Sawyer murder conviction upheld

Aaron Sawyer appealed his murder conviction, saying Judge Samuel Cappas should have allowed the jury to hear victim Dorell Townsend’s “Dooda da Shoota” street name and see social media pictures showing Townsend holding guns, which could have bolstered his self-defense claim.

In a 3-0 decision Wednesday, Appeals Judge Mark Bailey rejected his argument.

Sawyer IV, then 26, was sentenced to 67 years for Townsend’s shooting death inside a Gary gas station in May 2020.

Just before the shooting, Townsend’s stepbrother Terry Horton nearly bumped into Townsend’s girlfriend, who was going out the door. That slight interaction quickly devolved.

“I’ll blow your all (expletive) down,” Townsend said.

In his appeal, Sawyer argued the shooting was self-defense, i.e. to protect Horton.

Sawyer testified he was “scared,” partly based on seeing Townsend’s social media posts, and “took those words serious.” He “just started to shoot.”

However, Townsend was armed, but didn’t draw a gun. Horton said at trial he hadn’t felt threatened.

Bailey ultimately wrote prosecutors proved Sawyer’s self-defense argument was not valid – after he shot Townsend three times, then taking Horton’s advice to shoot out the station’s glass door to leave.

Sons’ murder conviction upheld

The appeals court rejected a Porter Township woman’s bid earlier this year to cut her 65-year sentence for killing her cancer-stricken boyfriend.

Karen Sons argued the term was too harsh given the “nature and circumstances” of the shooting and her “character” – two factors in deciding criminal sentences.

In a 3-0 decision on April 30, Appeals Judge Paul Felix wrote she shot Robert Head, 54, in the back of the head, moved his body, cleaned up the scene, kept the body in the home for two days, and lied to the cops.

“Based on the serious nature of Sons’s offense and her history of criminal conduct, we cannot say that she has produced compelling evidence demonstrating that the nature of her offense or her character renders her sentence inappropriate,” he wrote.

Hathaway conviction affirmed

The court of appeals also upheld Hillard Hathaway’s 2018 murder conviction.

Hathaway was sentenced to 75 years in March for 44-year-old Danny Leake’s Jan. 25, 2018, killing. Leake was found shot in an empty lot near a junkyard in the 1400 block of East 49th Avenue in Gary. Hathaway’s co-defendant Michael Brown was acquitted in November 2018.

In his appeal, Hathaway argued Cappas should have allowed defense witness Steven Howard to testify about shipping gunpowder he took from Leake’s vest to a lab.

In a 3-0 decision on Oct. 15, Appeals Court Judge Cale Bradford wrote Howard “was not qualified to give expert testimony.”

At trial, Howard testified briefly on his qualifications away from the jury, admitting he didn’t know when the lab was accredited, or the specifics on how the testing worked, but would draw conclusions on their results.

“Listening to him, he’s got certain knowledge in the field of gunshot residue,” Cappas said at trial. “But, to me, it seems like he’s just, like, a … field agent who took swabs and sent them to the lab just like the detective takes a swab of somebody’s cheek, sends them to the state police lab for DNA analysis.”

“He doesn’t – he’s not a forensic scientist. He hasn’t worked in the lab. He’s not familiar with the lab procedures. The State can’t cross-examine him on whether or not the machine was properly calibrated, how the tests were run,” he said.