Alleged gunman granted new trial in Hadiya Pendleton murder, Illinois Supreme Court rules

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The alleged gunman in the fatal shooting of Chicago teen Hadiya Pendleton has been granted a new trial.

Micheail Ward was convicted in 2018 and sentenced to 84 years in prison for the 15-year-old honor student's murder. His conviction was overturned in 2023 by an Illinois Appellate Court, and a tie vote from the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the ruling Thursday.

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The Illinois Supreme Court, which was evenly-divided with one justice recusing himself an dismissed the appeal of a ruling that had overturned the conviction of Ward, clearing the way for a new trial in Pendleton's murder.

Attorney Stephen L. Richards represented Ward in the state's high court after the now 30-year-old Ward's conviction was overturned in 2023 when a lower court ruled his confession was obtained improperly by police.

"This appeal was a stretch, the appeal to the Supreme Court, and it's a good thing the Supreme Court ultimately rejected it," Richards said. "They're not allowed to badger him or harass him. That's what happened in this case. They kept going back and back and back, and eventually he made a statement, but that violated his rights."

Pendleton's 2013 shooting death in a Kenwood park made international news, because days earlier the 15-year-old had performed as a majorette with her school's band at President Barack Obama's second inauguration in Washington, D.C.

The Cook County State's Attorney's Office released a statement Thursday evening, saying "The CCSAO stands behind the prosecution of this case, and disagrees with the appellate court's decision. 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."

Ward, who's currently serving a decades-long prison sentence, could be retried in the next year.

"If Mr. Ward does not testify, the statement does not come into the case. It will not be admitted," Richards said.

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Ward was one of two men convicted for the 2013 murder of Pendleton.

Ward's lawyers also said in 2023 that the trial judge erred by barring them from presenting expert testimony on false confessions and "coercive" interrogation techniques used by the detectives who questioned Ward, and pointed out that details in Ward's confession seemed to indicate that Ward identified the location of the shooting as a park blocks away from a different, smaller park where Pendleton was killed.

While saying the evidence against Ward was strong enough to merit a second trial even without his confession, a judge at the time noted the witnesses who identified Ward at trial five years after the shooting were more equivocal in their initial statements to police. One witness, who made an uncertain identification of Ward in the days immediately after the shooting, took the stand five years later and said he was "100 percent, guaranteed" certain that Ward was the killer.

Without the confession, the state's case relies on the witness identifications and testimony from two friends of Ward and Williams, who told police that the pair picked them up in the getaway car soon after the shooting and made incriminating statements, experts told ABC7 in 2023. No murder weapon or other physical evidence connects Ward to the shooting, the opinion notes.

The lead prosecutor on the case, Brian Holmes, has retired, as has Judge Nicholas Ford, who frequently bickered with Ward's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Julie Koehler.

After leaving the campus of King College Prep on an unseasonably warm January 2013 afternoon, Pendleton and a half-dozen classmates had gathered under a shelter in Harsh Park in North Kenwood when a gunman opened fire from a nearby alley. The teens scattered, and Pendleton was struck once in the back as she fled, collapsing in the arms of her friend, Klyn Jones.

After the shooting, police quickly turned their attention to members of the Suwu street gang faction, which had been feuding with the 46 Terror gang that counted Harsh Park as their territory. One of the detectives who interrogated Ward was John Halloran, who has been named by numerous defendants in wrongful conviction cases. Halloran has been accused of abusing suspects, and in at least six cases, secured confessions from suspects who were later cleared by DNA or other evidence. Halloran has denied abusing suspects.

The park itself was less than a mile from Obama's Chicago home, and Michelle Obama attended Hadiya's funeral. Weeks later, Pendleton's parents, mother Cleo Cowley-Pendleton and father Nathaniel Pendleton, sat beside the first lady at the State of the Union address.

The Pendleton family waited four years for the trials after the teen's death. They attended every court date and shared their relief after the verdicts and sentences.

It was not yet announced when exactly a new trial for Ward would take place.