EXHIBIT	G

Case: 1:12-cv-04428 Document #: 632-7 Filed: 06/21/18 Page 1 of 17 PageID #:34529
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STATE OF ILLINOIS 

COUNTY OF C 0 0 K 

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3· IN THE CIRCUIT COURT ·oF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS 

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COUNTY DEPARTMENT - CRIMINAL DIVISION 

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE 

OF ILLINOIS, 

Plaintiff, 

vs. 

ARMANDO-SERRANO and 

JOSE MONTANEZ, 

Defendants. 

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No. 93 CR 1873(01) 

93 CR 1873(03) 

11 REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS had at the hearing 

12 of the above-entitled cause before the HONORABLE 

13 MAURk SLATTERY BOYLE, Judge of said court, on _the 

14 15th day of· May, 2013. 

15 PRESENT: ll'!""'oL, __ 

HONORABLE ANITA M. ALVAREZ, 

16 State's Attorney of Cook County, py: 

MR .. JAMES PAPA, MS. CELESTE STACK and 

17 MR. KURT SMITKO 

Assistant State's Attorneys, 

18 appeared on behalf of the People; 

19 MS. JENNIFER BONJEAN 

appeared on behaif of the Defendant Armando 

20 Serrano. 

21 MR. RUSSELL AINSWORTH and 7-11 CAITLIN BROWN, 

appeared on behalf of the Defendant Montanez. 

22 

Denise A. Gross, CSR# 084-003437 

23 Official Court Reporter 

2650 S. California, Room 4C02 

24 Chicago, Illinois 60608 

1 

Plaintiff 003525

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that it must be yes. 

~xtraordinary case. 

It has to be yes. This is an 

No case like this has come 

3 befo~e this Court. 

4 Your Honor when Mr. Vargas was killed that 

5 day, it tore his family apart, and I understand the 

6 need to hav~ justice done for'his case. However, I 

7 submit to the Court that there are two other 

8 families ,that were destroyed as well when 

9 Mr. Montanez and Mr. Serrano. were convicted. And 

10 there is no need to -- there's no need to multiple 

11 the tragedy that occurred to the'Vargas family by 

12 repeating the injustices to Mr. Montanez and 

13 Mr. Serrano's families. So1 your Honor, we ask 

14 that you do justice and we ask that you vacate the 

15 convictions against Mr. Montanez and Mr. Serrano. 

16 Thank you. 

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21 

THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Ainsworth. 

Ms. Stack? 

OPENING STATEMENT 

BY MS. STACK: 

I don't want to say arrything in these remarks 

22 that are too 6bvious, but there seems to be in 

23 these statements a lot of self-serving denial of 

24 basic facts about our system. These gentlemen had 

38 

Plaintiff 003562

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1 every constitutional right afforded to anyone who 

2 

3 

becomes a suspect and arrested. This is not a 

trial. They are not here for the first time. They 

4 weren't denied access to the courts. They weren't 

5 denied access to effective counsel. The names in 

6 these transcripts are some of the most experienced 

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8 

attorneys in this building. These gentlemen are 

guilty of these murders. There was plenty of 

9 evidence to more than prove our burden beyond·a 

10 reasonable doubt. There's the survivipg widow who 

11 saw them the night before they murdered her husband 

12 because her husband made the mistake of showing a 

13 wad of cash in a gas station. They followed the 

14 family home, cam~ back, s~t on the place and when 

is he went to work at 5:00 in the morning, a good 

16 family man, a young family, two young sons, you 

17 kno~, hard-working man that had been at the same 

18 place.of emp~oyment for. 12 years and he's up at the 

19 crack of dawn, before Dawn, going to work, and 

20 these muts who want money --

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MS. BONJEAN: 

THE COURT: 

MS. STACK: 

THE COURT: 

Objection. 

Sustained. 

I apologize. 

Everybody, please. 

39 

I -am going to 

Plaintiff 003563

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1 remind you again; the Court's approach 

2 MS. STACK: I apologize. 

3 THE COURT: Everyone, please remember that I 

4 demand, not only for the Court, but amongst each 

5 other~ professional civilitx. Continue on. 

6 MS. STACK: Your Honor, I apologize. 

7 But the bottom line, the facts of this 

8 record that were proven at the trial, that they 

9 already had showed that they were in a gang. That 

10 they robbed people. They took their money and they 

11 bought drugs. And what happened was -- what the 

12 law enfor6ement officers· knew-- was that the 

13 victim, Rodrigo Vargas, went to his job that 

14 morning, and he -- the neighbor lady saw him but 

15 there -- a number of people heard the gun shots at 

16 5:30 a.m .. There'S a school across the street. A 

17 number of people in the ne i ghb<;> rhood heard 6 or 8 

18 gun shots. The victim was shot five times, I 

19 believe. ·At least four. And the neighbor lady, 

20 Anna Valez, who also baby-sat, looked out again 

21 later, unfortunately no one in that neighborhood 

22 thought much of hearing gun shots -- it was a 

23 common occurrence -- and when she looked out at 

24 7:00a.m. and saw that Rodrigo's van was still 

40 

Plaintiff 003564

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1 there. she knew something was wrong, because he 

2 normally ran the van for a few minutes and then 

3 left for work. She went up. She looked in and saw 

4 his dead body inside his van clutching the pull-out 

5 radio. That radio they tr~ed to take from him. He 

6 fought them and they shot him, and left him there 

7 in the street to die. But nobody knew that. 

8 Nobody knew what happened other than Rodrigo was 

9 

10 

found shot in the ,van. And nobody knew that he had 

been followed the night before. And the case had 

11 basically stopped. 

12 But four months later Francisco Vincente 

13 was in the State's attorney•s·office in one of our 

14 offices talking to Assistant State's Attorneys 

15 because, .yes, he had a number of armed robberies 

16 and he was cooperating with the State's Attorney's 

17 Office. He was trying to cut himself a deal. And 

18 that Is the thing about this case, Francisco 

19 Vincente at trial was cross-:-examined by a number of 

20 experienced attorneys, and the thing about 

21 Francisco Vincente is, he certainly is who he is, 

22 and he also, like the defendants, was an armed 

23 robber who preyed upon peo'ple so he could buy 

24 drugs --

41 

Plaintiff 003565

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1 MS. BONJEAN: Objection, your Honor. 

2 Counsel 

3 THE COURT: Overruled. This is argument. 

4 Continue on. 

5 MS. STACK: The action, the evidence clearly 

6 shows --

7 MS. BONJEAN: It's inadmissible. 

8 THE COURT: Counsel, continue on. 

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10 

MS. STACK: The actions and evidence shows what 

this gentlemen did and do. Vincente testified at 

11 length about it,' and when he was talking to them 

12 about another case, and all of this is in the 

13 record, all of this was brought out in front of the 

14 jury. Nbbody tried to portray Vincente as anything 

15 other than who he is. 

16 MS. BONJEAN: Objection, your Honor, misstating 

17 the record. 

18 THE COURT: Ms. Bonjean, this is argument. I 

19 have afforded you the opportunity and afforded 

20 . Mr. Ainsworth. Ms. Stack, continue. 

21 MS. STACK: And ihe iecord will bare that out. 

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23 

MS. BONJEAN: 

MS. ·sTACK: 

No, it won't. 

What Vincente remembered was a few 

24 hours after the murder, he ran into the three 

42 

Plaintiff 003566

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1 defendants who he knew, and they were hanging out. 

2 on the corner in their territory, and the three of 

3 them were arguing because they were mad that one of 

4 them h~d· botched the robbery by killing the vi~tim 

5 and.forcing them to flee without the proceeds. And 

6 that's when Vincente found out something that no 

7 one else knew, he found out that they had seen the 

8 young family at a gas station the night before, and 

9 when one of the d~fendants got out and went.into 

10 the gas station, Mr. Vargas made ·the simple 

11 physical action that lead to his 2eath. He took 

12 his hand out of his pant's pocket with a big wad of 

13 cash. He had over $350 in his hands in a knot of 

14 money as described by his wife, and they saw that 

15 money. 

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Now, no one put that together until four 

months later, Francisco Vincente did. And that was 

the beauty of his testimony. As unbeautiful as he 

19 was, with all his armed robberies, and again, 

20 nobody -- that was the first thing he was asked 

21 about -~ the jury, the Judge, knew he had not one; 

22 not two, but four tases pending. But it didn't 

23 matter because when you~re prosecuting people of 

24 this ilk, people that have information are also 

43 

Plaintiff 003567

Case: 1:12-cv-04428 Document #: 632-7 Filed: 06/21/18 Page 8 of 17 PageID #:34536
1 people of this same ilk, and that's what happened 

2 here. And it basically was a lucky break that got 

3 some measure of justice for this family. It 

4 w6uldn't bring the father back. It wouldn't change 

5 what happened to him, but he made the unfortunate 

6 mistake of flashing a wad of cash in front of these 

7 men. And when the victim returned to his car, it 

8 also happened that the defendant's car, which a lot 

9 of people talked about and identifiedj was parked 

10 in a 45-degree angle blocking the family from 

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leaving the gas station. So you have a lot of 

corroboration in the record. There's a lot of 

evidence in the record. There's other !D's in the 

14 record. 

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MS. BONJEAN: Objection. 

THE COURT: Overruled. 

MS. BONJEAN: Misstating the record. 

lies. 

THE COURT: Ms. Bonjean. 

MS. BONJEAN: It's complete lies. 

Complete 

THE COURT: I am going to impose san~tions. 

22 Continue on. 

23 MS. STACK: Because they had blocked Rodrigo's 

24 van in, his wife testified that when he got in the 

44 

Plaintiff 003568

Case: 1:12-cv-04428 Document #: 632-7 Filed: 06/21/18 Page 9 of 17 PageID #:34537
1 .car, the three men, there were two still in the 

2 car, one was in the gas station and they were 

3 blocking his exit from the vehicle, from the gas 

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station. He honked the horn, Ms. Vargas testified 

that then her husband blasphemed. He swore. 

at them, but inside the privacy of his van. 

swore. He was angry she said because he was 

Not 

He 

blocked in by these people. So both he and his 

wife we~e focused on the defendant's car in the gas 

10 station that night. Then one of them came out, 

11 they moved the car, and they -- and the Vargas' 

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left the gas st~tion. And Rodrigo was still angry, 

and they both noted that the defendant's vehicle 

followed them out of the gas station and down the 

street for a ways, and she said at one point she 

stopped looking out the window. She wasn't aware 

whether they followed them all the way home. But 

18 we know from Francisco Vincerite that they did, and 

19 when they saw where the family stopped and exited, 

20 they marked the place, and'they went back. And 

21 that unfortunate display of cash in a gas station, 

22 lead to this case. 

23 And, again, from all the arguments that 

24 sound like· trial· closing arguments, you would think 

45 

Plaintiff 003569

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1 that we've never been through this process, but we 

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have. These men asserted their rights. They had 

counsel. They had motions, trial, et cetera. And 

they had direct appeals. We have a wonderful 

5 criminal justice system here, and in Illinriis we 

6 have extensively extended it through the 

7 post-conviction li·tigation. Your Honor is well 

8 aware of the stages of post-convict~on liti~ation. 

9 How it works is inmates are allowed to start their 

10 own litigation from prison. And if you make an 

11 actual innocence claim, there's no statute of 

12 limitation, and because the legislature anticipated 

13 that in~ates would be filing their own petitions 

14 without the help of lawyers and from prison, they 

15 get a first stage, where the State does not 

16 participate and the Judge reviews their pro se 

17 petition to see whether there's anything there that 

18 merits further review and the standard is very 

19 liberal to docket or move the petition on to 

20 Stage 2. And at Stage 2, even inmates who have no 

21 resources wh~tsoever, which most inmates don't, 

22 they are given free counsel. So the se6ond stage 

23 takes place ahd they get counsel to review their 

24 case, investigate and draft a petition. And the 

46 

Plaintiff 003570

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1 point of all thi~ is, at the setond stage and at 

2 the first stage, we are not allowed to attack the 

3 substance or credibility of any·of these arguments 

4 or any of the evidence or affidavits or documents 

5 that are put forth. 

6 At the sec6nd stage we either. have to 

7 agree to a hearing like this or argue that as a 

8 matter of law, even if you believe their 

9 affidavits, they simply don't have any right to a 

10 PC third stage hearing. So the point I want to 

11 make is one that yout ·Honor is well aware of, but 

12 that is very.significant. Today marks the 

13 beginning of the time when we get to attack the 

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15 

evidence for the first time. Vincente has 

recanted. What wasn't meritioned here was that 

16 Vincente i s hi s recant at i on was g i v e.n a f t e r a 

17 number of encounters. with people who were very 

18 interested in getting his recantation that worked 

19 for Northwestern University and their Innocence 

20 Projects. And we have documents that show the 

21 incentives that were offered. 

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MS. BONJEAN: 

THE COURT.: 

MS. STACK: 

Objection, your Honor. 

Overruled. 

None of that has been given to your 

47 

Plaintiff 003571

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1 Honor to consider• We have not yet begun this 

2 hearing. What you have are documents selected by 

3 the defense, gathered together in petitions, and 

4 your Honor has to look at those and treat them as 

5 if they were true in order to decide whether there 

6 is a hearing. We submit they are not true. We 

7 submit that Vincente's recantation is very, very 

8 clearly the result of manipulation, and Vincente 

9 hoping to gain a benefit through that manipulation. 

10 We also s~bmit that as far as the 14 unrelated 

11 cases, they have another name.· They are 

12 inadmissible in Illinois, and it's known as prior 

13 bad acts or propensity evidence. In 2000 the 

14 Supreme Court, because of the Area 2 John Berg 

15 scandal, created a remedy where there was a unique 

16 pattern .. · Out of Area 2 you had allegations of 

17 electro shock and torture that weren't made in any 

18 other area 6f the city, and to this day have not 

19 been made in any other area. And in that case the 

20 Supreme Court said that the situation was so unique 

21 that fundamental fairness required allowing that 

22 all those unrelated cases to be explored because 

23 the law is, collateral cases are inadmissible.· 

24 Otherwise you get into trials within trials that 

48 

Plaintiff 003572

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1 aren't relevant. When we try a criminal case, the 

2 issue is, c~n ihe State prove the person guilty 

3 beyond a reasonable .doubt. Do we have evidence to 

4 show that the person on trial actually committed 

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6 

7 

the crime? Getting into what other people did is 

not allowed normally. An exception was made for 

Area 2. And that excepti6n is now case la~. 

8 We submit that when you see the witnesses 

9 that t~e defense decides to bring into CoGrt and 

10 allow you to see and assess their credibility, you 

11 will see that the other witnesses who claim that 

12 Guevaia engaged in misconduct are incredible. And 

13 in many of those other cases, t.he judges that 

14 originally heard those claims in their own trials 

15 found them to be incredible. It's an interesting 

16 concept where you can take a defendant in his own 

17 trial filed a motion, testified his statement was 

18 coerced, a Judge found him to be incredible and 

19 denied his motion, and now yo~ can bring it over 

20 into someone else's case and have it be treated in 

21 stages 1 and 2 of the PC as being true. But we 

22 submit that.when your Honor hears the live 

23 testimony and examines the full records from these 

24 14 unre.lated ~ases, you will see that what you have 

49 

Plaintiff 003573

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1 here is a detective who had a long and busy career. 

2 He lived in his area. He woik~d in his area. He 

3 was a gang officer. He knew the gang members and 

4 they knew him. And he stayed in that area 

5 basically his entire career which lasted for 

6 decades. Also, there's another convenient 

7 oversight here, and that most of these cases are 

8 gang cases. And people that testify in gang cases, 

9 witnesses are very brave people,indeed. In fact, 

10 there is a national media campaign now where star 

11 athletes, et cetera 

12 MR. AINSWORTH: ,Objection, your Honoi. 

13 MS. BONJEAN: This is irrelevant; 

14 THE COURT: Overruled. I· am aware of the "no 

15 snitch" campaign. 

16 MS. STACK: You can take judicial notice then. 

17 THE COURT: I am aware of it. 

18 MS. STACK: People who stand up to gangs, face 

19 special obstacles, your Honor, now that we've 

20 reached a point where .we can finally challenge the 

21 evidence that has been submitted to you on paper 

22 only. You will see that the recantation of 

' 

23 Francisco Vincente is incredible, ridiculous. 

24 Again, we are not trying to retry this case. The 

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Plaintiff 003574

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1 arguments again want to retry the case but that is 

2 not the purpose foi decades if in post-conviction 

3 law when defendants try to raise new defenses or at 

4 that take the State's evidence the case was kicked 

5 out because they were trying to retry the case. In 

6 1996 the Illinois Supreme Court created a new claim 

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8 

but placed a very high burden on the defendants. 

burden that these defendants cannot meet. They 

9 have to have new evidence that is material, 

10 conclusive and couldn't have been recovered 

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12 

earlier. Recantations of under oath testimony are 

inherently reliable: And that. is axiomatic comes 

13 from just·ice Brennan in the U.S. Supreme Court. 

14 Francisco Vincente's recantation is indeed very 

15 incredible, and we expect that when·we are allowed 

16 to challenge the ~vidence, you will not only find 

17 Francisco Vincente's recantatioQ to be incredible, 

A 

18 but whatever witnesses they decide to bring here as 

19 concerning the propensity allegations are also 

20 incredible. And, there's no way that based upon the 

21 evidence that they are going to present that they 

22 will meet the very high standard of actual 

23 innocence or the Patterson issue that there's newly 

24 discovered evidence, that fundamental fairness 

51 

Plaintiff 003575

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1 

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requires a new ttial. Thank you. 

THE COURT: Thank you, Ms. Stack, just to 

reiterate to all the parties. This is not a 

retr.ial. This is the issue of whether or not there 

5 should be a new trial or conviction based on that 

6 evidence. This is not a re-trial of the facts in 

7 this case. This is based on the issue of Patterson 

8 and what. the Court has previously ruled. 

9 That being said, arguments have been 

10 presented, Ms. Bonjean, Mr. Ainsworth, your first 

11. witness. 

12 MS. BONJEAN: Your Honor, at this point what we 

13 will be admitting into evidence are exhibits that 

14 have already been admitted into evidence. 

15 THE COURT: All right. What exhibit numbers 

16 are those?· 

17 

18 

19 

MS. BONJEAN: Your Honor, for the sake of ease 

as your Honor is aware we had extensive 

hearings. This Court had extensive hearings with 

20 Mr. Urdangen and Mr. Ainsworth and myself and the 

21 Court ruled on relevancy and admissibility of these 

22 exhibits, which is precisely why we were having a 

23 hearing. So at this point we are offering into 

24 evidence under as permitted under the 

52 

Plaintiff 003576

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