An Illinois appeals court decision that overturned the convictions for a man accused of fatally shooting 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton in 2013 will stand, after the state’s highest court found that its justices were divided on the matter and dismissed the appeal.
Pendleton was spending time with friends when she was hit by a bullet meant for someone else shortly after she performed at then-President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. The slaying garnered international attention and put a harsh spotlight on Chicago’s entrenched problems with guns and gang violence.
The Cook County state’s attorney’s office had sought to salvage the high-profile case by appealing the matter to the Illinois Supreme Court after a lower court found that detectives who were questioning Micheail Ward continued to talk to the suspect after he invoked his right to remain silent.
But the Supreme Court’s order, filed on Thursday, means the state will likely have to retry Ward, who is charged with murder in Pendleton’s death.
According to the order, Justice P. Scott Neville recused himself from the case, and the remaining six justices were divided. The court needs four concurring justices to come to a decision, so the appeal was dismissed.
Ward, 31, was convicted of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery following a lengthy jury trial in 2018. Pendleton, an honors student and majorette, was shot to death in a North Kenwood park where she was spending time with friends after finishing final exams at King College Prep High School on Jan. 29, 2013.
The gang-related shooting in broad daylight spurred grief and outrage from City Hall all the way up to the White House, with questions about the teen’s slaying posed to Obama and his communications staff in the following days.
During the trial, prosecutors alleged that Ward and his co-defendant, Kenneth Williams, allegedly members of the SUWU gang, targeted members of the rival 4-6 Terror gang at the park, their hangout, as part of an ongoing feud that saw Williams himself shot. Instead, though, the bullets hit Pendleton and two other classmates who were wounded.
Cook County prosecutors introduced testimony from nine King High School students who witnessed the shooting, among other evidence. Among the King students who testified, only one identified Ward as the shooter, “though he did not become certain of that identification until trial,” according to the lower court’s opinion.
The state also called witnesses who previously told detectives that Ward made incriminating statements to them, but they later recanted at trial.
Prosecutors also presented statements Ward made to detectives. While being questioned, Ward, around 1:40 a.m., said, “I ain’t got nothin’ else to say,” according to the appellate opinion, among other instances of stating he would remain silent. Though detectives took breaks, they eventually continued questioning him.
“I didn’t even want to do it,” Ward, then 18, said as he began to cry, according to video shown to the jury. “I didn’t want to do that (expletive), man. I liked that girl.”
Ward spoke to detectives about the relationship between the rival gangs, as well as another homicide, telling police, according to the opinion: “That was the final straw. It was over with. … I loved that boy and they killed him. They shot him in the head.” Ward said, “that (expletive) hurted — hurted me to a point where everybody had to go, but not that girl though. That girl had nothin’ to do with it. She was just there.”
The appeals court had ruled that the trial judge should have thrown out subsequent statements Ward made to police.
When defending the conviction to the Supreme Court, the assistant attorney general argued that even without the confession, prosecutors had enough to convince a jury to convict, making the court’s error harmless.
