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player ready...A Kane County judge on Thursday set a May 7 hearing date to determine whether convicted killer Bonzell L. Joyner can fire his attorney.
In a motion he filed himself late last year, Joyner is seeking to dismiss his lawyer, Kane County Public Defender David Kliment, for the sentencing phase of his trial, charging incompetent representation.
Joyner, 22, has been in jail since October 1994 in connection with the killing of 19-year-old College of DuPage student Armando Mendez, who was beaten and shot by members of an Aurora street gang after his car ran out of gas near his family’s Aurora home.
During Joyner’s trial last April, gang members testified they mistakenly believed Mendez was a rival gang member. Circuit Judge Donald C. Hudson has ruled Joyner, whom jurors determined shot Mendez at point-blank range, is eligible to receive the death penalty.
At a brief hearing Thursday in St. Charles, Hudson ruled that DeKalb County attorney Jay Wiegman, who has been appointed to represent Joyner in his motion to fire the public defender, could have several weeks to read transcripts from the trial, then file an amended motion on Joyner’s behalf.