One jury has already has been seated and another was being selected Friday in preparation for an unusual double-jury trial in Lake County Circuit Court.
Two men, whose murder convictions in a 2007 North Chicago home invasion were reversed at the state appellate court level, are scheduled to be retried next week for the shooting death of 28-year-old Lasondra Shaw.
William Fillyaw, 37, and Johnny Parker, 31, were convicted in a 2009 jury trial of first-degree murder and attempted murder, but the convictions were reversed in an April 2011 Illinois Second District Appellate Court ruling that cited errors involving evidence allowed in the trial.
The cases were remanded back to circuit court and the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office decided to retry the defendants.
Fillyaw and Parker, who had both been sentenced to 55 years in prison, are scheduled to be retried on the same charges separately before different juries. The trials will occur simultaneously in the same courtroom before Judge Mark Levitt.
The two North Chicago men were convicted in connection with the fatal shooting of Shaw and the wounding of two others in Shaw’s North Chicago apartment on June 29, 2007. They are accused of breaking into the apartment and opening fire on several people inside before fleeing the scene.
The admission as evidence of an incriminating witness statement against the two defendants was listed as a major reason for the reversal of the convictions.
The witness who provided the statement to police then testified it was false at trial. The witness had originally claimed that he sold a gun and ammunition to Fillyaw two months prior to the shooting, and that Fillyaw admitted he and Parker “went to rob some people,” kicked a door down and shot three people.
Jury selection is being held in Levitt’s regular courtroom, but the trial will be held in a larger court to accommodate the space needed for two separate juries.
Prosecuting the case are assistant state’s attorneys Ryan Koehl and Victor O’Block. Defense attorneys James Schwarzbach and Lawrence Wade are representing Fillyaw, and defense attorney Greg Nikitas is representing Parker.
Both Schwarzbach and Nikitas served as defense attorneys for the respective defendants in the first trial.
After the first trial, Judge Victoria Rossetti sentenced each man to 55 years in prison for murder and 10 years in prison for each count of attempted murder. The attempted murder sentences were to be served consecutively to the murder sentences.
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