Crime & Safety
Assistant Public Defender A 'No Show' At Oak Lawn Granny's Fitness Hearing
Fitness hearing delayed for Oak Lawn woman charged with murdering her infant granddaughter delayed when her attorney fails to show up in court on Monday.
The public defender representing the Oak Lawn woman accused of killing her infant granddaughter was a no-show Monday for the grandmother’s scheduled court hearing.
Alfreda Giedrojc, 62, was scheduled for a fitness hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courts Building at 26th and California after the case had been transferred from Bridgeview. Her attorney, Cook County assistant public defender Michael Wilson, did not show up.
Giedrojc is charged with the first-degree murder of her 6-month old granddaughter. Prosecutors maintain that Giedrojc allegedly bludgeoned the baby with a sledgehammer and then slashed her throat in her Oak Lawn home on Oct. 6, 2013. Giedrojc is being held without bail at Cook County jail.
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A court-appointed psychiatrist was scheduled to read portions of Giedrojc’s forensic psychiatric evaluation into the court record -- an evaluation requested by Wilson. At the Oak Lawn grandmother’s last court hearing in Bridgeview on May 28, Wilson said that the results of Giedrojc’s psychiatric evaluation determined that she was “mentally not fit” for trial.
Prosecutor Michael Deeno did not wish to seek a second opinion.
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Cook County Judge Colleen Hyland ordered the case to be transferred to 26th and California for a fitness hearing.
On June 4, the fitness hearing was rescheduled to Monday, June 30.
Wilson, when requesting the psychiatric evaluation for Giedrojc in http://oaklawn.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/attorney-expresses-bonafide-doubt-about-grandmas-sanity January, had expressed “bonafide doubts” about his client’s sanity. The evaluation has been delayed several months due to lost paperwork, and on Monday, the assistant public defender’s no-show.
The judge and prosecutors searched for a phone number for Wilson, but ended up postponing Giedrojc’s hearing until July 7.
“I will personally leave your attorney a message for him to be here,” Cook County Judge Clayton Crane told Giedrojc and her Polish interpreter.
Pending the findings of the report, the judge could postpone going to trial or set a trial date.
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