The alleged gunman in the murder of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton will get a new trial, after the Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday announced a rare tie vote.
The justices dismissed an appeal of a lower court ruling that threw out the confession of Micheail Ward after deadlocking 3-3 on the case, with Justice P. Scott Neville recusing himself.
The split vote will leave in place an appeals court ruling that last year overturned Ward’s conviction. The news comes just a few weeks shy of the 12-year anniversary of Pendleton’s 2013 death in a shooting only blocks from the South Side home of then-President Barack Obama.
A week before she was killed, Pendleton had performed as a majorette with the King College Prep High School band in Washington, D.C. ,at an event ahead of Obama’s second inauguration. First Lady Michelle Obama attended the teen's funeral in Chicago, and Obama himself mentioned the killing during his State of the Union address later that year.
Ward, who was 18 when he was arrested on the day of Pendleton's funeral, was sentenced to 84 years in prison for Pendleton’s murder. The appeals court last year ruled Ward had repeatedly invoked his right to remain silent during an interrogation that spanned more than 12 hours. That ruling reversed his conviction and also threw out incriminating statements Ward made to detectives.
In a statement, Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke's office said it disagreed with the appeals court ruling and stood by the prosecution of the case.
Ward was charged under former State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, and Kim Foxx was prosecutor when the case went to trial in 2018
"We are reviewing all legal options, and ultimately will be guided by securing justice for Hadiya Pendleton, her friends who were hurt that day, and her family and loved ones who mourn her today," the statement reads.
Ward's lawyer, Stephen Richards, said there was little ground to appeal the ruling and the remaining case against Ward is weak.
"Those decisions (by prosecutors) on how to handle a case can be distorted because a case is highly publicized," Richards said.
Ward has protested his innocence, and his attorneys noted during his 2018 trial that his alleged confession did not match the physical evidence in the case.
Without the confession, the state’s case relies on witness identifications and testimony from two friends of Ward and his co-defendant Kenneth Williams, who told police the pair picked them up in the getaway car soon after the shooting and made incriminating statements.
No murder weapon or other physical evidence connects Ward to the shooting. Williams, who allegedly drove the getaway car, was sentenced to 42 years in prison.
Pendleton and a half-dozen classmates had gathered midday under a shelter in Harsh Park in North Kenwood, after finishing final exams on an unseasonably warm January day.
Prosecutors alleged Ward and Williams were members of the Suwu street gang who were driving near the park and mistook the group of King students for members of the rival 4-6 Terror gang faction. Ward allegedly opened fire on the group from an alley near the park, striking Pendleton in the back and wounding two of her classmates.
One of more than 400 murders citywide in 2013, Pendleton's death became a national symbol of Chicago's gun violence, with her mother, Cleo Pendleton, becoming an activist who would take the stage at the 2016 Democratic Convention alongside other mothers who had lost children to gunfire.
It took more than five years for Ward and Williams' trial to be held, and Ward's appeal has taken nearly as long to work its way to the state's highest court. Thursday, the lawyer who handled Ward's appeal said he felt the evidence against his client was minimal at trial in 2018 and will be significantly weaker without the statements he made to detectives.
Jurors watched four hours of Ward’s interrogation during his trial, which included alleged details— like a gang member Ward had been aiming for used Pendleton as a shield — that did not match with the accounts of Pendleton's classmates.
