Friday that the 1st District Appellate Court ruled that detectives improperly extracted a confession from Ward after he invoked his right to remain silent at least three times during a 12-hour interrogation. Ward was 18 years old at the time of the shooting.
The three-judge appellate court said that Ward's statements were inadmissible and the trial judge should have suppressed them. No weapon or other physical evidence connects Ward to the shooting, the appeals court noted. Without Ward's confession, prosecutors' case relies on witness identification and testimony from two of Ward's friends. They told police that Ward and his friend, Kenneth Williams, picked them up in the getaway car soon after the shooting and made incriminating statements. The lead prosecutor on the case, Brian Holmes, has retired.