Petition for Leave to Appeal filed by Legal Team before the Illinois Supreme Court
On Friday, May 23rd, 2025, Barton’s legal team consisting of the University of Illinois Law School related Illinois Innocence Project, and the University of Chicago Law School associated Exoneration Project, files a Petition for Leave to Appeal before the Illinois Supreme Court. This is four years after they filed his initial appeal seeking a new trail in February, 2021. So has taken now four long years for the legal team to slog through the lower and 4th District Appellate court to get to this point where they can now ask Illinois’ highest court to intervene in what has been a 27-year ongoing injustice perpetrated against one of their own citizens.
A petition for leave to appeal is a formal request submitted to an appellate court, in this instance Illinois’ highest court, when a party doesn’t have an automatic right to appeal a lower court’s decision. It’s essentially asking the higher court for permission to hear the appeal. The higher court then decides whether or not to grant leave, meaning whether or not to allow the appeal to proceed.
The Petition identifies how there currently exists an ever increasing divide within the Illinois appellate courts on how to handle New Evidence. The legal teams ask the court “The appellate court is deeply divided over whether evidence of actual innocence should be reviewed in a comprehensive or siloed manner.” The appeal then cites numerous rulings that can be shown to be all over the map with little in the way of consistency.
As we have said for many years now, if Barton McNeil does not deserve a new trial in the State of Illinois, no other wrongfully convicted person does either. The wealth of evidence that existed at the time of his poorly represented case by a Public Defender pointed to Misook. So profound was Barton’s innocence that at his 2002 resentencing hearing he even went on the court record to predict successfully that because the State got it wrong, his violent ex-girlfriend Misook Nowlin was likely to go on and kill again. As we all know she did in a macabre 2011 orchestrated strangulation murder of her own mother-in-law Linda Tyda.
Since this time is has been a slow grind against the local prosecutor’s office and even the 4th District Appellate court who recently ruled against Barton being ordered a new trial. They even ruled that Misook’s DNA and a hair of hers found in his daughter’s death bed, would not sway a single jurist. This is a falsehood like no other and anyone even remotely familiar with this case knows this to be true.
Below the Petition that is centered on its first 20 or so pages with the rest cases that were cited in the Petition and other supporting information so that if accepted by the Illinois Supreme Court to be reviewed, they can easily find anything they need since the very beginning.
At this time it is anticipated the Illinois Supreme Court will make a decision whether to review Barton’s wrongful conviction case that will then likely have oral arguments before the seven justices sometime later this year in the Illinois Supreme Court that is located in Illinois’ State Capital, Springfield, Illinois.
But before reading, below is a video that was posted on FreeBart Facebook on Memorial Day with a statement by Barton regarding his PLA and some evidence that shows furthermore that Misook is the bonafied true killer of Christina McNeil based upon the DNA evidence along, let alone with all other supporting evidence both past and new.
Click below for video featuring Bart and his comments regarding the filing of Petition for Leave to Appeal before the Illinois Supreme Court. Also a few words from his cousin Chris and a few evidentiary items at the end that the courts so far do not want to acknowledge exist.
About Author
