A Rock Falls man convicted in late 2025 of severely beating his 61-year-old neighbor is challenging his guilty verdict and 7-year prison sentence, arguing he was denied a fair trial due to Whiteside County’s previous systemic exclusion of qualified jurors from the jury pool.

Scott Hagerman, 64, filed a motion on April 1 requesting a new trial or judgment of acquittal. His public defender, James Fagerman, argues that Whiteside County’s jury selection process violated state and federal law for years, by some estimates of more than three decades, according to county officials’ court testimony, by systematically excluding entire categories of people from serving as jurors.

The motion comes after revelations in an unrelated case that Whiteside County has been improperly removing qualified jurors from potential jury duty selection based on age, economic status, pending civil cases, and prior criminal charges – a practice that a judge has already ruled “wrongful.”

The systematic exclusion from the pool of prospective jurors “fundamentally altered the composition and character of the jury, depriving the defendant of his right to a fair and impartial jury,” the motion filed April 1 on behalf of Hagerman states.

How the problem was discovered

The jury selection issue came to light through the case of Whiteside County defendant Michael Cover. In the days leading up to his Feb. 10 trial date for charges filed in connection with a September fight in the Whiteside County Jail, Cover’s attorney, James Mertes of Sterling, visited the Whiteside County Circuit Clerk’s Office to ask questions about how jury venires, commonly known as jury pools, are selected.

What Mertes said he learned was that Whiteside County did not have a functioning jury commission and was not following the Jury Act. The discovery prompted Mertes to file a motion challenging the county’s entire jury selection process.

What followed were hearings initially presided over by Whiteside County Judge James Heuerman, who later recused himself after his involvement in a second venire selection in connection with the Cover case. 14th Judicial Circuit Judge Hany Khoury was assigned to the case and on March 11 ruled in favor of Cover’s challenge to the county’s jury venire selection process.

[ Judge says Whiteside County wrongly excluded jurors for years ]

Khoury agreed with Mertes’s arguments that the county’s Circuit Clerk’s Office – using a jury venire selection process handed down verbally for at least 33 years – had been systematically excluding qualified jurors based on age, economic status, pending civil cases, and prior criminal charges.

He could not find that the jury panel of 500 selected from the remainder of the AOIC list was sufficiently random ”to ensure that we have protected the Defendant’s right to a fair, impartial and representative jury,” Khoury wrote in his decision, referring to the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts’ master list that the circuit clerk’s office receives annually.

Khoury discharged the jury panel for Cover’s trial, which was the second time a jury panel had been discharged in this case, and ordered that any subsequently scheduled trial using the same jury venire be postponed. Cover’s trial was rescheduled to April 14, with a new jury venire to be selected through a new process that would no longer exclude potential jurors outright and would address randomization of the master list from which potential jurors’ names are selected.

How the system worked

Testimony from Circuit Clerk’s Office employees indicated that a computerized disc containing thousands of county residents’ names was uploaded annually, and an employee printed a 500-name report. Questionnaires were then mailed to prospective jurors, and exclusions applied when responses were returned.

Circuit Clerk Office staff testified that one person, a deputy clerk in that office, had been overseeing the jury selection process for 11 years and was verbally trained by then-Whiteside County Circuit Clerk Susan Ottens.

Mertes argued that these exclusions violated the Sixth Amendment’s requirement that juries be drawn from a fair cross-section of the community. He also contended they violated Illinois law, specifically the Jury Act, which prohibits excluding jurors based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, or economic status.

“The systematic exclusion of prospective jurors, if they have any upcoming court dates in Whiteside County in any small claims, civil, family, or divorce case, violates Illinois law,” Mertes wrote in his motion.

Whiteside County’s Jury Commission

The motion also revealed a procedural issue: Whiteside County was lacking a functioning jury commission.

Under Illinois law, counties with populations under 75,000 – Whiteside County has approximately 55,700 – may form a jury commission only if the county board passes a resolution and the circuit judges appoint three qualified electors.

Records show Whiteside County once had a three-member jury commission, established in 1967 when an Illinois statutory amendment allowed county boards in counties with less than 40,000 inhabitants to determine by resolution that three jury commissioners shall be appointed by circuit judges. However, the commission appears to have stopped functioning around 2020.

Without a jury commission, the Jury Act requires the county board to compile and approve a jury list at its September meeting each year. Neither the September 2024 agenda nor the September 2025 minutes of the Whiteside County Board reflect such action, according to court filings.

After Khoury’s ruling in the Cover case, the 14th Judicial Circuit’s judges on March 12 appointed three jury commissioners for Whiteside County, according to an administrative order. The newly appointed commissioners are Whiteside County Circuit Clerk Sue Scott, Jennifer Suarez and Amy Day.

Hagerman’s case

Hagerman was convicted in December 2025 of three counts of aggravated battery and one count of resisting arrest in connection with the beating of Ronald Fistler Jr., 61, at Rock Falls’ Garden Circle Homes on Aug. 6, 2022.

[ Rock Falls man sentenced to 7 years in prison for beating 61-year-old neighbor who later died ]

Fistler suffered a brain stem injury from the beating and died 19 days later at a Rockford hospital. On March 5, Heuerman sentenced Hagerman to 7 years in prison on the aggravated battery charge involving a victim over 60 years old, merged from three battery counts. Hagerman also received 300 days in jail on the resisting arrest charge, to be served concurrently.

Hagerman claimed self-defense at trial, testifying that he and Fistler had been feuding since Hagerman moved into the senior housing development in spring 2022.

Hagerman testified that on the day of the fight, he was walking home after lunch and beers at a bar when he saw Fistler pulling into a parking space near their residences. Hagerman said he waved to Fistler, who then “began running his mouth.” Hagerman challenged Fistler to hit him.

According to Hagerman’s testimony, of the three punches he threw, two missed and the third grazed Fistler’s chin. Hagerman claimed Fistler caused his own severe head injuries by falling twice and striking his head on the curb.

However, prosecutors presented evidence that Hagerman, a former Marine trained in hand-to-hand combat, told officers at the scene that he was the better fighter and had won the fight. Body camera footage captured these statements.

The jury deliberated for 2½ hours before returning guilty verdicts.

The judge’s concerns about the victim’s death

During sentencing, Heuerman said he could not factor Fistler’s death into his sentencing decision because Hagerman was not charged with killing him.

However, Hagerman’s April 1 motion argues the court improperly admitted victim impact statements from Fistler’s two adult children and considered the victim’s death as an aggravating circumstance despite the lack of evidence linking Hagerman’s conduct to the death.

A hearing on Hagerman’s motion is set for 9 a.m. April 23.