James Burns found guilty of murder
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[After less than two hours of deliberation, a jury came back with a guilty verdict in the murder trial of James Burns Wednesday evening. Burns was found guilty of first degree murder in connection with the 2004 shooting death of Edwin Thomas Condon.
The state continued their case Wednesday morning by calling two jailhouse informants, Jason Boulds and Bill Allen, to testify that Burns had admitted to each of them in separate incidents he had shot and killed Condon. Defense attorney Nathan Rowland cross examined the two witnesses, trying to convince the jury the informants were only testifying against Burns in order to reduce their own sentences.
The state then called Special Agent Bryan Harms of the Illinois State Police, who conducted an interview with Burns on Dec. 30, 2004, after police discovered Condon's body in Harrisburg. The majority of the interview was recorded with a video camera, and the taped interview was shown to the jury in court.
In the video, Burns claims to have seen and spoken to Condon several times throughout the month of December 2004, at a time when Condon is purported to have already been dead, according to testimony by forensic entomologist Dr. Neal Haskell. Haskell determined the time of Condon's death to be between Dec. 8 and Dec. 13 by analyzing maggots recovered during the autopsy.
After playing the video to the court, the state rested its case. Burns elected not to testify on his own behalf, and the defense also rested.
Special Prosecutor David Rands gave closing arguments for the state. He went over all the evidence presented by the prosecution, including the handgun recovered at Burns' Brookport residence which was found to have Condon's blood on it and the coveralls found in Burns' truck which also had specks of Condon's blood on them.
"Circumstantial evidence is what we have in this case because murders don't happen in front of TV cameras," said Rands. "Murderers work in secret."
Rowland then gave his closing arguments for the defense.
"When we look at this case as a whole, it's full of little glitches," said Rowland. "And on top of the glitches, we also have snitches."
He pointed to several inconsistencies in the state's case, as well as what he called a lack of sufficient evidence. Rowland also made the point that two "jailhouse snitches" are not credible witnesses.
"This is not a court of assumptions," said Rowland. "This is a court of law where evidence is required."
After a rebuttal by Special Prosecutor Edwin Parkinson, the jury left the courtroom to deliberate. In less than two hours, they had returned with a guilty verdict.
Chief Judge Mark Clarke, who heard the case, set a sentencing hearing for 9:30 a.m. March 2.