NEWS

Appellate panel overturns Peoria man's drug conviction

Andy Kravetz
Journal Star

PEORIA — A Peoria man will get a new trial as an appellate court held this week that a prosecutor improperly struck one of the only Black jurors during jury selection.

Kendal Bradshaw was on trial for drug possession charges in 2017 and there were two Black men in the jury pool. A Peoria County prosecutor used allotted strikes to take both men out of the jury pool, basing it on the fact that they had contact with police and past convictions. 

Only one of the strikes was challenged in Bradshaw's appeal, which held that prosecutors failed to prove the move wasn't due to their race. 

However, the three-judge panel from the 3rd District Appellate Court in Ottawa held that wasn't proper in their 14-page opinion handed down last week. Rather, Judge Tom Lytton with Judges William Holdridge and Mary McDade concurring held that prosecutors failed to show their removal was "race-neutral" as required.

The prosecutor said that the person whom Bradshaw held was illegibly struck gave her a "bad vibe" and that "he wasn’t all that warm and fussy [sic] for me.”

In their appeal, prosecutors contended the judge had heard the arguments at trial and sided with Peoria County prosecutors. But the appellate panel noted there was nothing in the prospective juror's "responses to suggest that he would not be a fair and impartial juror in defendant’s case."

They also said that past criminal convictions sometimes aren't enough to strike a potential juror. 

"Past criminal transgressions, without context, may have little, if any, impact on a venireperson’s ability to serve, unless the prospective juror indicates that it would," the opinion said.

Bradshaw will return to Peoria County at sometime within the next few months where a judge will reschedule his case.