The imbroglio happened May 7 at the Loop courthouse during a hearing in front of Judge Kathy Flanagan, acting presiding judge of the Law Division. During the proceeding, Flanagan ordered deputies to remove attorney Brad Schneiderman from the courtroom after asking him to “stop talking” and “step back,” according to a report from the Cook County sheriff’s office.

Schneiderman walked toward the gallery, then began “turning back toward the bench” and addressed the judge again, the report said. Flanagan said “That’s it, take him!” according to the report.

A deputy took Schneiderman to a hallway and handcuffed him to a chair, the report said. He was released after Flanagan took a break from the bench and declined to sign an order that would remand him into custody, according to the report.

Reached by phone, Schneiderman declined to comment.

In a statement, Flanagan said: “At this time, I will say only that I am shocked at how the facts have been distorted into a now-public narrative that has veered so far from what actually occurred. I have cooperated fully with the Executive Committee and will cooperate fully with the Judicial Inquiry Board on this matter.”

The event spawned two hearings before an executive committee headed by Chief Judge Timothy Evans with Schneiderman, Flanagan, witnesses and attorneys detailing differing views of what happened, according to transcripts obtained by the Tribune. No official transcript of the May 7 hearing in its entirety exists because Cook County court reporters for years have not covered the Law Division, which handles civil cases.

The executive committee referred the matter to the Judicial Inquiry Board, which investigates complaints about judges, but declined to reassign Flanagan, deferring “a decision on assignment to other duties until further information is received from the Judicial Inquiry Board,” the office said in a statement.

During a May 14 executive committee hearing, Schneiderman told Evans he tried to be heard after he said Flanagan ruled on a motion without allowing him to respond, a statement which Flanagan disputed later in the proceedings.

“I should say that prior to me being taken back in the hallway, at no time was I trying to be disrespectful to the court,” Schneiderman said according to the transcript. “I was merely trying to advocate on behalf of my client on a contested motion.”

For her part, Flanagan told the committee at a later hearing that Schneiderman “became disruptive over a ruling on a motion” but that she did not order Schneiderman to be handcuffed, but merely wanted him removed from the courtroom because he needed a “time out.”

“That’s all he needed. That’s all I intended. I never imagined that he would be handcuffed to a chair behind the courtroom, and I wasn’t present when he did it — when he was handcuffed,” she said.

Schneiderman disputed that he was disruptive or disrespectful, with his attorney submitting affidavits from observers, according to references to the affidavits in the transcript. Flanagan’s attorneys brought to the hearing multiple courtroom observers as witnesses who told Evans they viewed Schneiderman’s conduct as disruptive.

The deputy who handcuffed him told the committee during a second June 3 hearing that she interpreted Flanagan’s words of “That’s it. Take him,” as meaning take him into custody.

The video-recorded interview captured heartbreaking statements from the boy on the day his brother was killed and his pregnant mother was seriously injured in their Edgewater apartment, according to court filings, offering more details about the attack that drew sympathy and outrage for the family and raised questions about the handling of domestic violence cases. The alleged attacker was released from prison just a day before the killing.

Crosetti Brand, 37, an ex-boyfriend who had a documented history of violence against Jayden’s mother and other women, is charged with murder, attempted murder and other felonies in the March attack he allegedly perpetrated weeks after going to the family’s home and threatening Jayden’s mother.

“I loved him so much … I was crying,” the boy said of his older brother during the interview, according to court documents.

Family members gathered in the courtroom at the Leighton Criminal Court Building for the hearing, which took place under elevated security. They at times grew emotional hearing the boy’s words and Brand’s arguments, as he is representing himself.

Brand acting as his own attorney has sped up the proceedings, as he is seeking a quick trial date as soon as this summer.

Prosecutors sought to admit the interview given by the 5-year-old boy, referred to as K.M. in documents, to a forensic interviewer at the Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center, arguing it met the standards for exceptions to hearsay rules that generally prohibit the use of out-of-court statements from witnesses.

Judge Angela Petrone agreed, concluding that the statements are sufficiently reliable to be admissible at trial. Petrone said that the timing of the boy’s statement on the same day as the killing and the high pitch of his voice qualify as a “long excited utterance.”

“My brother was so nice to me,” Petrone said, reading the younger boy’s sentiment.

At the boy’s words, some family members in the courtroom gallery broke into quiet sobs.

Brand had objected to the use of the statement, arguing that a video cannot be cross-examined, and that the boy’s statements could have been influenced by family members.

On March 13, prosecutors have said, Jayden’s mother was on the phone with her mother while helping her two sons get ready for school. As she unlocked her door to leave, Brand forced his way inside and attacked her in the apartment in the 5900 block of North Ravenswood Avenue, according to prosecutors.

Jayden “attempted numerous times to help his mother” and was stabbed in the process, prosecutors said during a detention hearing earlier this year. His younger brother was on the couch while the attack unfolded.

Around 4:48 p.m. later that day, the younger brother sat with the interviewer in a room with two chairs, a table and a two-way mirror, court documents say. The interview ended around 5:14 p.m.

“I had school today…my mom got a text from him…my mom’s ex-boyfriend…my mom was opening a door and she saw him…he savaged, stabbed, my mother and brother with a knife,” he said, according to court documents. “Blood was everywhere.”

In delivering her order, Petrone noted that the boy spoke in long, spontaneous declarations without often needing to be prompted with questions. She read portions of the boy’s statements, and said the chaos of the day and quick turnaround for the interview left little time for the boy to be coached by family members.

The younger boy told the interviewer that his mom grabbed his ankle and told him to “call dad.”

The boy described what he said Brand wore: all black with a black mask, according to filings. He said Brand did not say anything to his mom and brother, and he later saw him run out the door.

The case brought scrutiny upon the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, which made the decision to release Brand the day before he allegedly attacked Jayden and his mother.

After serving time in prison for a 2015 attack on another woman, Brand was released from prison in October, according to court records. Months later on Jan. 30, Brand sent Jayden’s mother a text message threatening her and her family, then showed up at her apartment on Feb. 1, according to prosecutors and court records.

He rang the doorbell multiple times and tried to pull the door handle out of the door. The woman contacted the parole board, and he was sent back to prison, according to prosecutors. He was released about six weeks later.

The state’s top parole official and another board member resigned in the wake of the attack, and Gov. J.B. Pritzker created a new executive review board position with a mandate to expand domestic violence training for board members.

In court filings, prosecutors have detailed a significant history of violence against women for Brand, including instances going back nearly two decades of violence against Jayden’s mother.

Brand has racked up multiple convictions for battering her, threatening her and her mother and violating orders of protections, court records show. The two were in a relationship more than 15 years ago.

In 2013, Brand pleaded guilty to charges of domestic battery for punching another woman, who had recently ended a relationship with him, hard enough to knock her unconscious and leave her bleeding from the mouth.

Later, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in a November 2015 attack on a third woman, who had recently ended a relationship with him, according to court documents. He also threatened her son when he tried to intervene.

Jayden was a passionate dancer with a strong work ethic, friends said after his death.

“He was a well-loved child,” a friend’s mother said. “Always happy, always smiling.”

Marseilles Redmond is pursuing early release in a case that her attorney and domestic violence advocates say is emblematic of a criminal justice system that has historically not taken the complexities of abuse into account when ordering harsh sentences.

Redmond, 44, for years has sought sentencing relief under an Illinois law that allows domestic violence survivors to make a case to a judge for a reduced sentence. But her quest for release from prison was thrown a new obstacle by the Illinois Supreme Court in November when it ruled in another case that the law doesn’t apply to defendants like Redmond who entered a guilty plea instead of having been convicted by a judge or jury.

Now, the door has cracked open again for Redmond. In May, the Illinois legislature amended the law to clarify that domestic violence survivors who pled guilty can seek resentencing. And though the change doesn’t take effect until next year, Cook County prosecutors withdrew their objection to a new sentencing hearing for Redmond.

Alexis Mansfield, a senior adviser with the Women’s Justice Institute who fought for the amendment in the wake of the court decision, said the legislation paves the way for more survivors to seek relief under the law.

“It’s time that their voices are heard,” she said.

During a Friday morning court call at the branch court in Skokie, Judge Paul Pavlus ordered a new sentencing hearing as family members teared up, later hugging outside the courtroom.

“I will grant the petition at this time,” he told the court.

For Redmond’s family, who have long fought to bring her home, the decision offers a glimmer of hope, but underscores that there is still work ahead. They expect prosecutors to contest an early release, with both sides putting on witnesses during the sentencing hearing.

“I’m still positive,” said Marseilles’ mother Vadal Redmond, emotional after the hearing. “It’s looking better.”

Marseilles Redmond’s case goes back to July 2001 when she shot and killed the father of her infant at an Evanston gas station. Redmond has argued that she killed Narsell Love in in fearful moment after suffering abuse, culminating in him bumping his car over and over into the back of her bumper while her 1-year-old was strapped in the back.

Cook County prosecutors, though, have presented a different story. Assistant State’s Attorney Paul Hooper has argued Redmond saw Love with a “new flame” and shot him multiple times, alleging that she approached him, pointed the gun at his head and “executed” him.

The dueling interpretations of the fatal shooting will likely be aired during the sentencing hearing, which does not yet have a date. The parties will convene again in July for a status hearing.

The tragedy at the heart of the case is one that Vadal Redmond and her daughter feel deeply, she said.

“I couldn’t imagine losing a child, especially losing a child to violence,” Vadal Redmond said. “I’m trying to understand both sides.”

Ultimately, though, she noted that even if her daughter is denied early release, she will be released eventually.

“I want my daughter home,” she said. “I miss her.”

After Love was killed and Redmond went to prison, their young child went to live with Vadal Redmond. Now grown, Shea Redmond, 23, has attended court hearings with his grandmother.

The tragic case has been particularly emotionally complicated for him, he has said, losing his father at the hands of his mother and later learning about the allegations of abuse.

He’s said he’s been able to build a relationship with his mother while in prison, and has kept every letter she’s written to him. She started writing to him before he could even read, the early letters written with large, block letters more comprehensible to a child. As he grew older, the letters that arrived were longer and more intimate, he said.

Shea Redmond collected them for his mother’s attorney to use at her sentencing hearing in the hopes that they offer a window into his mother as a person.

“I do cherish them,” he said.

Two complaints brought by dozens of plaintiffs — one by male detainees and another by females — accuse the Illinois Department of Correction and Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice of failing to protect vulnerable young people against known sexual abuse at the hands of state employees.

The complaints build on allegations brought in another suit filed in May, bringing the number of people making abuse claims to about 200. The plaintiffs, who detail specific acts of abuse, are listed by their initials to protect their identities.

In a statement, the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice said it cannot comment on active litigation, but that it “takes seriously the safety of youth in the care of the department” and has enacted policies and procedures to identify possible instances of abuse or misconduct.

“All allegations of staff misconduct are immediately and thoroughly investigated internally and often in partnership with the Department of Corrections, the Illinois State Police and the Department of Children and Family Services,” the statement read.

Former detainees spoke out Monday at a news conference, alleging that they reported the abuse to prison staff, only to be ignored, or even punished.

“I want to bring humanity to the juvenile justice system,” a plaintiff said at the Loop news conference, “for the sake of my own kids and for all kids who went through what I did.”

Their attorneys called on Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul to take immediate steps to accept responsibility and ensure there are systems in place to prevent abuse.

“There is no evidence that any of the conditions that enabled institutionalized sexual abuse have been fixed,” said Jerome Block, one of the attorneys handling the case.

The facilities at issue as alleged in the suit are current and former youth centers in Warrenville, Chicago, Harrisburg, St. Charles, Murphysboro, Valley View, Joliet and Kewanee.

The suits accuse the state of failing to come into compliance with provisions of the Prison Rape Elimination Act that were enacted with the goal of preventing abuse in carceral settings. It says officials and staff systematically failed to act on reports of abuse. In some cases, detainees in the suit named common abusers that were allowed to harm minors over and over.

Jermaine Bell, a former detainee, told reporters he was abused in the St. Charles facility between 2005 and 2006. When he reported the abuse, he said, officials put him on medication, telling him he was hallucinating. Later, he said, they transferred him to a maximum security facility.

“To this day, I still suffer from the abuse and my personal relationships have suffered,” Bell said. “I know life will never be the same.”

The attorneys said that female residents, who make up a much smaller percentage of overall detainees, were abused at higher rates.

Among allegations in the suits brought by female and male detainees:

— Threatening detainees with physical violence, extended sentences or with revoking phone and visitation privileges if they resisted sexual acts

— Attacking detainees in their cells

— Coercing detainees into sexual acts in exchange for privileges such as extra snacks and time outside the cell.

— Groping detainees under the guise of a strip search

One former detainee told reporters he was an “impressionable kid growing up in the projects” when he landed at Murphysboro, at the time, set up as a “boot camp.”

“I tried to tell other adults around me. No one listened,” he said. “It gave me the message that no one cared about me, that I was less than human.”

Desiree Figueroa, 29, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in January with an agreement to testify against her mother, Clarisa Figueroa. Her testimony, though, was ultimately not needed because the elder Figueroa also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

The murder of 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez in April of 2019 drew international attention after the teen was lured to the Figueroa household with the promise of free baby clothes, prosecutors said, but was then attacked by Clarisa Figueroa. With her daughter’s help, she strangled the teen with a cable, sliced open her abdomen from side to side, removed the baby from the womb and placed him in a bucket, according to prosecutors.

The baby, Yovanny Jadiel Lopez, died months later.

Desiree Figueroa spoke briefly during the court appearance at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, expressing regret while softly crying.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I could never apologize for what I did.”

Assistant State’s Attorney Jessie McGuire read into the record a statement from Ochoa-Lopez’s husband, Yovanny Lopez, which referenced the fact that Figueroa gave birth to her own child after the murder.

“I pray that this child will never know (you),” according to Lopez’s statement, which added that he hoped the child would be protected from the mother.

Vernon Schleyer, Figueroa’s public defender, said she has tried to better herself in prison with parenting classes and therapy. He noted that she accepted responsibility, and said she had a lot of “horrifying challenges” growing up.

While ordering the sentence, Judge Peggy Chiampas, referencing mitigation materials, said Figueroa had a “very difficult childhood.”

“A lot of that has to do with your mom,” Chiampas said.

Though acknowledging the role her mother played, Chiampas also placed responsibility on Desiree Figueroa, saying her mother put her in this position “and so did you.”

“You’re right you can never apologize,” Chiampas said, adding that Figueroa’s own child is alive. “I want you to live the rest of your life with that.”

A third co-defendant, Piotr Bobak, the boyfriend of Clarisa Figueroa, last year pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstruction of justice and was sentenced to four years in prison.

According to prosecutors, Clarisa Figueroa had planned to raise the baby herself, and tricked Bobak into believing the baby was his child, according to police and prosecutors.

After cutting out the baby, Clarisa Figueroa called 911 and announced that she had delivered a baby who was not breathing, prosecutors have said. As paramedics arrived, she was holding the baby with its placenta and umbilical cord attached.

Both were rushed to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. The newborn had problems breathing and appeared blue.

Ochoa-Lopez was last seen leaving her high school in the Little Village neighborhood, and about two weeks after that, detectives investigating her disappearance learned the teen had gone to the Figueroa home the day she disappeared.

They went to the home and were told by Desiree Figueroa that her mother had recently had a baby, and found Ochoa-Lopez’s car parked nearby.

Detectives visited Clarisa Figueroa at the hospital, but she denied that the teen came to her home the day she disappeared. Police eventually used DNA to determine Clarisa Figueroa was not the baby’s mother.

When detectives arrived to search the Figueroa home, Bobak was outside cleaning a rug with bleach and a hose, prosecutors said during a bond hearing in 2019. When Bobak saw the officers, he dropped the bleach and hose, and walked away, they said.

Ochoa-Lopez’s decaying body was found in a garbage can outside the Figueroa home with the coaxial cables used to strangle her still around her neck, prosecutors have said.

No one was injured after the incident on United Flight 2091, which happened around 2 p.m. The Airbus A320 was towed to the gate, and passengers deplaned, the FAA said.

The agency temporarily halted arrivals into O’Hare. Normal operations resumed around 2:45 p.m., according to the FAA.

There were 148 passengers and five crew members on board, according to a statement from United Airlines.

The airline is working with customers to make alternate arrangements, it said.

Around 8 a.m. Monday, a 43-year-old man was shot in the 8000 block of South Stewart Avenue on the South Side, police said. He was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition and later died.

Earlier, in Douglass Park, a man was shot multiple times around 6 a.m. in the 1400 block of South Sacramento Drive, police said. He was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital.

A 23-year-old man was fatally stabbed in a second floor apartment in the West Side’s South Austin neighborhood around 1:30 a.m. on Monday. The attack was perpetrated by two males in the 300 block of North Long Avenue, according to police.

No one was in custody in any of the attacks, police said.

At least three other people were shot in Chicago throughout Monday, according to police records.

In all, since Friday, Chicago police have investigated at least 31 shooting incidents over the holiday weekend.

A Cook County judge ordered Clarence Johnson, 41, be detained while awaiting trial after prosecutors described what they said was a shocking attack at the popular West Loop establishment. Johnson is charged with murder and one felony drug possession count in the slaying of his 47-year-old co-worker.

“This isn’t something that intimately occurred in a home,” said Judge Deidre Dyer as she delivered her decision. “It happened in a public restaurant in a public place where people don’t have an expectation of being murdered.”

Chicago police officers were called to the establishment about 5 p.m. Wednesday and found Francois Reed-Swain lying on the floor in the dining area, according to a police report. A witness pointed at Johnson and said: “That’s him. He’s the one who did it,” according to the report.

Before the stabbing, a bartender heard Johnson make statements “praising Jesus” and saw him lay facedown on the floor, Assistant State’s Attorney Anne McCord said. The bartender then observed Reed-Swain ask Johnson why he was on the floor, she said.

He got up, and the two walked away from the bar, the bartender reported to authorities. Then Johnson pushed Reed-Swain and started hitting him, McCord said.

Johnson chased Reed-Swain into the dining room where two patrons were seated, she said, and stabbed him with a knife. Workers ordered him to drop the knife and he eventually complied. The bartender rushed to help Reed-Swain, she said, but he was pronounced dead a short time later at Stroger Hospital.

After his arrest, Johnson made spontaneous statements that he “he didn’t mean to do that” to Reed-Swain, prosecutors said.

His public defender, Molly Schranz, argued that there was only limited surveillance video that captured the attack, and that attorneys have not yet viewed it. She also said that witnesses reported that it looked like the two were “play fighting.”

In response, McCord said the “horror of this incident” was witnessed by four people who struggled to comprehend what they were seeing at 5 p.m. in the middle of a restaurant.

“They thought they were playing. They could not believe what was happening in front of them,” she said. “What they were seeing was first-degree murder before their very eyes.”

In a statement, City Winery’s founder and CEO Michael Dorf, said he was devastated by the loss of a staff member to violence. He said the venue plans to add security.

“What we experienced is the opposite of what we try and deliver every day — joyous hospitality,” Dorf wrote in the statement. “Frank will be missed and his memory a blessing.”

Pierre Tyler, who joined the Chicago Police Department in 2016 and was a cop at the time of the shooting, took the stand in his own defense on Friday, arguing that Andris Wofford, 29, pointed a gun at him before she was shot and killed in a struggle over the gun.

The jury took the case around 5 p.m. after attorneys delivered closing arguments. Emotional family members of Wofford left the courtroom after the verdict was read around 9:30 p.m.

Tyler’s family members cried and hugged in the courtroom, one saying “thank you Jesus.” His lawyer, Tim Grace, leaned down, telling relatives, “he’s coming home tonight.”

During his testimony, Tyler stood up in the witness box and mimicked for the jury the series of events that he said led to the shooting death of his girlfriend in December 2021.

Wofford pointed a gun at him, he testified, her finger on the trigger, hands slightly shaking and eyes darting. Showing the movements to the courtroom, Tyler said he grabbed her in an attempt to disarm her, but instead, her hand went backward and the gun fired. Wofford was shot in the face.

“As her arm goes up, the firearm goes off,” he said. “Her body fell.”

Tyler, 32, was charged with murder. He took the stand on Friday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building following a week of testimony and claimed self-defense.

In an aggressive line of questioning, prosecutors weren’t having it. Assistant State’s Attorney Michelle Papa asked Tyler to describe each movement of his body during the shooting.

“It makes no sense, I agree,” Papa said in one instance when Tyler struggled to describe his stance.

“Objection,” Grace said loudly, which Judge Mary Margaret Brosnahan sustained.

Wofford, 29, the mother of Tyler’s young child, confronted him in her apartment in the 2100 block of North Nashville Avenue because she believed she had found evidence that he was married to another woman, prosecutors have alleged. Tyler testified that she was mistaken about a marriage, though acknowledged he was unfaithful.

During opening statements on Tuesday, Papa alleged that Tyler shot her as she tried to leave the apartment after the two argued. He then immediately began trying to cover up the shooting, lying to detectives who questioned him, she said.

A Chicago police detective testified on Thursday that Wofford’s body showed no sign of a struggle over the gun.

Grace, though, said Wofford, enraged and jealous, pointed one of Tyler’s guns at him. Tyler’s sister testified that her brother called her during the fight, and that she heard Wofford “screaming, yelling.”

Tyler told the jury that he removed his gun from his holster and put it on a table. As they argued, he said, Wofford picked it up and pointed it at him.

“I tell her to put the gun down, to calm down,” he said.

Then he reached for her in an attempt to take the gun away, he said, but her arm went up and the gun went off. Detectives never found the gun, they testified.

“How did you feel?” Grace asked.

“I can barely move,” he said.

He testified that he didn’t call 911 because he felt no one would believe him.

During the cross-examination, Papa pressed him on the chain of events, noting in questions that Wofford’s nails were “perfect” with no sign of a struggle.

“She puts on her coat, zips it up, gets her wristlet, gets a mask, gets everything ready to go,” she said. “Then all of a sudden she decided she was going to grab the gun. That’s what you want us to believe?”

A detective who interviewed Tyler testified Tuesday that Tyler told him he was meeting with a confidential informant — or CI — alone during the shooting. The detective told the jury it struck him as strange that Tyler would meet an informant alone without his weapon.

“You told detectives you went to meet a CI,” Papa said. “That was a lie.”

“It wasn’t,” Tyler responded.

“You went to meet a CI?” Papa asked.

“Saying a CI was a stretch,” he amended.

In closing arguments, Assistant State’s Attorney Jacqueline Griffin said Wofford was a “beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her.”

Prosecutors have said Wofford was ready to end the relationship, and argued that Tyler’s account of how she was shot was not credible.

“She was done with the relationship. She told him she was going to file for child support and keep him away from his kids. She was on her way out the door, put her coat on, zipped it all the way,” Griffin said. “She tried to leave. He wasn’t done.”

In his final statement to the jury, Grace, though, read text messages from Wofford that he said showed her state of mind. She wrote that she was going to “spazz” out and that “he don’t even know what he’s walking into.”

“She felt slighted,” Grace said. “She was consumed with rage.”

Grace acknowledged that prosecutors proved “what he did after the incident was wrong,” noting that Tyler should have called 911. But Grace contended to the jury that they did not prove Tyler murdered Wofford.

In rebuttal arguments, Papa said Wofford’s texts just show a woman fed up with the relationship.

“All they show you is a real-life woman struggling with her relationship and talking to her family about it,” she said.

Pendleton, an honors student and majorette who performed at then-President Barack Obama’s second inauguration days before she was killed, was fatally shot 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 broad daylight gang-related shooting that felled Pendleton, an unintended target, 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.

Though Micheail Ward, 30, was convicted of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery following a lengthy jury trial in 2018, an Illinois appeals court last year overturned his convictions and ordered a new trial, finding that Chicago police detectives violated his rights by continuing to question him after he invoked his right to remain silent.

Now, the attorney general’s office is asking the Illinois Supreme Court to reverse the lower court’s ruling. Assistant Attorney General Eric Levin largely argued on Wednesday during oral arguments that there was significant evidence of Ward’s guilt even without his confession to police, meaning a jury would have likely come to the same conclusion regardless.

Ward’s attorney, though, stressed that his client’s foundational Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination were violated and argued that much of the other evidence against Ward was based on witness statements that were later recanted.

“He invoked three times. He said essentially the same thing: ‘I have nothing more to say about it,'” Ward’s attorney Stephen Richards said.

During 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.

Levin argued to the justices that the witness recantations were “simply not credible.”

“They have a strong motive to not testify in open court against a friend and fellow gang member,” Levin said.

He also said there was “powerful circumstantial evidence” that tied Ward to the getaway car, noting that a witness of the shooting saw the same make, model and color of a car his mother owned.

Levin did not touch on arguments about the validity of Ward’s confession during the oral arguments.

Ward made “several inculpatory statements” after being held for about 12 hours, the lower court opinion said.

While being questioned, Ward, around 1:40 a.m., said, “I ain’t got nothin’ else to say,” according to the opinion, among other instances of stating he would remain silent. Though detectives took breaks, they eventually continued questioning him.

Richards told the justices that the state’s witnesses were “all over the place” in their testimony, arguing that Ward’s confession was a crucial part of the state’s case.

“It was the straw that broke the camel’s back … it went directly into the state’s proof that he in fact was the shooter,” Richards said.

While hearing the oral arguments, the high court justices took the state to task about how it handled the appeal, noting that prosecutors changed their arguments as the appeal went on and waited until the last minute to raise some issues.

“What are we doing here?” Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis cut in just as Levin began his arguments. “It seems to be before we can discuss the heartbreaking case or the importance of the Fifth Amendment, we have to think about appellate practice and Supreme Court rules.”

Theis noted that the appeal was handled earlier in the process by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office before the AG’s office later stepped in.

“You have acknowledged that the position of the state has evolved significantly than what it was in the appellate court,” she said.

The justices took the case under advisement.