lives in Chicago but frequently visits southern Wisconsin, where his son and two grandchildren live. He is unemployed but looking for work, he said.



His was one of four cases to crumble under the weight of DNA evidence in Lake County in less than two years. In each case, prosecutors under State's Attorney Michael Waller insisted on the suspect's guilt even after DNA suggested his innocence.



In Starks' case, prosecutors argued the DNA didn't clear him because the woman could have had consensual sex with another man, though she said at trial she had not had sex in weeks before her rape.



One of Starks' lawyers, Vanessa Potkin, said, "The days of discounting DNA to uphold a conviction are over, and innocence and truth matter."



dhinkel@tribune.com






http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-bennie-starks-rape-appeal-20120621,0,999221.story