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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Justices Likely to Toss ‘Nonsense’ Conviction

(CN) - Trying to unravel a dead judge's semantically confusing statements, the Supreme Court seemed inclined Tuesday to uphold the early release of a convicted killer.

It had been the Seventh Circuit that ordered the release of Lawrence Owens halfway through his 25-year sentence for the 1999 murder of 17-year-old Ramon Nelson.

The court's damning reversal called the bench trial and resulting verdict convicting Owens "nonsense."

Among the most troubling problems with the case had been flaws in the testimony from eyewitnesses who initially claimed to have seen Owens wield the stick that knocked Nelson off his bike and killed him in Markham, Ill., about 20 miles south of Chicago.

At trial, one of the witnesses pointed to a photo of someone else in a photo array as being Owens, even though Owens was present in the courtroom.

The witnesses also offered differing testimony as to how many assailants were involved in the attack.

Nelson had been carrying 40 individually packaged bags of crack cocaine in his coat pocket at the time of his death, and the trial judge seized upon this evidence in handing down his verdict against Owens.

"I think all of the witnesses skirted the real issue," Judge Joseph Macellaio told the court, as quoted by the Seventh Circuit. "The issue to me was you have a 17-year-old youth on a bike who is a drug dealer [Nelson], who Larry Owens knew he was a drug dealer. Larry Owens wanted to knock him off. I think the state's evidence has proved that fact. Finding of guilty of murder."

Macellaio died in 2013, however, leaving the courts to decide what he meant about the supposed facts. The Seventh Circuit wound up blasting Macellaio last year for his "verdict based on groundless conjecture."

Illinois brought the case to the Supreme Court for review, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor had tough words for the state's attorney Carolyn Shapiro at a hearing Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C.

A transcript of the proceedings shows Sotomayor haranguing Shaprio for arguing that the judge could make assumptions about Owens, with no supporting evidence, out of "whole cloth."

Assistant Attorney General Shapiro said such an assumption is permissible because it was not the basis for his verdict - Illinois law does not require proof of motive for a murder conviction.

"Factfinders are free to develop a theory of the case that is not presented by the state as long as it is consistent with the evidence and as long as the evidence itself is sufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," Shapiro told the court.

Representing Owens, Jenner & Block attorney Barry Levenstam argued that it was the only fact the judge mentioned - and he did so immediately before issuing his verdict.

"In framing what the issue is to him, he says that Mr. Owens knew that this victim was a drug dealer and wanted to knock him off, presumably because he's a drug dealer," Levenstam told the court. "And from the very next thing that he says, his finding of guilty of murder."

Justice Stephen Breyer posited that the judge's statement was a reaction to dissatisfaction with the witnesses, possibly believing they were not telling the truth out of fear.

Thus, his closing statement was just intended to cut through the inconsistencies and state what he believed was causing them, and what caused the murder.

Levenstam said that possibility does not cut it for Illinois.

"My answer to that is that is speculation upon speculation upon speculation, and it's not a basis for putting somebody behind bars for 25 years," Levenstam said.

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