MOUNT VERNON – Fifth District appellate judges ordered a third murder trial for Aryion Sanders of Alton on April 19, finding Madison County Associate Judge Neil Schroeder admitted involuntary confessions as evidence in his second trial.
“In the 49 year history of Miranda, we are unable to find a reported case that has allowed suppressed statements to be used as substantive evidence as the trial court has done in the present case,” Justice David Boie wrote.
Justices Randy Moore and Barry Vaughan concurred.
They assigned roughly equal blame to Schroeder and Circuit Judge Kyle Napp, who presided over a deadlock among jurors at the first trial.
“The constitutional reasons for excluding the evidence did not change from defendant’s first trial to his second trial,” Boie wrote.
The crime occurred in 2015, when four shots hit James Hubbard in the head from close range as he walked along Oakwood Street.
Sanders, age 17, lived nearby. Alton police interviewed him four times in five days.
In the third interview he confessed but later, when they asked him how many shots he fired, he said he lied about shooting Hubbard.
In the fourth interview he confessed again.
Former state’s attorney Tom Gibbons filed two counts of murder in the first degree.
He assigned Crystal Uhe and Lauren Heischmidt as prosecutors.
Defense counsel Celestine Dotson of St. Louis moved to suppress the interviews, claiming detectives ignored Sanders when he asserted a right to remain silent.
Dotson claimed they coerced his confessions by threatening to arrest or shoot his brother two years younger.
Napp allowed the first interview because Sanders made no inculpatory statements, and rejected the other three.
She found Sanders asserted a right to remain silent at the second interview, yet the interviews continued.
She found he confessed in the third interview but when police asked how many times he fired, he told them he lied about shooting Hubbard.
She found he told them he lied because he didn’t want his brother to get in trouble.
She wrote that detectives “created a coercive environment which ultimately overcame the will of the defendant.”
She found detective O’Neill admitted the arrest of the brother was “a threat to elicit an emotional response.”
She found detectives directed other officers to leave the station immediately and arrest the brother.
Gibbons sought to present the statements to the jury anyway, for purposes of impeachment if Sanders chose to testify.
Dotson didn’t object.
Sanders chose to testify, and stated on direct examination that he didn’t become aware of Hubbard’s death until the next day when friends told him.
On cross examination, he testified about his statements.
Jurors rendered no verdict.
For the second trial, in Schroeder’s court, the state filed notice that it would introduce a transcript of Sanders’s testimony.
Dotson objected, arguing it would prejudice Sanders if he chose not to testify.
At a hearing on the transcript, Schroeder said, “Reading this, I can see how there could be some confusion.”
“It’s probably best that I wasn’t at the last trial,” he said.
He said the transcript referred to prior testimony of other individuals.
“I don’t know how that’s all going to play out in the next trial,” he said.
He admitted it as a statement against interest.
Sanders chose not to testify.
The state introduced his statements, jurors found him guilty, and Schroeder sentenced him for 43 years.
Fifth District judges reversed Schroeder on constitutional grounds in a binding precedent on involuntary confession.
“A confession is like no other evidence,” Boie wrote.
“In fact, a defendant’s own confession is probably the most probative and damaging evidence that can be admitted against him.”
He found no physical evidence tying Sanders to the murder and no evidence of a motive other than within the suppressed statements.
He wrote that a weapon wasn’t recovered and surveillance footage didn’t provide a clear picture.
He wrote that Illinois generally justifies the state’s use of prior testimony, but it doesn’t follow that the testimony is transmuted into substantive evidence.
He wrote that improper use of statements for purposes of impeachment at the first trial did not create new, lawfully obtained confessions at the second.
He found no justification for impeachment evidence where Sanders didn’t testify.
“The evidence the state introduced at defendant’s second trial is the exact same evidence that the jury heard in the first trial, except that it was read from a transcript instead of presented by live witnesses,” Boie wrote.
He wrote that Napp’s ruling that the statements weren’t admissible except for impeachment remained in effect at the second trial.
He wrote that the first four pages of the transcript involved the state asking Sanders to comment on the veracity of the state’s witnesses in the first trial.
“It is highly improper for a prosecutor to ask a defendant’s opinion of the veracity of other witnesses,” he wrote.
He wrote that it invades the province of the jury and the Fifth District consistently and repeatedly condemns it.
On the appeal, state appellate prosecutor Patrick Delfino and Patrick Daly of his agency acted as “of counsel” to Gibbons.