Clarence Gardner v. Paul Barnett, Warden

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge.

Joseph Waites, the student-manager of the Calumet High School football team in Chicago, was shot dead when he and other members of the football team got into a street scuffle with local gang members. A jury convicted Clarence Gardner of the first degree murder of Waites, and he was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Gardner, a self-professed gang member, was tried on a theory of accountability. At trial, the jury heard that, while Gardner neither fired the lethal shots nor supplied the gun, he punched and kicked Waites and exhorted other gang members to “bust him,” a…