A Knox County prosecutor is explaining his decision to file a new case against a rural Galva man accused of shooting and killing a man during a confrontation last month, after a Knox County grand jury opted to file lesser charges.
58-year-old James Love was in Knox County Circuit Court for a first appearance Wednesday on murder and weapons-related charges newly filed by Assistant State’s Attorney Brian Kerr, after the grand jury filed manslaughter counts. Kerr says the move to file anew is not unprecedented.
“We found a case that supports our theory, that says we can file a preliminary hearing even after a grand jury has returned a new true bill,” says Kerr.
Kerr says it wasn’t necessarily motivated by any sort of new evidence, but rather the belief that a grand jury proceeding isn’t necessarily “the end” of the filing of charges. Love’s attorney, Todd Ringel, was asked if he’s ever seen anything like that before.
“Never,” says Ringel. “I’ve done this about two decades…I had to do a little research on it. I had known that they could, but I had to make absolutely sure that they could. And then can. But it does not happen very often.”
“There’s multiple ways…to get a person to trial,” says Kerr, affirming that the grand jury-filed case will stay in the system for now. “One is a grand jury, one is a preliminary hearing. Sometimes we do grand juries on cases, sometimes we do preliminary hearings. We chose to do a grand jury, and this time we’re going to choose a preliminary hearing,”
Love allegedly shot and killed 19-year-old Xavier Hartman when Love confronted the teen after his vehicle crashed a few hundred yards from Love’s rural Galva home last month.
“I don’t want to talk specifics, obviously,” says Ringel, “but what I will say is that there are a lot of facts that aren’t known. I think once they come out, we are very confident [Love] is going to be exonerated of this. Those facts may come out as early as prelim.”
Ringel says evidence will prove his client not guilty, and that could be on display as soon as the preliminary hearing August sixth.
(Pool photo)
