Barton McNeil Fourth Judicial District Appellate Court Appeal – State’s Rebuttal Nov 2024 and Legal Team’s response Dec 20
Court activity is heating up once again in the Barton McNeil Wrongful Conviction case. His case this year moving from the 11th Circuit Court of Bloomington, Illinois, the place his original wrongful conviction was rendered in 1999, to the 4th Appellate District Court located in Springfield, Illinois.
Barton’s legal team filed in August 2024 their maximum 50-page appeal to the local area judge’s decision made February 1st earlier this year denying Barton a new trial.
This appeal was made part of a prior post that can be found on FreeBart website under Court Documents. Also the Judge’s February 1st decision can be found under the category too.
Below is the appeal itself with this post continuing thereafter with the latest court filings:
The judge’s February 1st, 2024 decision followed the November 21st, 2023, 3rd State Evidentiary hearing that was limited to just confession related evidence. As everyone learned, Don Wang, Misook’s former husband, had told Misook’s daughter Michelle Nowlin and Michelle’s stepmother Dawn Shannon that in a prior fit of anger, Misook had confessed to him having murdered Christina. Misook invoked her Fifth Amendment refusing to testify to questions such as whether or not she murdered Christina.
The judge was unmoved by this evidence and denied Barton a retrial.
In an earlier October 2022 decision, this same judge denied a wide body of new evidence disallowing it to go up the ladder to be part of a 3rd Stage Evidentiary Hearing. This is where new evidence is openly discussed and vetted as to its relevancy. Unfortunate for Barton and his legal team, the judge shot down six of the eight newly cited pieces of evidence, with just two, the confession related evidence being allowed to go onto the 3rd Stage (a hearing held November 2023).
You will see some of these terms bantered about in the pleadings so wanted to make you aware of them. There is also a “motion in Limine” referenced so am attaching this to this e-mail as well in case of interest.
The first stage of an innocence claim is to file the claim (that a person like Barton is innocent). Sometimes the claim ends right there with the court not even acknowledging the legitimacy of the claim by not putting it on a court docket for future hearings to be heard on the matter.
Barton’s petition seeking a new trial that was filed in February 2021 made this hurdle and was formally docketed by the court (Judge) in August 2021. From there on out it has been a slow grind culminating in February 1st 2024 (three years to the same month later!), with Barton being denied a new trial.
It does not go unnoticed that it takes just one short year to wrongfully convict, and 13+ years AFTER an innocence project with expert innocence related lawyers having taken up your case and NEW EVIDENCE discovered!
In August of this year Barton’s legal team made their appeal to the judge’s wrong decision with the appeal limited to just 50-pages. I am attaching this to the email for those interested in reading.
This was met with the State Appellate Prosecutor’s maximum 50-page rebuttal in November 2024. Three newly tasked legally trained attorneys to join the State’s fray despite Barton’s overwhelming evidence. It is the way our adversarial criminal justice system works. Can’t have a one-sided argument (Barton is innocent!), must create legal arguments between two opposing sides! See below State’s rebuttal:
A system inflexible such that it takes just one-short year to wrongfully accuse, and convict, but a decade and sometimes decades to unwind a wrongful conviction (Barton now at year 26, with 13 years of which represented by the two innocence projects).
The State’s November 2024 appeal position was finally responded to in kind by the legal team’s December 2024 final maximum 20-page rebuttal as permitted during the process. See below to see this extraordinary 20-page rebuttal:
The following a key legal term used in various places:
De novo review (what Barton’s legal team requests the court do)
A standard of review where a reviewing court, usually an appellate court, doesn’t need to defer to the lower court’s decision. The appellate court examines the issue from the beginning and determines the appropriate ruling. De novo review is used in questions of how the law was applied or interpreted. END OF LEGAL DEFINITION
At this time a panel of 3 judges from the Illinois 4th Appellate District Court will be appointed to review all the Court Records, Common Law Records and legal pleadings relating to the three attached documents. Who will these judges be?
In addition to all of the Court Records of Proceedings (the encompass all court room testimony, pre-trial motion proceedings, anytime Barton’s attorneys and opposing attorneys squared off with a judge present), and Common Law Records, with judge’s also reviewing certain evidence, the court will be evaluating the original December 28, 1998 Motion in Limine. This was the tool that assured Barton’s fate in that he would not receive a fair trial. As he was prevented by the original bench trial judge ruling favorably on this Motion in Limine that Barton be denied the ability to assert in his defense that someone other than himself snuck into his daughter’s open ground floor window and smothered her silently under the cover or darkness to death. Barton in his adjacent living room not having heard any noticeable commotion to lead him to believe his daughter was being murdered.
Below is the evil Motion in Limine agreed upon by Barton’s original Bench Trial judge G. Michael Prall that has cost Barton 26-years of his life and furthermore, justice to Christina:
Soon there will be a date set for 30 minutes of oral arguments between both sides. Barton’s legal team have already requested oral arguments take place.
A date likely to take place by the end of Q1 2025 will take place and it will be in a court room located in the 4th Appellate District Court located in Springfield, Illinois. Cameras and the media are allowed to attend, as is the public.
IT WILL BE IMPORTANT FOR SUPPORTERS AND THOSE INTERESTED IN THE PURSUIT OF JUSTICE TO ATTEND THIS HEARING THAT WILL TAKE PLACE LIKELY SOMETIME DURING THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2025
To create change in our legal system, cases like Barton McNeil’s are needed in order to capture the public’s attention. His case is an obvious miscarriage of justice any layperson with common sense can plainly see.
Barton’s story is so unusual and profound in the annals of true crime it has been featured in a 14-episode successful podcast Suspect Convictions (heard 2017/2018 on Central Illinois NPR station WGLT); a two-hour Snapped Behind Bars documentary on Oxygen Network (featured as a Fall season premiere in 2021); an Esquire news magazine article (March/April 2024 issue); and YouTube/NY Times Best Selling author Dr. Todd Grande weighing in with his firm opinion Barton is indeed an innocent man.
Barton McNeil continues to languish today as you read this e-mail in an Illinois prison now for 26 years for a crime he did not commit.
He can use your support with his receiving letters and e-mails of support. A GiveButter donation campaign was started where people can also make financial contributions of any size using Venmo, PayPal a credit card or other payment means.
Barton was nothing more than an innocent father who loved his daughter.
And it is obtaining justice for his daughter that keeps him going after all these long years. For Barton, it is not about his regaining his freedom but obtaining true justice for his 3-year-old daughter Christina.
Wrongful conviction stories do not get worse than this. If Barton McNeil can be so easily convicted based on no physical evidence and circumstantial evidence (his being present) alone, then prosecutors and police can convict anyone. You, your spouse, your loved one, another family member, your friend.
Barton deserves, at the very minimum in the face of all newly collected evidence by his legal team, the right to a new trial. So that the People of the State of Illinois can get to the bottom of the truth and answer once and for all “Who Killed Baby Christina?”.
Thank you for following this extraordinary case. We hope to see you at the 4th Appellate Court’s oral arguments hearing that likely will be scheduled in the 1st Quarter of 2025 and will be open to the public with cameras in the court room allowed for those news organizations who seek permission to do so. Barton’s legal team will be there.
We will be sure to let you know when this future date becomes scheduled.
With best regards, Team Bart
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