PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — A trio of appellate court judges shredded the attorney of a Bartonville man sentenced to 14 years in prison in connection with drunk driving fatality in 2022.
The panel, from the 4th District Appellate Court in Springfield, also took issue with the judge, now-retired John Vespa, saying “we question whether the original judge would fairly sentence defendant on remand.”
The 38-page opinion, handed down late Tuesday afternoon, means Clayton Bell, now 20, will return at some point to Peoria County and possibly have his 14-year prison term reduced.
Bell was convicted of aggravated DUI in connection with the Feb. 27, 2022, crash on West Pfeiffer Road just outside Bartonville that killed Mia Dusek. The 14-year term is the maximum under law and Bell must serve at least 85%.
The crash occurred around 12:25 a.m. in the 6700 block of Pfeiffer, a stretch of road with steep hills that can block a driver’s line of sight. Deputies with the Peoria County Sheriff’s Office arrived to find the overturned vehicle.
It had been going at a high rate of speed — testimony during the hearing said it was close to 85 mph — just before the crash. Passengers who survived said the car was trying to “catch air.”
At issue were whether Vespa considered “youth-based sentencing factors” when he handled down the 14 years in June 2023. That was a maximum sentence under the law and unusual for a first-time offender.
Bell’s new attorney — he fired his original one, Kevin Sullivan, after the initial sentencing — argued Sullivan failed to contest key factors in the state’s case and also failed to offer up the juvenile factors.
“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. 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. Sullivan’s strategy was so unsound and unreasonable it left the State’s case against defendant without a meaningful adversarial challenge,” wrote Judge James Knecht with Judges Eugene Doherty and Amy Lannerd concurring.
Such factors should have weighed heavily on Vespa as Bell was 17 at the time and thus a minor. Vespa said he did consider those factors when he denied a motion to reconsider Bell’s sentence last summer; a statement that the appellate panel took issue with.
“The record contradicts that statement. At the sentencing hearing, neither defense counsel, the State, nor the trial court mentioned the statutory juvenile factors in mitigation,” the judges said. ” “(Vespa’s) own pronouncement at sentencing undermines any assertion these factors were considered before he imposed the maximum sentence allowed for even adult offenders: ‘Statutory factors in mitigation are: The defendant has no history of criminal activity. That’s it for statutory factors in mitigation.’
“While defense counsel did not present sufficient evidence on these factors, the court remained obligated to consider and apply them to the evidence before it,” they wrote.
The panel also took issue with Sullivan’s strategy. Bell had pleaded guilty and given that he was a first-time offender, it appears that it was hoped that a lesser sentence would have been reached.
“Sullivan’s strategy of ignoring relevant youth-based sentencing factors appears to have left him unprepared to respond to issues plainly troubling the trial court,” the panel wrote, that his plan of not questioning the other youths in the car was not proper.
“. . . we reject the idea an argument seeking application of those factors in these circumstances could be seen as ‘shifting blame,'” the panel wrote. “The youth-based sentencing factors are relevant to examine a defendant’s level of culpability and his or her state of mind in committing the offense.
“Without explaining the context with evidence available to him, Sullivan failed to use key evidence from a passenger in the car to show defendant acted, not in callous disregard to his passengers, but in a manner consistent with the wishes and encouragement of his peers,” they wrote. “One can accept full responsibility while also explaining one’s mindset in the commission of an offense.”
Sullivan, they said, used the premise that a youth driver is treated the same as an adult. That’s false, they said, as “Illinois law plainly recognizes ‘the diminished culpability of youthful offenders.'”
Particularly at issue was a video shown during the sentencing hearing where several people are screaming and pleading with the driver, Bell, seconds before the crash. The video, the panel says, doesn’t tell the whole story.
A passenger in the car, according to court records, told police officers at the crash scene that Mia had been urging Bell to “catch air.” But Sullivan left that alone, the panel said, and didn’t argue for mitigating factors for his client based upon peer pressure.
“Sullivan elected a strategy of accepting responsibility and not shifting blame to Mia, believing casting any blame on the deceased 15-year-old would result in a greater sentence,” the panel said.
The case has been a lightening rod for the community. In the wake of Mia’s death, her family filed a lawsuit against the West Peoria liquor store which sold the alcohol that wound up with Bell that night.
Long known as the place to go for underage drinkers, the lawsuit caused the sale of the store to another company and led the village of West Peoria to take action against the store as well.
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