Chris's Crime Forum

[b]seems the Jurors in the Juan Rivera Murder Trial are deadlock..judge tells them to go back and keep deliberating![/b

The jurors hearing the murder case against Juan Rivera gave a note to the judge Thursday saying they had a hung jury, but were ordered to continue deliberating.

"You've been working diligently with your deliberations. Please continue with your deliberations," Lake County Judge Christopher Starck said in a typed note to the jury.

The jurors are considering charges that Rivera fatally stabbed and raped 11-year-old Holly Staker in a Waukegan apartment where she was baby-sitting in August 1992.

"Many juries have told me they are hung early in the process, and they aren't necessarily," Starck said in court.
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Rivera found guilty in 1992 murder

May 8, 2009 ( (WLS) -- A verdict has been reached the 1992 murder of an 11-year-old girl in Waukegan.
Juan Rivera, who was 19 at the time of the crime, was found guilty in the case for the third time. He was convicted of raping and murdering Holly Staker as she babysat.
He confessed to the killing and has been convicted twice. But new DNA evidence does not link him to the victim.
Prosecutors believe the confession is enough to convict
The defense argued the confession was coerced and the lack of a DNA match clears him of the crime.

what do all of you think? It would be nice to have some opinions..we are all allowed to have opinions..
lol

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Juan Rivera sentence upheld

Juan Rivera's life sentence for the 1992 murder of Holly Staker was upheld in court Wednesday.

Lake County Circuit Judge Christopher Starck denied a motion to reconsider the life sentence he imposed on Rivera in June, saying Rivera needed to pay the price for Staker's murder.Rivera's attorney, Thomas Sullivan argued in a brief hearing that his client's sentence should be given a set number of years. A life sentence results in automatic detention to a maximum-security prison. Sullivan urged Starck to change the sentence so that it still encompasses several decades, but would allow Rivera to be in a minimum-security facility.

In a one sentence rebuttal, prosecutor Michael Mermel told Starck that Rivera's convenience shouldn't be the basis of a legal argument.

And Starck agreed.

"The life of Holly Stacker was brutally snuffed out. It seems abundantly clear that Mr. Rivera is the murderer and he must face the penalty," Starck said in court.

Rivera, now 36, of Waukegan, was convicted in May for the August 1992 murder of 11-year-old Holly Staker inside a Hickory Street apartment. It was the third time since 1993 that he'd been found guilty of killing Staker. Each time he received a life sentence.

"Very little has changed since the first time he was convicted, Starck said. "Thirty-six individuals have found him guilty.

Rivera and his defense team maintain he is innocent, because no physical evidence connects him to the crime scene. They have said they plan to appeal the most recent conviction.

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/news/1761109,juan-rivera-sentence-upheld-090909.article