Angelo Rivera v. Director, Department of Corrections, State of Illinois

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

After being convicted of murder following a bench trial and sentenced to sixty years in prison, and after exhausting his state remedies, Angelo Rivera brought this action for federal habeas corpus, and having been turned down by the district judge appeals. There is only one issue, whether the refusal to allow into evidence at Rivera’s murder trial the confession of his co-defendant (who was tried separately), which exculpated Rivera, denied Rivera due process of law.

Early one morning the body of Zelia Simmons was found in an alley in Chicago. She had been beaten to…