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ROCKFORD Three men convicted in the 2002 murder of a sleeping 8yearold boy remained incarcerated Monday, days after Chief Judge Joseph McGraw set bail in a decision one family member said was a shocking injustice.

DeMarcus Hanson was an Ellis Arts Academy student asleep in his grandmother Chestnut Street home when he was shot in the head and killed April 14, 2002. Juries believed DeMarcus had been caught in the crossfire of a running gun battle between rival gangsters Anthony S. Ross, TyJuan T. Anderson and Lumont D. Johnson with the boy uncle, Alex Dowthard.

McGraw should not allow the men to leave jail even after hearing jailhouse recordings capturing Dowthard discussing the case in the weeks after the murder, the boy aunt Matilda Moore said.

didn look at the case fairly, Moore said. I think the state should do their job. I don think they have done their job to the best of their ability. They looked like they were discombobulated most of the time.

The recordings do not prove her brother lied or that his testimony was coached as attorneys for the men have argued, Moore said. Jurors knew about her brother story and how it changed and still convicted the three men, she said.

After the men had already served more than a decade of their 50year prison sentences, McGraw in February overturned the convictions of Ross, 32, Anderson, 30, and Johnson, 40. He ordered them to be retried for DeMarcus murder.

In a measure that could take years to resolve, Winnebago County State Attorney Joe Bruscato office appealed the decision.

McGraw set bond for Johnson and Ross at $100,000 and Anderson at $150,000 as they await new trials. They need to post 10 percent for bail or $10,000 and $15,000 to be released. If they manage to post bail, they must adhere to a lengthy list of rules including sobriety, limits on travel, and limits on use of cell phones and social media, and prohibitions on communicating in any way with the victim family or other felons. They would also have to work or return to school.

Attorneys for the men had sought a new trial from McGraw using a variety of arguments, many of which had already been heard and rejected at trial and by appellate courts. They claimed the men were framed, that Dowthard lied on the witness stand, their lawyers weren competent and that others had confessed to the crime.

McGraw, who had presided over one of the two original trials in which the men were convicted, ruled just one of the many arguments was credible: Big Muddy Correctional Center audio recordings of Dowthard.

Although the recordings are said to cast doubt on Dowthard testimony, they are filled with cursing, street slang and jargon that obscure what is being discussed. The recordings are difficult to understand, were taken out of context and weren presented to the court in a way in which it was clear who was speaking, Moore said.

But McGraw ruled that lawyers at the original trial weren made aware of the recordings until days before the trial was to begin. Whether or not they prove anything, the defense lawyers who had attempted to discredit Dowthard testimony should have been given sufficient time to review hours of his recorded conversations.

is essentially a onewitness case, McGraw writes. one witness is Alex Dowthard. The record indicates that Alex Dowthard told many versions of what happened on the night in question.

That makes his statements critical. Listening to the recordings was a task assigned nontrial attorneys in the Winnebago County Public Defender Office who not have known what they needed to be listening for.

McGraw ruled it would have required a trial attorney acquainted with the case to recognize significance those recorded conversations had.

court cannot be sufficiently reassured that the jurors would not have concluded that Alex Dowthard was unworthy of belief or untrustworthy when his recorded jail statements were considered along with all of his many other inconsistent actions and statements, McGraw ruled.5 Graphic Elements 1 Huge Tip For Boosting Sales Page Conversion

Convince them to spend money