Defendant was convicted, after jury trial, of 1st degree murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm in 2002 shooting death of a 15-year-old girl, in gang-related shooting. Detectives' testimony was inadmissible hearsay. State repeatedly elicited testimony with strong inference that Defendant's co-Defendants implicated him to police; and included serial questions to build inference that Defendant was named by his criminal cohorts, and reminded jury of this in closing arguments.Testimony as to steps of an investigation may not include substance of a conversation with nontestifying witnesses.Without inadmissible hearsay evidence, only evidence linking Defendant to crime is his foreign-language confession made with no official translator. (LAVIN and PUCINSKI, concurring.)
Illinois Appellate Court
Criminal Court
Hearsay