Judge says suspect in ISU student's death can't represent himself

<p>A man charged with killing an Illinois State University student last year cannot represent himself at trial because of his past courtroom outbursts, a McLean County judge ruled Friday.</p><p>Maurice Wallace, 27, said he wanted to act as his own attorney because he doesn't trust his lawyers. Prosecutors opposed the move, and Assistant State's Attorney Kim Campbell said Wallace's real goal was a mistrial.</p><p>Judge Scott Drazewski said he denied Wallace's request because Wallace has spit on the floor, refused to attend hearings and behaved disrespectfully in past court settings. He told Wallace that he could no longer address the court directly or he would be held in contempt.</p><p>Wallace objected to the ruling and told the judge, "People I don't trust, I don't grant them responsibilities over my life."</p><p>His court-appointed attorneys also opposed Wallace's request. After the ruling, Drazewski asked Wallace to confer with his court-appointed attorneys outside the courtroom. "Those are not my lawyers," Wallace replied.</p><p>Wallace has pleaded not guilty to charges he killed 21-year-old Olamide Adeyooye, whose badly burned body was found in October in the rubble of a Mississippi chicken house. She had disappeared eight days earlier, prompting a nationwide search.</p><p>He also faces attempted murder and attempted escape charges in a May attack that seriously injured a McLean County jail officer and is charged with aggravated battery and theft in separate cases.</p><p>If convicted on all the charges, he faces more than 100 years in prison.</p><p>Prosecutors said the jail officer attack showed that Wallace posed a danger to the court if he were allowed to be his own attorney.</p><p>Wallace had written in a letter to Drazewski that he has "walked a lonely road, and must therefore stand alone" as his own attorney in the murder case and in the other criminal cases against him.</p><p>Prosecutors allege Wallace, who lived on the same block as Adeyooye, killed the ISU senior in her apartment, then dumped her body in her car and drove away.</p><p>Adeyooye's car keys were found in a rental car Wallace had when he was arrested Oct. 20 in Atlanta on the unrelated charges, according to prosecutors. Authorities say Adeyooye's car was later found abandoned in Atlanta.</p><p>Prosecutors also allege Wallace left a bloody fingerprint in her apartment and told someone just hours before her death that he felt like killing to get his name in the news. He is being held in the McLean County Jail in lieu of more than $2 million bond.</p><p>Adeyooye, who was to graduate from the 20,000-student university in December, was a native of Nigeria who moved to the Chicago suburb of Berkeley when she was 8.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2006/7/120207