IL Eric Hanson: Man who killed 4 in his family gets death

From the Chicago Tribune--

Man who killed 4 in his family gets death

DuPage County jury decides in 90 minutes

By Art Barnum and Ted Gregory | TRIBUNE REPORTERS
February 28, 2008

Jurors deliberated less than 90 minutes Wednesday in deciding Eric C.
Hanson should be put to death for what one prosecutor called the
"monstrous crimes" of Sept. 28, 2005, when he bludgeoned to death his
sister and brother-in-law, shot his parents as they slept and tried to
cover the killings by cleaning the house and lying.

"The state made the case," the jury foreman said when asked whether
one witness or piece of evidence was more influential in the
prosecution of a crime authorities said was committed after Hanson
became angry at his sister's discovery that he had stolen about
$140,000 from his parents through identity theft.

The foreman added that he was "satisfied" with the verdict, but
declined to answer questions about the deliberations as he and other
jurors left the DuPage County Courthouse in Wheaton.

Hanson, the 14th man sent to Death Row since the blanket commutations
of all Illinois death sentences in 2003 and a moratorium placed on
state-sanctioned executions in 2000, remained stoic when the court
clerk announced the verdict at 4 p.m. in a packed courtroom. About 20
feet over Hanson's shoulder, his lone remaining sibling, Jennifer
Williams, wept, as did one of Hanson's former girlfriends.

"There are no winners at the end of this process," Williams and Penny
Hestad, a sister of Hanson's father, Terrance, said in a statement
shortly after the verdict, "only great losses."

Hanson, 31, of Naperville, has been placed on suicide watch at DuPage
County Jail. Last year DuPage County inmates Robert Rejda and Jae
Harrell, who had pending trials that could have led to the death
sentence, committed suicide.

Hanson's next court hearing is March 25, when Judge Robert Anderson
will set another hearing to schedule an execution date. All death
sentence verdicts receive an automatic appeal by the Illinois Supreme
Court.

Jurors moved swiftly in reaching their three critical decisions in
Hanson's trial. They convicted Hanson of the murders on Feb. 20 after
deliberating less than three hours. The next day the eight men and
four women needed about 30 minutes to determine Hanson was eligible
for the death penalty.

On Wednesday, the jury began deliberations at 2:30 p.m. and announced
they had reached a decision at 3:50 p.m. Had they been unable to reach
a unanimous determination on the death penalty, Hanson would have
served life in a maximum security prison with parole granted only by
gubernatorial clemency.

"The verdict speaks for itself in all three phases," the jury foreman
said.

Hanson, a self-employed mortgage broker with a history of crime that
started when he vandalized a car as a juvenile, used his parents'
identities to defraud them of about $140,000, prosecutors said. When
his sister Kate Hanson-Tsao confronted him in August 2005, Hanson
threatened to kill her, Williams testified.

Prosecutors said he carried out that threat on Sept. 28, when he drove
to Hanson-Tsao's Aurora home and bludgeoned to death his sister and
brother-in-law, Jimmy Tsao. Hanson then drove to the Naperville home
he shared with his parents, Terrance and Mary Hanson, and shot them
each once in the head at about 11 p.m.

Afterward, Hanson cleaned the Naperville home and moved his parents'
bodies to the Tsao house. At trial, he maintained he had been sleeping
in his basement bedroom when his parents were killed.

The next morning he flew to Los Angeles to see a Neil Diamond concert
with his ex-fiance. He was arrested Sept. 30 near Portage, Wis., where
authorities had tracked his cell phone. A search of his SUV revealed
Hanson-Tsao's wedding ring, Tsao's diamond-encrusted Rolex watch and
gloves marked with the blood of Terrance Hanson.

DuPage County State's Atty. Joseph Birkett on Wednesday said, "Whether
the death penalty is sought or approved is dictated by the nature of
the case, the nature of the evidence and the character of the accused.
The jurors peered into his heart, and it wasn't a pretty picture."

During the pretrial stage, Williams publicly stated she opposed the
death penalty for her younger brother. State law prohibited her from
mentioning the issue in her victim-impact statement, which she read
Friday, and Williams declined to comment during the trial. "Jennifer
Williams supported the prosecution of this case and is comfortable
with the decision of the jury," Birkett said Wednesday. "Obviously,
her life has been shattered."

Whether Hanson will be executed remains highly speculative. Despite
reforms to a capital punishment system that then-Gov. George Ryan
called "haunted by the demon of error" when he granted commutations in
2003, Gov. Rod Blagojevich has declined to resume executions.

Birkett and State Rep. Dennis Reboletti (R-Elmhurst) have called on
Blagojevich to lift the moratorium, a call Birkett repeated Wednesday.

"The moratorium is a charade," Birkett said Wednesday, beside three
attorneys who prosecuted the case, Robert Berlin, Michael Wolfe and
Nancy Wolfe. "The death penalty is the law in the state of Illinois.
[Blagojevich] hasn't listened."

In closing arguments Wednesday, DuPage County Assistant State's Atty.
Michael Wolfe said Hanson's personality disorders, which include
narcissistic personality disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity
disorder, have nothing to do with his committing the crimes. Wolfe
cited several aggravating factors -- including multiple murders,
previous physical abuse of girlfriends and family, and the calculated
nature of the crime -- that merited the death penalty.

"The defendant had it all," Wolfe told jurors. Hanson's parents gave
him plenty of money, Wolfe said. He wore fashionable clothes, had a
customized SUV and motorcycle, traveled and dated several women, the
prosecutor said. "All his life, he had it all. All that wasn't
enough."

In her rebuttal, Elizabeth Reed, DuPage County deputy public defender,
said Hanson's personality disorders do "not serve to excuse what he
did, but they do contribute to who he is," and suggested that imposing
the death penalty is sanctioned killing.

Reed also said that Hanson had stopped taking his ADHD medications a
decade ago and that a psychologist who evaluated him said he has a low
IQ, wasn't a threat to commit more violence and might have been a
sex-assault victim.

- - -

Despite sentence, moratorium on death penalty continues

Gov. George Ryan issued a death-penalty moratorium in 2000 and, in
2003, commuted the death sentences of about 160 prisoners, citing a
flawed system in which more than a dozen people were improperly put on
Death Row.

The Illinois Supreme Court has since approved new rules including the
mandatory use of videotape confessions in murder cases, establishment
of a fund to help pay for legal defense in death-penalty cases,
stronger restrictions on the use of "jailhouse snitches," broader use
of DNA analysis and strict standards for attorneys prosecuting and
defending the cases. Death-penalty opponents say other important
reforms, such as narrowing the number of factors that could allow
prosecutors to seek the penalty, haven't been implemented.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has continued the moratorium, but state Rep.
Dennis Reboletti (R-Elmhurst) has introduced a House resolution asking
Blagojevich to resume executions.

A state committee reviewing the impact of death-penalty reforms will
report its findings this year.

Hanson is the 14th man -- and the second from DuPage County -- to be
sentenced to death since 2003.

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abarnum @tribune.com
tgregory @tribune.com
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-hanson_death_penalty_28feb28,0,5031774,full.story

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