Paula Marie Sims was convicted in Madison County, Illinois, in early 1990 of the first-degree murder of her six-week-old daughter, who died in Alton in April 1989. The jury that found her guilty was asked to consider the death penalty, found her eligible for it, and then deadlocked, so the judge imposed a sentence of life imprisonment. After the verdict she admitted to her own lawyer that her testimony at trial had been false and that she had killed both of her baby daughters, the younger one in 1989 and the elder one three years earlier. The 1986 death, in Jersey County, was used as evidence in the 1989 case. No trial or verdict on it is on record.
She spent more than three decades in the Illinois prison system. In 2021 Governor J.B. Pritzker commuted her sentence to life with the possibility of parole, and on October 28, 2021, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted 12 to 1 to release her. She left prison the next day, at the age of 62.
Paula Sims and her husband, Robert Sims, had three children. Two daughters were born, in 1986 and 1989, and a son was born in early 1988. The son was healthy, and the court record says the State removed him from the home during the 1989 investigation. The family lived in the Brighton area of Jersey County when the first daughter was born, and they moved to Madison County during the later inquiry; the 1989 events took place in Alton.
Her early life, schooling and work before her marriage are not on record. Her age, 62, was given in news reports of October 2021. Her lawyer later argued that she had a postpartum mental illness at the time of each death, a claim first raised in a postconviction petition in 1994 and addressed by the Appellate Court in 2001.
In June 1986 Sims reported that her daughter, 13 days old, had been taken by an intruder, near Brighton. The child died. The Jersey County authorities who investigated the death were not satisfied with parts of the account, but the appellate court in 2001 described their concerns as lacking sufficient weight at the time to accuse her of any wrongdoing. No one was charged in 1986.
The 1993 appellate opinion calls this the "June 1986 death" of the defendant's infant daughter. Patch, a local news service, reported in 2021 that no cause of death was determined at the time, and added that Sims was later charged in connection with the case. A Time magazine report of July 1989 is more specific. It said she had been indicted on charges of concealing a homicide and obstructing justice in both cases, the 1986 case and the 1989 case, and that a grand jury later added a murder charge in the younger daughter's death only.
On April 29, 1989, Sims reported that her second daughter, six weeks old, had been taken in Alton. The report resembled the one she had made three years earlier. Alton police contacted the Jersey County sheriff, who had investigated the first death, Time reported. Investigators did not accept her account. The younger daughter's death was treated as a homicide. Her husband, Robert Sims, was not charged; the Appellate Court's 2001 opinion records that he was never indicted. In May 1989 the couple's son was placed in protective custody, and Time described him as healthy.
A Madison County grand jury indicted Paula Sims on charges of first-degree murder, obstructing justice and concealing a homicidal death. The case in the Madison County Circuit Court carried the number 89CF552, according to the State's Attorney's later letter to the Prisoner Review Board. The State sought the death penalty.
The charging documents for the 1986 death are less clear in the record. Time reported in July 1989 that she was charged with concealing a homicide and obstructing justice in both cases. A 2001 footnote refers to a pending murder charge in Jersey County while the prosecutor kept her confession secret; the footnote does not say which death the charge concerned. A 2021 radio report said she was not charged with murder until after her second daughter died. The disposition of any Jersey County charge is not on record.
Sims stood trial in the Madison County Circuit Court in early 1990; RiverBender, an Alton news site, gave January 1990 as the month of the conviction. She testified in her own defense. She denied that she had harmed her daughters and maintained that an intruder was responsible.
The trial judge admitted evidence about the 1986 death. As the Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District, summarized the ruling in 1993, the State offered it to show modus operandi, intent, knowledge, lack of accident or mistake and identity in connection with the 1989 death. That is the only way the 1986 death figured in the case. The court described her as being charged in this trial with the murder of the younger daughter only.
The jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts. The 1993 opinion lists them as one count of murder, two counts of obstructing justice and one count of concealment of a homicidal death. A letter from the Madison County State's Attorney to the Prisoner Review Board in 2021, published by RiverBender, gives the date of one sentencing as February 5, 1990, when she received life imprisonment on the murder count; the same letter lists five years for concealment of a homicidal death and three years for obstructing justice, both dated March 30, 1990.
The sentencing hearing before the jury had two phases. In the first, the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that Sims was at least 18 years old and that a statutory aggravating factor applied, which together made her eligible for the death penalty. The 2001 opinion later cited those findings in rejecting a constitutional challenge to her sentence. In the second phase the jury was to decide whether to impose death, and it deadlocked. Because the jury could not agree, the death penalty was not imposed, and the trial judge sentenced her to life imprisonment. The 1993 opinion describes the sentence as natural life without parole.
Between the guilty verdicts and the second stage of sentencing, Sims told her lawyer, Donald Groshong, that her trial testimony was false and that she had killed both daughters. The prosecutor, Don Weber, then offered through Groshong to stop seeking the death penalty if she told the truth about the deaths. A meeting took place between Sims, her lawyer and Weber, and Weber gave his personal assurance that what was said would remain confidential. She confessed, the opinion says, but said that she had acted alone. Weber was not satisfied with her account and resumed his pursuit of a death sentence. At the later postconviction hearing, Sims testified that she had refused to change what she had told him because it "wouldn't have been the truth."
The State's Attorney who opposed her release in 2021 described the same sequence in a letter to the Prisoner Review Board. He wrote that she barely avoided the death penalty because she admitted guilt just before the jury could vote on it. The 2001 opinion records that Weber kept his word and did not reveal the confession during the proceedings that followed, even though a murder charge was pending in Jersey County.
Groshong appealed. In People v. Sims, No. 5-90-0287, the Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District, decided the case on May 4, 1993, in an opinion by Justice William A. Lewis, reported at 244 Ill. App. 3d 966. The court affirmed the convictions and the sentence. Sims argued, among other points, that the trial prosecutor had considered writing a book about the case while it was still being tried and that the book itself should be added to the appellate record. The court refused to add the book, holding that neither Supreme Court Rule 329 nor judicial notice allowed it, and held that the prosecutor's thoughts about a book did not require a new trial without a showing that they harmed her. The prosecutor had signed a book contract a week before the sentencing hearing, the opinion noted.
The Illinois Supreme Court later denied further review of the case, according to the 2001 opinion, which cites it at 152 Ill. 2d 575 (1993).
On August 28, 1994, Sims filed a postconviction petition without a lawyer, claiming that Groshong had given her ineffective help. The trial court dismissed it on September 7, 1994. In 1997 the Appellate Court reversed that dismissal in an unpublished order because postconviction counsel had not complied with Supreme Court Rule 651(c). On remand an amended petition was filed, an evidentiary hearing was held, and the trial court again denied relief.
Her appeal was decided on June 11, 2001, in People v. Sims, No. 5-99-0250, an opinion by Justice Kuehn with Justices Hopkins and Maag concurring. It is cited elsewhere as 322 Ill. App. 3d 397. The opinion opens with the words that have since been quoted often: Paula Sims "gave birth to three children, but she was a mother to only one."
She raised three arguments. First, that Groshong should have investigated an insanity defense based on postpartum depression. At the hearing a prison psychologist testified that she had suffered a major depression after the birth of the child at issue, and an expert in postpartum disorders testified that she had a postpartum-based mental illness at the time of the offense. Groshong testified that an insanity plea would have undercut her claim of innocence, that her medical records showed no complaint of depression, and that he believed her. The court held his strategy reasonable and wrote: "The constitution does not, however, contemplate clairvoyance."
Second, that Groshong's simultaneous representation of her and her husband created a conflict of interest. The court found that the "ever-present potential for conflict never matured into an actual conflict of interest." Third, that her life sentence violated her constitutional rights under Apprendi v. New Jersey. The court held that the jury's findings in the first stage of sentencing satisfied that rule. It affirmed the judgment of the Madison County circuit court.
In November 2019 Sims filed another postconviction petition in Madison County seeking a new trial on the ground of an insanity defense. A judge allowed the filing in March 2020, and the Madison County First Assistant State's Attorney, Crystal Uhe, asked the court to dismiss it as not significantly different from an earlier motion that had been denied. The outcome of that petition is not on record.
The elder daughter's death is the part of the case on which the record is thinnest, and the wording matters. Sims admitted killing both daughters; the 2001 opinion states that she "later admitted killing both daughters," and the State's Attorney's 2021 letter says the same. She was convicted of the younger child's murder only. The 1993 appellate court wrote that she was "only charged with the murder of" the younger daughter in the case before it, and the 1986 death came into that trial as other-crimes evidence.
Reports differ on whether anything came of the 1986 charges. An Associated Press report printed by The Meridian Star in June 2015 said that three months after the murder conviction she pleaded guilty to concealing a homicidal death in the first daughter's case. The State's Attorney's letter lists a five-year term for concealment of a homicidal death and a three-year term for obstructing justice, both imposed March 30, 1990, in the Madison County case number. The 1993 opinion, on the other hand, attributes the concealment and obstruction convictions to the jury's verdict in the 1989 case. The record does not resolve which death each of those counts concerned, and it does not show a trial for murder in the 1986 death.
Sims was held at the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, Illinois, by the time of her parole proceedings. Her lawyer, Jed Stone, said she had no major disciplinary violations in 32 years. While in prison she worked with another inmate on legislation about postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis; Capitol News Illinois reported that Governor Bruce Rauner signed it into law in January 2018.
The postpartum claim was the center of her later efforts. Her lawyer said she had postpartum psychosis when the deaths occurred and that the condition was not well understood at the time of her trial. She did not use an insanity defense in 1990, following her lawyer's advice, and the Appellate Court found in 2001 that the choice was a reasonable one. In the 2021 parole proceedings two psychologists told the Prisoner Review Board that she had the disorder, according to a RiverBender report.
The Madison County State's Attorney, Thomas A. Haine, disagreed. In a letter of August 30, 2021, to the board's chairman, he wrote that she had blamed an intruder at trial, that she admitted guilt only at the last moment, and that her psychological explanations had come years afterward. He closed his case with a line from the 2001 opinion, that she "gave birth to three children, but she was a mother to only one." His position, as reported, was that "when someone takes a life it should mean life in prison."
In March 2021 Governor Pritzker commuted her sentence from life without parole to life with the possibility of parole, according to RiverBender and Capitol News Illinois. The report said he cited a new Illinois law allowing resentencing hearings for women whose maternal mental illness was a factor. The commutation did not release her; it entitled her to ask the Prisoner Review Board for a hearing. Her interview with the board was set for September 16, 2021, with a public hearing to follow.
On Thursday, October 28, 2021, the board voted 12 to 1 to grant parole, according to Patch and WBBM Newsradio. Capitol News Illinois named four members who voted to release her, Mears, Tupy, Miller and James, and one dissent, from Jared Bohland. The only person who spoke against release at the hearing, the news service said, was Haine. Release followed on October 29, 2021, when she was 62. She served 32 years.
Reactions divided along the lines that had marked the case since 1990. Her lawyer said the vote showed that postpartum illness is real. Three Republican state senators, Jason Plummer, Terri Bryant and Steve McClure, criticized the board for sitting without Senate confirmation and for not having posted meeting minutes since March; Haine had called her explanations timed to support parole.
Patch reported on November 1, 2021, that she was living in central Illinois in housing provided by her employer. Capitol News Illinois, in March 2022, described her release as having occurred on October 29, 2021. Her status after March 2022 was not reported.
Several points are contested or not resolved on the record.
The first is the cause and timing of the 1986 death. All that is settled is that the child was 13 days old and that no one was charged with a crime at the time.
The second is the legal outcome of the 1986 case. The 1989 press said charges of concealing a homicide and obstructing justice were brought in both cases, and a 2001 opinion refers to a pending murder charge in Jersey County. A 2015 wire report speaks of a guilty plea to concealment. None of the reports states a murder verdict for that death.
The third is the parole status of the original sentence. The 1993 opinion calls it natural life without parole, the 2001 opinion calls it life imprisonment, and the State's Attorney's letter lists life for the murder count. All agree that the 2021 commutation made parole possible.
The fourth is whether her postpartum illness explains the deaths. A prison psychologist and a specialist in postpartum disorders testified in 2001 that she had such an illness. The Appellate Court did not rule on the medical question, holding only that her trial counsel acted reasonably. The prosecution has consistently disputed it.
June 1986: Sims reports her 13-day-old daughter taken from the family's home near Brighton, Jersey County; the child dies; no charge is brought at the time.
Early 1988: The couple's son is born.
April 29, 1989: Sims reports her six-week-old daughter taken in Alton, Madison County.
May 1989: The son is placed in protective custody.
July 24, 1989: Time reports that she is charged with concealing a homicide and obstructing justice in both cases, with a murder charge added in the younger daughter's death.
January 1990: Conviction in Madison County Circuit Court reported for first-degree murder; jury later finds her eligible for the death penalty and deadlocks in the second phase.
February 5, 1990: Sentenced to life imprisonment on the murder count.
March 30, 1990: Sentenced to five years for concealment of a homicidal death and three years for obstructing justice, per the State's Attorney's later letter.
May 4, 1993: Appellate Court (Fifth District) affirms convictions and sentence.
August 28, 1994: Pro se postconviction petition filed; dismissed September 7, 1994.
1997: Appellate Court reverses the dismissal on a procedural ground.
June 11, 2001: Appellate Court affirms denial of postconviction relief.
January 2018: Law on postpartum depression and psychosis signed.
November 2019: Successive postconviction petition filed; leave granted March 2020.
March 2021: Governor Pritzker commutes the sentence to life with parole eligibility.
August 30, 2021: Madison County State's Attorney writes to the Prisoner Review Board opposing parole.
October 28, 2021: Prisoner Review Board votes 12 to 1 to grant parole.
October 29, 2021: Released.