Court Opinion

ID: 9472068
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:48:34.052638+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:43.823114
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent.
John Ellis’s conviction for manslaughter (and he could have been convicted of murder and possibly sentenced to death) rests on the following evidence:
1. Ellis had the opportunity to kill Forycki because he was absent from class and had access to a car on the day of her disappearance;
2. Forycki was to have met a man named John Kondowski shortly before she disappeared, and Ellis used an alias of John Tronzowski approximately two weeks after Forycki’s disappearance;
3. On two occasions after Forycki’s disappearance, Ellis assaulted women after first luring them to a place he had selected;
4. Ellis was knowledgeable about the area where Forycki’s remains were found, he had assaulted one woman there after Forycki’s disappearance, and he had remarked that the area would be a good place to hide a body.
These circumstances are much too thin to sustain a homicide conviction. The newspapers seem to report daily numerous assaults against women. I assume this is the case in Lincoln, Nebraska as well as in other places. Moreover, I must also assume many people in and near Lincoln, Nebraska have knowledge of the area where police found Forycki’s remains. Finally, Ellis’s use of the alias of “John Tronzowski” has no value as evidence. Although Tronzowski and Kondowski sound similar and both end in “ski,” so do the surnames of thousands of persons of Polish or Eastern European descent.
The proof in this case is entirely too slender for any rational trier of fact to have found Ellis guilty of killing Forycki beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 324, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2791, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).
I would grant relief.