By HOI ABC
BLOOMINGTON – McLean County prosecutors want a Bloomington man behind bars again for his father’s murder after a judge granted the man a new trial for the 1991 killing.
However, an appeals court earlier this week determined the judge should have based his ruling on a different legal standard to determine if Donald Whalen should be tried again for beating and stabbing his father William at the family’s downtown Bloomington bar almost 29 years ago, according to our news partner Heart of Illinois ABC.
State’s Attorney Don Knapp said Wednesday his office filed a motion to revoke Donald Whalen’s bond.
Whalen came up with $100,000 cash to be released from the McLean County Jail. He was allowed to post bond after Judge Scott Drazewski found new evidence was “more likely than not” to have affected the jury’s decision, and “the likelihood of a different result is great enough to undermine the confidence in the outcome of the original trial.”
However. justices on the Fourth Appellate Court ordered Drazewski to consider whether it’s “probable” or “more likely than not” that the new evidence would have produced a different result.
Whalen was sentenced to 60 years in prison. He spent almost 28 years behind bars, and likely would have been released after serving about two more years because of good time credit.
Whalen is represented by lawyers from the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project, who can appeal the latest ruling to the Illinois Supreme Court.
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