Opinion ID: 3002921
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: In August 1997, police officers discovered the partially burned body of Audrey V. Klimawicze—the petitioner’s mother—in a garbage container on the south side of Chicago. People v. Klimawicze, 815 N.E.2d 760, 765‐66 (Ill. App. Ct. 2004). Later that day police arrested Klimawicze (the daughter) and her boyfriend, Hector Mercado. Id. at 766. Within hours an eyewitness had identified Mercado as the man pushing the garbage container down an alley the previous evening. Id. As the interrogations stretched into the night, a taxi driver also reported a conversation with Klimawicze and Mercado in which Klimawicze had admitted that “she had an argument with her mother and had stabbed her. . . . ‘The bitch deserved it.’” Id. The taxi driver explained further that Mercado had replied, “‘You’re right. She deserved it. They can’t prove a thing.” Id. Meanwhile, back at the police station, Klimawicze and Mercado were each telling investigators that the other person was responsible for the crimes. Id. Roughly twenty‐four hours after his arrest, though, Mercado told a new story. Id. at 766‐67. According to Mercado’s narrative, [Klimawicze] kicked her mother and forced her way into the apartment. Mercado followed. [Klimawicze] then strangled the victim with the cord and instructed Mercado to stab her. He stabbed the victim three times while [Klimawicze] continued to choke her. After taking money from the victim’s apartment, they went to the projects to buy heroin and dispose of their weapons. Id. at 767. Investigators confronted Klimawicze with Mercado’s latest statement, but she did not believe that it came from him. Id. So investigators brought Mercado into Klimawicze’s interrogation room, where he announced to her, “‘I told them the truth.’” Id. Shortly thereafter Klimawicze confessed in a written statement detailing how she had choked her mother with a cord while Mercado stabbed her. Id. Klimawicze and Mercado were tried simultaneously before different juries. At trial Klimawicze argued that her confession was false—that it was obtained only after hours of harsh interrogation tactics, isolation, and intimidation. The state countered with another explanation—that Klimawicze confessed in response to learning from Mercado that he had divulged the “true” story. But Mercado was not an available witness for Fifth Amendment No. 08‐2208 Page 3 reasons, so the prosecution introduced his statement through two others. Detective Joseph Danzl testified that 45 minutes before Klimawicze confessed, “Hector Mercado made a statement to Audrey Klimawicze. . . . He told her that he had just told the assistant state’s attorney and the detective the true story.” Assistant State’s Attorney Thomas Bilyk also testified that “Hector said I told them the true story.” Klimawicze objected to this testimony on hearsay grounds, but the court admitted it for the limited purpose of providing context for her confession. At a sidebar earlier that day, the prosecutor summarized the evidentiary ruling: “[M]y understanding . . . was we could not put the substance of any statement of the co‐ defendant [Mercado] in, but that we could of course put in whatever he said to Audrey . . . going to the course of the investigation, not the truth of the matter asserted, but to show her state of mind and her reason for giving the [confession].” The state returned to this testimony in its closing argument, emphasizing that Klimawicze confessed in response to Mercado’s statement: When Hector was brought into the room, and Hector said to Audrey, I told them the true story. That’s when she knew the jig was up. That’s when she gives the complete and true confession to the murder of her mother. How do you know this is true? Ladies and gentlemen, look at the evidence and the facts. First of all, all those shifts in her statements to the police and all those shifts she took when she testified on the witness stand as I said are the shifts made by a guilty mind.
On direct appeal Klimawicze asserted that the investigators’ testimony concerning Mercado’s statement violated her right to confrontation under the Sixth Amendment. Klimawicze, 815 N.E.2d at 771. But the Illinois court rejected that argument on two grounds, noting the Supreme Court decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) some five months earlier. To begin with, the court reasoned, “the substance of Mercadoʹs story was not admitted into evidence.” Id. And, second, the evidence was admitted for a non‐hearsay purpose: “the prosecution was explaining why defendant decided to confess, thereby bolstering the reliability of her confession.” Id. at 772. The Illinois Supreme Court denied Klimawicze leave to appeal, People v. Klimawicze, 829 N.E.2d 791 (Ill. 2005), and the Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari as well, Klimawicze v. Illinois, 544 U.S. 1067 (2005). No. 08‐2208 Page 4
In denying Klimawicze’s § 2254 petition, the district court echoed much of the same analysis. For example, the court emphasized that “the substance of Mercado’s statement was not introduced against Klimawicze.” The court explained further that “[n]either Crawford nor the Confrontation Clause bars . . . the admission of an absent declarant’s out‐of‐court statement for some legitimate evidentiary purpose other than to prove its truth.” And “though the prosecutor made reference to this episode in her closing argument, she did not discuss the contents of Mercado’s statement but rather argued the point consistent with the purpose for which the Mercado evidence had been offered—to show the circumstances under which Klimawicze had confessed, to refute her claim of undue pressure.” The district court concluded that the state‐court decision was not an unreasonable application of federal law but issued a certificate of appealability as well. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c).