Click Here to Watch How To Find A Lawyer by Kent Morlan

Click Here For The Best Urbana Criminal Defense Lawyer Directory

Defendant's Attorney: Garson Steven Fischer and Leah M. Bendik

Description: Urbana, Illinois criminal defense lawyer represented Plaintiff, who sued Defendant seeking a writ of habeas corpus.


In 2004, six men decided to rob a marijuana dealer, William Thomas, at gunpoint in his home. Two of the robbers shot Thomas, who died. One of the two shooters also shot Timothy Landon, Thomas's business partner and guest, but Landon survived. In 2007, an Illinois jury convicted Juan Reyes of Thomas's murder, Landon's attempted murder, and home invasion. On the murder and attempted murder counts, the state's evidence against Reyes included Landon's identification of Reyes as the shooter after viewing a photo array. But that identification was far from ironclad. It took the police five attempts to extract it from Landon, and on several occasions, he seemed to confuse Reyes with another man who was not a suspect in the robbery. Reyes moved, unsuccessfully, to suppress the identification.

After Reyes exhausted state-court review of his conviction, he moved for federal collateral relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254.[1] As he had done in state court, he argued that the identification procedure was impermissibly suggestive and that Landon's identification was too unreliable to pass constitutional muster. The district court denied his petition, and Reyes appealed. We agree with Reyes that the identification procedure the state employed was unnecessarily suggestive; the state court also expressed concern on this point. But in the end that court found that these flaws did not taint the conviction. Moreover, error alone is not enough to entitle Reyes to relief. A section 2254 petitioner must also show prejudice. Reyes cannot, because the jury that convicted him heard significant evidence of his guilt beyond the identification and, critically, had the opportunity to evaluate most of the evidence bearing on the reliability of the identification.

Outcome: We thus conclude that the state courts did not unreasonably apply established law to this case, and in the alternative, with or without AEDPA deference, Reyes cannot show prejudice from the admission of Landon's identification. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

Comments: