Prosecutors are planning to ask the state Appellate Court to reconsider a recent decision that banned three secretly recorded conversations from the upcoming trial of James Kelly, charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of his ex-wife.
The appellate court ruled last month that the tapes were irrevelent because Kelly, a 50-year-old stockbroker, denies on the recordings that he killed his former wife, Jayne Kelly.
In asking the appellate court for a rehearing, DuPage County Assistant State’s Atty. Joe Birkett said prosecutors will again argue that the tapes contain incriminating statements by Kelly that are important to their case against him.
Birkett said prosecutors intend to file the petition for a rehearing on Wednesday.
Kelly, who is out on bond, is accused of stabbing his former wife to death in her Naperville townhouse on Sept. 3, 1991.
Kelly is being tried separately on a charge that he solicited a cousin to kill his estranged wife in 1990.