RODNEY YODER WILL LEAVE MAXIMUM SECURITY MENTAL HEALTH CENTER LAWYER SAYS MOVE COULD BE STEP TO FREEDOM

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch 3.4.2003

By Terry Hillig

Rodney Yoder will soon be leaving the maximum security Chester, Ill., Mental Health Center, a move he hopes will take him closer to the freedom he has sought for 12 years.

Yoder will be transferred to the Elgin Mental Health Center, a lower-security facility in Kane County, west of Chicago. His lawyer, Randy Kretchmar, thinks the move is a step toward his client's release.

Illinois Department of Human Services spokesman Tom Green said Wednesday that the transfer would take place by Tuesday. Green said Human Services staff believe Yoder's condition has improved.

"He no longer requires a maximum-security setting," Green said.

Yoder thinks new Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has taken an interest in his case. Kretchmar said he has discussed Yoder's case with state Human Services officials and with one of Blagojevich's top advisers.

Yoder has been held involuntarily at Chester Mental Health Center since June 1991, when he completed a prison sentence for hitting his ex-wife. He is one of only about two dozen people in Illinois who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility for 10 years or more.

Prosecutors have repeatedly persuaded juries in Randolph County - most recently in December - that Yoder is dangerous and should not be released. But Yoder has consistently refused medication, denies he is mentally ill and contends that mental illness is a hoax.

At the least, Kretchmar said, the transfer should mean a greater degree of freedom for Yoder and improved chances of success in future commitment hearings. State law provides for such hearings at six-month intervals and Yoder's present commitment expires in June.

Kretchmar, who lives in Wilmette, said the transfer would make it easier for him to represent Yoder and to arrange for expert witnesses to testify.

Yoder claims his commitment was the result of a vendetta by Stephen Hardy, a former director of the Chester Mental Health Center. Yoder successfully sued Hardy for rights violations during a previous prison term. Hardy was the warden of the prison where Yoder was held.

Yoder said Wednesday that no one at the Chester institution was responsible for his transfer. "They are not doing this on their own initiative," he said. "They would literally murder me here if they could get away with it. It was their intention to keep me here until my natural death."

Yoder said his release would be good for the state's troubled finances. He said it costs $1,000 per day to confine him and said the state spent close to $100,000 on expert witnesses who testified against him in December.

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