Appeal likely in Cleve Heidelberg case as attorney insists Peoria man's innocence

A attorney for the family of Cleve Heidelberg reiterated the innocence of his client Friday as he said that an appeal of a decision in federal district court to strike down a $100 million lawsuit was likely to happen.

Andy Hale of Chicago-based law firm Hale & Monico said that they owed it to Heidelberg and his family to explore the option of an appeal, which would require them to file a motion within 30 days of the time the initial decision had been filed — which, in this case, was March 27, when Central District Chief Judge Sara Darrow ruled in favor of several Peoria city and county police officers on a motion to receive a summary judgment in the case, claiming that the arguments made in the suit were similar to those Heidelberg himself had made during previous lawsuits in the 1970s and '80s.

"We would continue to advocate for Cleve," Hale said. "I can't see not doing it until all the way at the end of the rope. It's what I think Cleve would have wanted. I'm honored to do it."

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If an appeal was heard, the case would go to a three-judge panel at in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, but Hale admitted that the process would likely take several years to go through if they made the decision to file an appeal.

In the meantime, Hale said Heidelberg was "unquestionably" innocent of the shooting death of Peoria County Sgt. Ray Espinoza during a botched armed robbery on May 26, 1970, at the Bellevue Drive-In.

Hale blasted the statement made by Peoria County State's Attorney Jodi Hoos that said they had "full confidence" that Heidelberg was responsible for Espinoza's death, saying that the finding of res judicata in this case wasn't a finding of guilt or innocence, rather a complicated and rarely-used legal issue.

"When I read that, it was upsetting to me because I didn't want that to be the last word," Hale said. "She's wrong – Cleve Heidelberg is unquestionably innocent. There's no doubt about that. Whether there's a civil remedy for that, we'll find out. If there is, great, if not, so be it."

Hale enlisted several associates of Heidelberg and his family to join him at the Friday news conference, such as Lester Mason, one of the witnesses that Hale said former Peoria County State's Attorney Jerry Brady refused to meet to reconsider possibly reopening the case, alongside Matthew Clark, the man whose allegation that his brother James shot Espinoza got Heidelberg's sentence overturned in 2017.

Mason reiterated his claims that he borrowed Heidelberg's car and gave it to Clark on the night of the shooting.

"These statements by the State's Attorney are so distressing to me because I understand exactly what went down that night," Mason said. "I did borrow the car from Heidelberg and I did give the car to James Clark. Cleve did not kill anyone; it was James. Not that I saw him do it — he admitted as much on the phone to me that things went bad at the Bellevue Drive-In all those years ago."

Heidelberg's niece, Bertha Mize-Jackson, said that she remained distraught at the fact that her uncle was never able to watch his children grow up and that his grandmother never got the chance to see him as a free man despite the many lawsuits he filed to reverse his conviction. She felt that Peoria was a place where people only heard about the prosecutors' side of the case, which motivated her to try and push Heidelberg's side of the story out as much as she could.

"We give condolences to the Espinoza family; however, their closure isn't complete," Mize-Jackson said. "There's always two sides to the story. They're only hearing one side – the people who govern, the State's Attorney's Office and whoever else is in that group. On the other side, we're a family, too, and we don't have closure that will set us free as a family."

Marcella Teplitz, a private investigator and former Peoria police officer who worked with Hale and his team on the case, said that she spent three years working to clear Heidelberg's name, getting close enough to the family that she even appeared at some reunions. She felt that it didn't take her long to realize that a miscarriage of justice was evident in the case, saying that she was "stunned" about Darrow's decision to rule in favor of the officers and their estates.

"There were a lot of loose and foolish statements, some of which are in that press release," Teplitz said. "I read the opinion and they were citing some of the same egregious things we found, but glossed over them and went ahead."

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Hale continued his attacks on the State's Attorney's Office, asking that people do their do diligence and vote out Hoos, who is up for election this November. He said that Hoos and Brady had never been interested in hearing what Mason and Clark had to say and were only concerned with preserving the conviction from 1971.

"The Peoria County State's Attorney's Office has never been interested in the truth," Hale said. "They dug their heels in preserving the conviction, even though it's a state's attorney's job to seek justice, not merely to convict."

Regardless of how the appeals process plays out, Hale said that it was an honor to represent Heidelberg and his family, noting that he handled himself with dignity in the time he was able to spend out of jail.

"He was not bitter," Hale said of Heidelberg. "He was living life to the fullest. He was looking out the windshield, not the rearview mirror."