Kathleen Zellner

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Kathleen Zellner
Kathleen Zellner was chosen as Chicago Lawyer Magazine's Person of the Year in 2014.
Kathleen Zellner was chosen as Chicago Lawyer Magazine's Person of the Year in 2014.
Born Kathleen Thomas
Midland, Texas
Occupation Attorney
Employer Kathleen T. Zellner & Associates
Website www.kathleentzellner.com

Kathleen Zellner (née Thomas; born in Midland, Texas) is an American lawyer based near Chicago, Illinois, who has a private practice. She is known for gaining the exoneration and release of 17 men in wrongful conviction cases.

In January 2016 she announced she was taking on the defense of Steven Avery, working with Tricia Bushnell, legal director of the Midwest Innocence Project. Avery was convicted in 2007 of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in Wisconsin. His case was the subject of a 10-episode documentary series, Making a Murderer (2015), shown on Netflix.

Early life

Zellner was born in Midland, Texas. She is the second oldest of eight children. Her father, Owen Daniel Thomas,[1] was an engineer and geologist for Phillips Petroleum in charge of its worldwide production and exploration. He was involved in the Ecofisk oil discovery in the North Sea and discoveries in South America, Asia, Africa and Europe.[2]

Zellner attended University of Missouri as an undergraduate, marrying Robert E. Zellner, Jr. before completing her degree. Kathleen Zellner began her legal education at McGill College of Law in Canada, in its double degree program in French civil law and English common law. She completed her legal education at Northern Illinois University College of Law.[3]

Career

Zellner started her law firm in January 1991. The firm represents both civil and criminal clients. She has obtained the exoneration of 17 wrongfully convicted men, handling many of these cases pro bono.[4] She obtained the release of death row inmate Joseph Burrows by persuading the real killer, Gayle Potter, to confess to the murder. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the trial court decision releasing Burrows from death row.[5]

In November 2009, Zellner took on client Ryan Ferguson, who had served 7 years in prison following conviction of murder.[6][7] She gained overturn of his conviction by the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District.[8] On November 12, 2013, Ferguson was released from prison after serving 10 years.

In 1994, Zellner persuaded Larry Eyler to confess to 21 murders prior to his death. All 21 murder cases were closed.

She has won millions of dollars in civil jury trials and settlements.[9] She also won $15.5 million for the false arrest and malicious prosecution of Kevin Fox, who was incarcerated for 8 ½ months for the murder of his 3-year-old daughter.[10] His wife, Melissa, recovered for her loss of consortium and intentional infliction of emotional distress. On appeal, the appellate court reduced the verdict to $8.1 million.[11]

On January 9, 2016, attorney Zellner announced that her firm would be representing Steven Avery, convicted of murder and serving a life sentence in Wisconsin. She will be working with Tricia Bushnell,[12] legal director of the Midwest Innocence Project. His case has become widely known as the subject of Making a Murderer (2015), a 10-episode documentary series on Netflix.

Exonerations

1. Ronnie Bullock

Bullock spent over ten years in prison for the kidnapping and rape of a 9-year-old girl and a 12-year-old girl. DNA testing revealed that he was not the culprit.[13]

2. Joseph Burrows

Burrows spent nearly five years on death row until Zellner persuaded the real killer to confess at a post-conviction hearing.[14]

3. Billy Wardell

Wardell spent over ten years in prison for robbery and sexual assault. He was exonerated in 1997, when Zellner convinced prosecutors to agree to DNA testing. It cleared him as the perpetrator.[15]

4-7. Omar Saunders, Marcellius Bradford, Larry Ollins, and Calvin Ollins

Saunders, Bradford, and the two Ollins cousins were convicted of the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Lori Roscetti , 23-year-old medical student. Bradford served six years in prison as the result of a plea deal, but Saunders and the Ollins cousins had served nearly fifteen years in prison before DNA testing was conducted that cleared all four men of the crimes.[16]

8. Kevin Fox (see also Murder of Riley Fox) (charges dismissed)

Fox was imprisoned for eight months for the murder of his daughter, Riley Fox. Zellner represented Fox until he was cleared by DNA evidence. He won a $15.5 million civil verdict against the government (reduced to $8.1 million on appeal).[17]

9-10. Harold Hill and Dan Young

Hill and Young were convicted of the 1990 rape and murder of Kathy Morgan. DNA testing performed in 2004 led to the release of both Hill and Young in 2005.[18]

11. Alprentiss Nash

Nash spent more than seventeen years in prison for the murder of Leon Stroud. In 2010, Zellner convinced the Illinois Court of Appeals to order DNA testing of the ski mask worn by the perpetrator. This testing led to Nash's exoneration. It matched the real killer, who was already serving time for an unrelated drug crime. A federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Chicago is currently pending.[19]

12. Cesar Munoz

Munoz was convicted of the 1997 murder of his girlfriend, Magdaliz Rosario. Zellner's firm represented Munoz and won his acquittal in June 2013 after the fourth trial. (The first trial resulted in a hung jury, and the second two resulted in convictions but were reversed on appeal.)[20]

13. Lathierial Boyd

Boyd served twenty-three years in prison for the murder of Michael Fleming and the attempted murder of Ricky Warner. His conviction was vacated in 2013 based on evidence of his innocence and prosecutors withholding exculpatory evidence. A $20 million civil rights lawsuit against the City of Chicago and various police officers is pending in federal court.[21][22]

14. Ryan Ferguson (see also Ryan Ferguson (wrongful conviction))

Ferguson was arrested in 2004 for the 2001 murder of Columbia Tribune sports editor Kent Heitholt. His case generated national media coverage, and Ferguson gained support from many members of the public. He was convicted and sentenced to prison. He was released in November 2013 after Zellner and her firm convinced the only two witnesses against Ferguson, Charles Erickson and Jerry Trump, to admit that they had lied at trial. A $100 million civil rights lawsuit against Boone County, Missouri, the prosecutor, police officers, and others is currently pending in federal court.[23]

15. Jerry Hobbs (charges dismissed)

Hobbs spent five years in jail for the murder of his young daughter and her friend. In 2010, DNA testing led to the apprehension of the real killer. After obtaining his release, Zellner filed a civil rights lawsuit on his behalf, which settled for $7.75 million.[24]

16. James Edwards

Edwards was convicted of two murders as the result of a false confession. He was exonerated for the murder of Fred Reckling after Zellner filed a motion for DNA testing; the results cleared Edwards as the murderer. Zellner is challenging his other murder conviction, as it was based on the same confession shown to be false because the DNA evidence excluded him as the perpetrator.[25]

17. Mario Casciaro

Casciaro was released in September of 2015 after serving 4 years for murder of a teenager. The Illinois Second District Appellate Court reversed outright Casciaro's conviction for intimidation murder. The court determined that the state had failed to prove any of the elements of intimidation and that none of the forensic evidence matched the state's theory presented to the jury at Casciaro's second trial. The first trial resulted in a hung jury.

Civil verdicts

Since 1991, Zellner's firm has obtained nearly $90 million in verdicts and settlements.[26] A number of these represented record civil verdicts in cases involving medical malpractice and civil rights.

  • MaryAnn Martino: A Cook County, Illinois jury found the Illinois Masonic Medical Center liable for $6.5 million after it turned away MaryAnn Martino, who had asked to be admitted for psychiatric treatment. After being turned away, Martino committed suicide. This is the largest Illinois verdict against a hospital in a suicide case.[27]
  • Julisiah Toney: A Cook County, Illinois jury awarded $3 million in damages to a four-year-old girl who had suffered from a brachial plexus injury at birth, resulting in the partial paralysis of her right hand and arm.[28][29]
  • Kewiana Sole: Sole was awarded over $2 million as a result of medical malpractice when she was prescribed the wrong medication, leading to brain damage.[citation needed]
  • Cathy Skol: During Skol's fifth pregnancy, Dr. Scott Pierce (who was substituting for her regular doctor) refused to give her pain medication, told her she "deserved to feel pain" because she had not given enough advance notice, yelled obscenities at her, talked about performing abortions, arranged the stirrups so as to put Skol in an uncomfortable position, and told Skol that she and her baby might bleed to death, all during Skol's delivery of the child. The jury awarded $1.4 million, $800,000 for emotional distress and $600,000 for loss of normal life; Skol was a highly decorated Chicago police officer. Skol's case set the record for the highest verdict in Illinois for negligent/intentional infliction of emotional distress in a medical malpractice case.[30]
  • Karl Williams: A federal jury awarded Williams $2 million ($1 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages) after finding that Dr. Ghanshyam Patel was deliberately indifferent to Williams' medical needs, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, when he failed to give adequate care and attention to an eye injury Williams sustained while he was an inmate at Pontiac Correctional Center in Pontiac, Illinois.[31] This is the highest civil rights verdict for medical malpractice in Illinois.[32]
  • Kevin Fox: Kevin Fox was wrongfully imprisoned for eight months the murder of his daughter, Riley Fox. <templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>
    Main article: Murder of Riley Fox

Zellner represented Fox criminally until his release, then filed a civil lawsuit on his behalf. The jury awarded $15.5 million to Fox, though an appeals court later reduced the amount to $8.1 million.[32]

  • Clyde Ray Spencer: Clyde Ray Spencer, a Vancouver, Washington police officer, was framed for the alleged sexual molestation of his two biological children and one step-child. At the time of the investigation, his wife was engaged in an affair with the lead detective on Spencer's case. A federal jury found that the detectives on the case deliberately fabricated evidence that caused Spencer to enter an Alford plea (no contest) and spend twenty years in prison. After Spencer's children grew up, they testified that they had never been abused and that the detectives would not listen when they told them so. Spencer was awarded $9 million in compensatory damages, the highest civil rights verdict in Washington state and the highest involving an Alford plea in the United States. The case was featured on NBC Dateline and the Katie Couric show.[33][34]
  • Lynn Green: Green sued the owners and building management group of a Chicago building after being bound, gagged, and raped for forty minutes at 321 S. Plymouth Court. A jury found that the building's inadequate security measures contributed to the rape, especially after Zellner pointed out that it was known that there was a rapist loose in the area. Green was awarded $2.5 million in damages, the highest verdict for a rape case in the United States.[35]

Honors

  • 2000, the National Law Journal named her among the 'top 10 lawyers in America who always out-prepare their opponents.'[36]
  • In 2012 Zellner was given the American Bar Association’s “Pursuit of Justice” award, given yearly to as many as four lawyers who show “outstanding merit and excelled in insuring access to justice.”[36]
  • In 2014, Zellner was named by Chicago Lawyer magazine as its “Person of the Year.”[36]

Footnotes

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External links

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