Error claims raised by Shadwick King’s attorneys in hopes of getting the Geneva man a new trial fall short, prosecutors said in a recently filed response to the request.
A jury convicted King, 47, of the 2014 murder of his wife Kathleen following two weeks of testimony during a March trial. As King awaits sentencing on May 26, Kane County Public Defender Kelli Childress filed a lengthy motion in April suggesting hundreds of errors by Judge James Hallock before and during the trial. Childress, in her 36-page motion, cited a series of issues including Hallock’s handling of objections raised by prosecutors, witness testimony issues and an overall claim that prosecutors failed to prove King had murdered his wife.
The response filed by Assistant State’s Attorney Greg Sams worked to poke holes in Childress’ suggestions by using general and specific counterpoints that range from case law references to blunt observations.
To Childress’ statement that prosecutors didn’t prove King guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt, Sams offered simply, “The jury delivered a verdict to the contrary.”
In the 16-page response, Sams refutes defense suggestions that, among other things, Hallock erred in continuing a late 2014 trial date at the request of prosecutors because DNA evidence was still being tested; by allowing the Kings’ 10-year-old son to testify without determining whether the boy was competent to do so; and for permitting an expert witness to offer an opinion on Kathleen King’s cause of death.
Kathleen King’s body was spotted by a railroad employee in the morning hours of July 6 on train tracks in Geneva. Prosecutors at trial focused on her relationship with a younger man from Massachusetts for Shadwick King’s motive in the killing.
Sams pointed to case law and standard court practices relating to evidence to counter several defense arguments, while also noting what he believes are contradictions, off-base legal interpretations and missed opportunities to claim errors within King’s attorney’s motion. In one instance, Childress contends prosecutors improperly arranged their closing arguments to prevent the defense from rebutting facts during its final remarks to jurors.
Sams said no such objection arose at the time, making the defense claim about the prosecution’s closing arguments “baseless” in his opinion. He also said that Childress did dispute the state’s case to jurors.
“During her closing argument, (Childress) argued that the (state) did not prove the defendant guilty of first-degree murder. Indeed, much of her argument was that Kathleen King was not murdered at all,” Sams wrote in the response.
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Dan Campana is a freelance reporter