(DOWNLOAD) "White v. Neal" by United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: White v. Neal
- Author : United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
- Release Date : January 08, 1990
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 48 KB
Description
On June 8, 1988, Harold P. White, acting pro se, filed this 28 U.S.C. Γ§ 2254 habeas corpus petition. In it, White challenged his 1986 convictions, following a jury trial in the Circuit Court of Champaign County, for criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse against a fifteen-year old girl. White received a twelve-year prison term for his convictions which the Illinois Appellate court affirmed, and the Illinois Supreme Court denied him leave to appeal. In his habeas petition, White first claimed that the state trial court erred in admitting evidence of his prior bad acts. This evidence involved testimony from three girls, one of which White allegedly forced to have intercourse with him in a rural area of Champaign, similar to the victims charge in this case. Additional testimony was admitted from the other two girls who were allegedly fondled by White; one of these girls also allegedly was viewed while taking a shower at Whites home. In his second claim, White argued that the state trial court erred in allowing the substitution of the trial judge during jury deliberations, and further, that he was prejudiced by this since the substitute judge issued a response to a question from the jury during its deliberations. The district court dismissed the second claim for failure to raise a constitutional issue but directed White to "explain . . . how his constitutional rights were violated by the courts decision to allow the [prior bad acts] evidence." Following a review of that response, the district court concluded that the evidentiary issue did not raise an error of constitutional magnitude, see United States ex rel. Park v. Fike, 538 F.2d 750, 757 (7th Cir. 1976) (citing United States ex rel. Bibbs v. Twomey, 506 F.2d 1220, 1223 (7th Cir. 1974)), and the court dismissed the petition.