IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOL COUNTY
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
-vs-
MICHAEL FOULKS
CASE # 05-C3-304843
ORDER OF COMMITMENT TO
COOK COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
=====================================
The above named defendant having been adjudged of the offense(s) enumerated below is hereby sentenced to the Cook County Department of Corrections as follows:
Count 001; Statutory Citation 720-5/1-1; Offense Harassment By Telephone; Sentence 30 Days
(Standard Form Text Omitted)
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED THAT 24 MOS. M/H PROBATION - 30 DAYS CCDOC
DNA SAMPLE, ALL MAND. F&C....
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Replying to:
What did your mother tell you to do, son?
Did the judge ever read your rights in court?
When I sat in Professor Lockyear's Criminal Law class at Loyola, I remember him saying that the most reliable confession is one drawn out by torture. If you put a prisoner at the end of a long pole, at least 50 feet long, and dip him into water until he almost drowns half a dozen times (waterboarding?), he's likely to say absolutely anything you like.
Of course, when facing an information alleging felony charges that amount to extortion of a sort, most sane people who KNOW they are not guilty refuse EVER to succumb and cop a plea. Even insane people go to trial if they KNOW they are innocent. So we ask ourselves why would anyone who is so sure of his innocence stand before a judge and say a "mea culpa" - I have sinned? Why go down on a charge that you KNOW you didn't do?
The fact is that there are any number of reasons.
One might be that the guy entering the plea knows beyond a doubt that he's going to be proven guilty and doesn't want to pass a fair deal from the prosecutor who would certainly ask for more if a trial were to follow. If someone is certain that the State has the goods on him and he can get the prosecutor to allow him to enter a plea on a lesser included charge, he might seize on the opportunity to save himself years in stir.
Another reason is that the guy taking a plea did the crime and just wants to get as little time as he can for whatever it was that he did.
We could go on and offer alternative speculations for why a particular person enters a guilty plea, but almost every case is unique in some respect. There's only one common denominator from my experience with the criminal justice system: virtually no criminal ever admits he entered a plea of guilty voluntarily. Most cons waive the right to take an appeal of their guilty pleas, but even they usually deny that they entered the plea voluntarily.
Talk to them. Take any 10 prisoners in the House of Corrections today who entered guilty pleas and ask each of them if their pleas were voluntary. I'll bet my left bun they all say they were forced one way or another.
So whatever he says, keep it in context. Know that his credibility is zero - except maybe to Mayor Daley who has him on the short list to replace Commissioner Reyes after Daley gets reelected. He's the perfect choice for DCS Commissioner.
At least we'd all know what we were getting for a Commissioner - truth, justice and the American way.
Donald Nathan
STATE OF ILLINOIS
SS
COOK COUNTY
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOL COUNTY
CRIMINAL DIVISION
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
-vs-
MICHAEL FOULKS
CASE # 05-C3-304843
SUPPLEMENTAL MOTION VACATE PLEA OF GUILTY
Now comes Michael Foulks, defendant herein, and pursuant to supreme court rule 604(d), moves this honorable court to vacate his/her pleas of GUILTY to phone harassment.
IN SUPPORT THEREOF, defendant states the following:
1. That on September 29, 2005, HE PLEAD GUILTY to the offense of Phone Harassment in the Circuit Court of Cook County before the Honorable Judge Tobin.
2. That he was thereafter sentenced to 24 months FELONY Probation.
3. That his ground for vacating..... (not worth enumerating here because they were denied, In other words. of no legal, moral or ethical value or significance.}
Foulks is a master word weasel. He says he did not "CONFESS."
In many faiths and practices, CONFESSION is similar to the criminal one - to admit one's guilt.
A defendant who pleads guilty must do so, in the phraseology of a 1938 Supreme Court case, "knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently"
The burden is on the prosecution to prove that all waivers of the defendant's rights complied with due process standards.
In cases of all but the most minor offenses, the court or the prosecution (depending upon local custom and the presiding judge's preference) will engage in a plea colloquy wherein they ask the defendant a series of rote questions about the defendant's knowledge of his rights and the voluntariness of the plea.
Typically the hearing on the guilty plea is transcribed by a court reporter and the transcript is made a part of the permanent record of the case in order to preserve the conviction's validity from being challenged at some future time.
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Replying to:
When I sat in Professor Lockyear's Criminal Law class at Loyola, I remember him saying that the most reliable confession is one drawn out by torture. If you put a prisoner at the end of a long pole, at least 50 feet long, and dip him into water until he almost drowns half a dozen times (waterboarding?), he's likely to say absolutely anything you like.
Of course, when facing an information alleging felony charges that amount to extortion of a sort, most sane people who KNOW they are not guilty refuse EVER to succumb and cop a plea. Even insane people go to trial if they KNOW they are innocent. So we ask ourselves why would anyone who is so sure of his innocence stand before a judge and say a "mea culpa" - I have sinned? Why go down on a charge that you KNOW you didn't do?
The fact is that there are any number of reasons.
One might be that the guy entering the plea knows beyond a doubt that he's going to be proven guilty and doesn't want to pass a fair deal from the prosecutor who would certainly ask for more if a trial were to follow. If someone is certain that the State has the goods on him and he can get the prosecutor to allow him to enter a plea on a lesser included charge, he might seize on the opportunity to save himself years in stir.
Another reason is that the guy taking a plea did the crime and just wants to get as little time as he can for whatever it was that he did.
We could go on and offer alternative speculations for why a particular person enters a guilty plea, but almost every case is unique in some respect. There's only one common denominator from my experience with the criminal justice system: virtually no criminal ever admits he entered a plea of guilty voluntarily. Most cons waive the right to take an appeal of their guilty pleas, but even they usually deny that they entered the plea voluntarily.
Talk to them. Take any 10 prisoners in the House of Corrections today who entered guilty pleas and ask each of them if their pleas were voluntary. I'll bet my left bun they all say they were forced one way or another.
So whatever he says, keep it in context. Know that his credibility is zero - except maybe to Mayor Daley who has him on the short list to replace Commissioner Reyes after Daley gets reelected. He's the perfect choice for DCS Commissioner.
At least we'd all know what we were getting for a Commissioner - truth, justice and the American way.
Donald Nathan
