People v. Richardson

Defendant, Charles Richardson, appeals from a judgment of the circuit court of Winnebago County finding him guilty of the murder of Donald Parker and sentencing him to a 60-year extended term of imprisonment for that offense. On appeal defendant argues that (1) the prosecutor’s use of a peremptory challenge to remove the only black person from the jury denied him his right to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community, (2) three instances of prosecutorial misconduct deprived him of his right to a fair trial, and (3) the imposition of an extended-term sentence was an abuse of the…