Lawyers Spar Over Jailhouse Tapes in Cecil Conner Case

In the year he spent locked up after drunkenly crashing into a tree and killing a 5-year-old boy sleeping in the back seat of his car, Cecil Conner gabbed on the phone for hours with the dead child's mother.

On Tuesday, his lawyer argued that prosecutors goofed when they failed to turn over recordings of those conversations prior to the trial.

"It's the idea of a level playing field," defense attorney Jeff Tomczak said of his need get recordings he claims prosecutors had access to all along.

But prosecutor Debbie Mills contends that her office never listened to the recordings or even had possession of them. And on top of that, it would be a herculean task to compile all the telephone conversations made by inmates in the county jail.

“There are over 100 phones that inmates have access to,” Mills said. “On any given day there could be 2,000 phone calls that are generated by inmates at the county jail.”

Tomczak countered, in essence, that this was her problem.

“You can’t say, ‘Because I hit the record button so many times for so many defendants, I can’t turn it over,’” he said.

“They should not be allowed to say, ‘This is a burden upon us,’ when they placed the burden upon themselves,” Tomczak added.

Conner, 23, was of aggravated driving under the influence following a February trial. He faces up to 14 years in prison.

Conner was arrested in May 2010 after he rammed his girlfriend's 1997 Chevy Cavalier into a tree. The girlfriend's 5-year-old son, Michael Langford, was sleeping in the car's back seat and was killed in the crash.

The girlfriend, Kathie LaFond, had been driving. But 40 minutes prior to the crash, Chicago Heights Police Officer Chris Felicetti pulled the car over and arrested LaFond, who was sober but driving without a valid license. Felicetti the drunken  Conner to drive off with the young boy in the backseat.

Within two days of her son's death, LaFond had a going against Felicetti, Conner and the town of Chicago Heights.

Judge Edward Burmilla wanted additional information about the recordings, including confirmation of whether or not they actually exist and if prosecutors have access to them. Burmilla set the matter over until next week.