People v. Gleckler

A jury in Champaign County found defendant, Jerry Arthur Gleckler, guilty of the shotgun murders of two teenagers, Douglas Scott Simmons and Mark Harris. Two days later, on May 26, 1978, this same jury decided that no mitigating factors existed which were sufficient to preclude a sentence of death. Direct appeal was taken to this court. See 73 Ill. 2d R. 603.

Evidence introduced at trial showed that the bodies of Simmons and Harris were found at 7:30 a.m. on September 26, 1977, in a ditch beside a county road near Mahomet. Both had shotgun wounds in the back and had been killed by close-range…