Two months ago, Lake County prosecutors dropped rape charges against Bennie Starks, clearing him of a crime that sent him to prison for 20 years before DNA suggested his innocence.

Yet prosecutors continue to fight to hold him responsible for battering the same woman during the same incident.

A 2006 court ruling split the aggravated battery case from the rape conviction, and the battery conviction stood while the rape case crumbled after evidence pointed away from Starks as the man who assaulted a 69-year-old woman in Waukegan in 1986.

Lawyers for Starks, 52, have argued that it makes no sense to say he battered the woman when he is no longer charged with raping her. He served much more than the five-year term he received for the battery, but he wants to clear his record.

Last month, appeals judges sided with Starks, ordering Lake County to hold a hearing at which Starks' lawyers can argue for a new trial for battery. The judges wrote that the DNA would likely change the result of a new trial.

But last week, prosecutors asked the judges to reconsider. Their filing does not address the facts of the case, instead arguing that the ruling violated legal procedure. One argument holds that the appeals court failed to consider whether Starks had standing to challenge the battery case.

Prosecutors also signaled that they might appeal the matter to the state Supreme Court.

Asked about that possibility, Ronald Safer, one of Starks' lawyers, sarcastically said, "Why not?"

"Why not devote the people's resources to trying to cling to the last vestige of a wrongful prosecution?" he said.

Starks said he wasn't surprised by the prosecutors' move, calling it "just another stall tactic."

Neither Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller nor two of his deputies returned calls for comment. The appellate prosecutor's office, a party to the filing, directed questions to Lake County.

Starks' rape case is one of four in Lake County torpedoed by DNA in less than two years.

Prosecutors had argued that DNA did not clear Starks because the victim could have had consensual sex with another man. The woman, who has since died, said at trial she had not had sex in weeks before her rape.

At trial, prosecutors noted that Starks' jacket was found near the scene and a dentist said bite marks on the victim matched him. Starks said the jacket was stolen before the crime, and other experts have questioned the scientific value of the bite-mark evidence.

Though the prosecutors' recent petition does not cite specific facts, it does argue that neither the appeals court nor Starks has ever addressed "the strong evidence" of his guilt.

dhinkel@tribune.com