QUOTE OF THE DAY: "There's no way to rule out an accidental fire in this case. That's at least reasonable doubt. Science gives us reasonable doubt."
Defense attorney Tara Thompson
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"A DuPage County
judge will rule Wednesday whether to send a former Naperville man back
to prison to finish serving the final year of a 23-year sentence or to
set him free for the first time since 1995. Judge Liam Brennan will decide William Amor's future at 10 a.m. in Wheaton. Amor's nearly two-week
bench trial concluded Feb. 2, but Brennan said he needed time to review
his notes and evidence before handing down a verdict. Prosecutors James
Scaliatine and Thomas Minser, in their closing arguments this month,
insisted that just because experts debunked the way Amor confessed to
starting the fire doesn't mean he didn't intentionally ignite the blaze
some other way. And they said Amor, 39
at the time, unemployed and down on his luck, was counting on killing
Marianne Miceli to collect her life insurance policy to jump-start a
better life for himself and his 18-year-old bride, Tina Miceli. They pointed to a 1995
letter Amor had written Tina in which he allegedly wrote that he had a
plan for "capital gains later that summer." "He was miserable. His
situation was untenable and he wanted out," Minser said after playing a
snippet of Amor's audio-taped confession to Naperville police. "And his
way out was to murder Marianne Miceli." As for the confession, "Believe him when he told you he's a murderer," Minser told Brennan. That confession, Amor's
attorneys say, was coerced from a highly suggestible man who had just
lost his home, all his belongings, his mother-in-law and, ultimately,
his marriage when he was served divorce papers during his interrogation. His attorneys, from the
Illinois Innocence Project, say science shows the fire would have
reached a fatal level much sooner than the estimated 20 minutes it took
if Amor had ignited it. Testimony showed Amor
and Miceli left to see a drive-in movie showing of "Babe," a movie about
"a pig who doesn't conform to his farm's social hierarchy," about 20
minutes before Marianne Miceli's 6:40 p.m. 911 call to report she was
"overcome with smoke." Instead, his attorneys
and their experts pointed to a theory that a small fire, possibly from a
careless smoker, could have smoldered for as long as five hours before
finally erupting into the fatal blaze. According to trial testimony, Marianne Miceli smoked about two packs of cigarettes a day. Amor and Tina also smoked in the home. "There's no way to rule
out an accidental fire in this case," defense attorney Tara Thompson
said in her closing argument. "That's at least reasonable doubt. Science
gives us reasonable doubt."
http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180216/dupage-judge-to-rule-in-naperville-mans-second-murder-trial
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180216/dupage-judge-to-rule-in-naperville-mans-second-murder-trial
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
