PEORIA COUNTY, Ill. (25 News) – A Peoria man will be resentenced after an appeal court overturned the maximum sentence he was given for a deadly high-speed crash over three years ago that killed a Bartonville teenager.
25 News reports justices on the Fourth District Appellate Court in Springfield found Clayton Bell did not receive adequate representation from his attorney at the sentencing hearing.
Bell, who is now 20, pleaded guilty to aggravated driving under the influence and reckless homicide for the crash on W. Pfeiffer Road that claimed the life of 15-year-old Mia Dusek.
Judge John Vespa, who is now retired, sentenced Bell to 14 years in prison, but appellate justices found Bell’s attorney at the time should have asked the judge to consider his age in the case. He was a minor at the time of the crash.
Defense attorney Kevin Sullivan “did not address the youth-based sentencing factors in mitigation, particularly the factor involving “peer pressure,” or present evidence and argument related to those factors,” the appeals court said in a 39-page opinion. “No reasonable attorney in the same circumstances would have ignored the youth-based sentencing factors and left their youthful client to be sentenced based on incomplete information.”
The justices went on to say that “Sullivan’s own words reveal his sentencing strategy was built on the premise the culpability of an offender under the age of 18 is the same as the culpability of an adult offender.”
”This premise is faulty, as Illinois law plainly recognizes “the diminished culpability of youthful offenders,” the justices said.
Also at sentencing, prosecutors played a video from inside the car moments before the crash. Initially, young people in the car could be heard encouraging Bell to “catch air” as the vehicle climbed up a hill, but they soon pleaded with him to slow down. A female voice in the backseat is heard saying “I don’t want to die.”
Justices ordered the appointment of a new judge to handle Bell’s resentencing.
The opinion was written by Appellate Court Justice James Knecht, who is a former McLean County judge. Two other justices concurred with the judgement.
Bell is currently being held at the Centralia Correction Center in southern Illinois.
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