Speaking from the witness stand nearly a decade after her 7-year-old son was shot and killed, Amber Hailey said every court date has tested her resolve.
Her son, Amari Brown, was gunned down on the Fourth of July in 2015 in an act of violence that spurred national news coverage and calls for change. Those calls heightened just months later after the targeted killing of another child, 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee.
“Amari was an innocent child who had his whole life ahead of him,” Hailey said, breaking down in tears. “He had his dreams, aspirations.”
With the Fourth of July holiday just weeks away, Hailey made it to the final court hearing on Monday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building to see her son’s killers sentenced to a lifetime in prison.
Judge Nicholas Kantas sentenced Jamal Joiner, 30, to life in prison and Rasheed Martin, 30, to a term of 110 years after their respective juries convicted them last year of murder and attempted murder.
Joiner is already serving a life sentence in prison in another 2015 murder case, the fatal shooting of 36-year-old Courtney Jackson.
Amari had spent the evening watching fireworks with his father when he was felled by bullets fired in the 1100 block of North Harding Avenue in Humboldt Park.
Joiner and Martin also injured another woman while trying to hit their true target just before midnight, according to prosecutors. The shooting was the result of a feud that had been heating up for several months until it came to a head that night.
“This defendant is the one who went out on that street corner … where people live, where they work, where they go to school, where they shop, where they celebrate with their families,” Kantas said while sentencing Joiner. “He is the one who turned that corner into a firing range.”
During a double jury trial in March of 2024, Joiner and Martin pointed the finger at each other, each taking the stand in their own defense. Both men grew agitated during the sentencing hearing, with Martin sarcastically clapping when Assistant State’s Attorney Emily Stevens finished her arguments.
“You don’t know (expletive),” Martin said as Stevens argued to the judge for a maximum punishment.
While arguing the same for Joiner, Stevens noted his additional murder conviction and alleged a history of bad behavior in jail, including getting in fights and smuggling in drugs.
“So it’s not like he’s in here thinking, well I learned my lessons, let me change my ways. No,” she said. “They fired shot after shot after shot down that street where they knew kids were. And they didn’t care.”
In Martin’s case, Stevens said that a presentence investigation report noted that he liked to “flip on mattresses and go to the park” as a child.
“Amari didn’t get to do that,” she said.
But Martin’s public defender argued that her client had a traumatic childhood, born at the end of the crack epidemic to a mother who would take Martin out with her while she sold drugs. She asked the judge to consider Martin’s age at the time, around 20, adding that law and public policy are evolving around the question of the maturity level of young adults when it comes to committing crimes.
“A young person’s character is not as well formed,” she said.
Kantas said he did take into account Martin’s age, but also the “violent nature of the offense” and Amari’s young age.
If he lived, Amari would now be around 17.
“The pain of losing my precious son has been an unbearable burden I have carried,” Hailey said. “Amari will always be a part of me. His spirit lives on.”
