William Amor
Illinois
William Amor reacts to DuPage County Judge Liam Brennan's not-guilty verdict on Feb. 21, 2018, at the DuPage County Courthouse in Wheaton. (Naperville Community Television)
A former Naperville resident who spent two decades imprisoned for arson and murder in the death of his mother-in-law was acquitted of those crimes Wednesday by a DuPage County judge who called the case “fatally compromised.”
As Judge Liam Brennan was finishing reading his ruling in the retrial of William Amor, the defendant — aware he was about to be found not guilty — let his head drop and took off his glasses a moment later to wipe away tears. Lauren Kaeseberg, one Amor’s attorneys from the Illinois Innocence Project, who was seated next to Amor, quietly placed her hand on his back.
“I’ve always been hopeful. I’ve always thought essentially that the system would do the right thing,” Amor, 62, said afterward. “It’s unfortunate it took 22 years.”
Amor thanked Brennan, who vacated Amor’s 1997 murder conviction last year in the wake of advances in fire science that undercut his 1995 confession. Amor had been out on bond since May.
Following closing arguments earlier this month, Brennan set Wednesday for his ruling to give himself time to review evidence, which included testimony from three arson experts.
A prosecution expert had testified that he believed the Sept. 10, 1995, fire that killed Marianne Miceli, 40, was set using an open flame on a living room cloth chair. But the judge said that opinion presented a highly unlikely timeline of how the fire spread.
There was trial testimony that Amor and his wife, Tina Miceli, had left the condo where they lived with Marianne Miceli, about 20 minutes before Marianne Miceli called 911 to report the blaze. About a minute into the call, she was overcome by smoke.
Defense experts testified that an open flame fire would have created the smoky conditions in five minutes or less. The judge said he doubted that Marianne Miceli saw a fire and waited 15 minutes to call 911.
Brennan also said he was not convinced by a letter Amor had written to his wife in 1995, saying he had ideas for “capital gains” that would allow the couple to move out of the condo, and that he would discuss them with Tina Miceli. At trial, prosecutors called it evidence of Amor’s intent to murder Marianne Miceli for insurance, but the judge said didn’t believe Amor planned to talk with his wife about killing her mother.
“The state’s timeline and its theory of the case are fatally compromised,” the judge said.
Amor confessed in October 1995 to setting the fire, a confession that his attorneys argued was coerced by police. The Innocence Project attorneys said it was far more likely that careless smoking led to the fire. Marianne Miceli smoked two packs a day, and Amor and Tina Miceli also were smokers, according to testimony.
Amor’s confession came during a lengthy police interrogation during which detectives served him with divorce papers that his wife had just filed. Eventually, Amor said he started the fire with a cigarette and vodka-soaked newspaper.
He was found guilty at trial in 1997 and sentenced to 45 years in prison, but Brennan vacated his conviction last year after an evidentiary hearing at which experts testified it was scientifically impossible to start a fire in the way Amor described. The judge said that with the new fire knowledge undermining the confession, he did not have confidence in the conviction.
Prosecutors, though, opted to retry Amor.
State’s Attorney Robert Berlin issued a statement Wednesday saying his office respected the court’s decision, but he believed the evidence still supported a guilty verdict.
“This was a very complicated case originally based on fire science available at the time,” Berlin said. “Since that time, more than 20 years later, fire science has improved dramatically and consequently the evidence presented at this trial has changed from that presented in 1995.”
The Innocence Project said it believes Amor’s case is the first in Illinois where a court held that advances in fire science could be considered to meet the legal definition of “newly discovered evidence,” entitling a convicted person to a new trial.
“We have known for a long time that Bill is innocent and a terrible injustice occurred,” Kaeseberg said. “While it took far too long, we are thrilled by today’s verdict exonerating Bill. We look forward to seeing Bill live his life truly free after so long.”
Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter
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William Amor (Illinois Dept. of Corrections / Handout)
| Clifford Ward |
A former Naperville resident, imprisoned almost two decades for the arson murder of his mother-in-law, has been granted a court hearing to dispute the fire investigation evidence that helped to secure his conviction.
William Amor will return in June to the DuPage County courthouse where he was convicted of murder and arson in the death of Marianne Miceli, who died in a Sept. 10, 1995, fire at the Naperville condominium she shared with her daughter and Amor.
Attorneys for Amor say he is innocent and advances in arson investigation techniques and science undermine the conclusions investigators reached in the mid-1990s, including that Amor started the fire using a cigarette and a vodka-soaked newspaper.
"It is simple: Fire investigation techniques used today, which disprove the finding of incendiary and arson in this case, were not available at the time of Mr. Amor's trial," his attorneys contended in court filings. "Moreover, the techniques that were used at trial in 1995 are no longer generally accepted."
But a federal arson investigator, in a January report commissioned by DuPage County prosecutors, concluded the fire was set but thought it unlikely Amor did it. The ATF agent suggested investigators question Amor's ex-wife to get a more thorough picture of what happened on the night of the fire.
Amor, who turns 60 this month, is serving a 45-year prison sentence at the Taylorville Correctional Center. He is scheduled to be paroled in March 2018, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.
Miceli, 40, who was partially disabled from a childhood accident, reported the fire and told authorities she was trapped in her condo. By the time firefighters arrived, she was dead.
Amor and his wife, Tina Miceli, 18, also lived at the condo at 218 E. Bailey Road. The couple left to go to a drive-in movie about 20 minutes before the fire was reported.
Police questioned Amor several times after the fire, and he confessed three weeks later. At trial, his attorneys argued that abusive, coercive questioning by Naperville police, who during one session served Amor with divorce papers filed by his wife, resulted in a false confession.
A jury, though, found him guilty in 1997. Amor filed an ultimately unsuccessful postconviction petition in the early 2000s, and his case was dormant until the Illinois Innocence Project took it on in 2014. Innocence Project attorneys convinced a judge that errors in the original fire investigation were significant enough that Amor should be granted a new hearing on that evidence.
The fire investigators in the 1990s initially deemed the cause of the fire to be undetermined but switched it to "incendiary" after Amor's confession that he dropped a lit cigarette on a vodka-soaked newspaper before leaving for the movies, Amor's attorneys argued. Conclusions about the fire's starting point have also been undermined by modern investigative advances, they said.
"Evidence relied on by the state at trial has been flatly contradicted by modern science," Amor's attorneys wrote.
DuPage County prosecutors declined to comment on Amor's case, but they contended in court filings that despite scientific evolution in fire investigation, original testimony about the origin of the fire and its cause remains viable.
Prosecutors commissioned a re-examination of the evidence by an ATF-certified fire investigator, who concluded that someone started the fire, but it was likely not Amor. His wife, Tina, had gone back inside the apartment to retrieve her cigarettes as Amor waited in the parking lot before the couple went to the drive-in, the investigator, ATF Senior Special Agent John Golder, noted.
If Amor had started the fire, his wife would have smelled the smoke when she returned to the apartment, the investigator said. Tina Miceli had also told investigators in 1995 that she had spilled lighter fluid in the room where the fire started, Golder reported.
"In evaluating all of the available evidence, including the original statements of both Mr. and Mrs. Amor, and accounting for their truthfulness, it is my opinion that further interviews should be conducted with Mrs. Amor and that investigators should follow up their investigative efforts in her possible involvement in the ignition of the fire," Golder wrote.
The agent, who interviewed William Amor in prison, said his conclusion did not preclude Amor from being an accomplice or participant in the fire.
Attempts by the Tribune to reach Tina Miceli for comment were unsuccessful. State's Attorney Robert Berlin declined to comment. The case is due back in court Wednesday for a status hearing. The evidentiary hearing is scheduled for June 14.
Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
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