SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — The lawyer for a paramedic charged with first degree murder is appealing their client’s denied request for a lower cash bond to a higher court.

According to court documents shared with WCIA, Peggy Finley’s lawyer, W. Scott Hanken, appealed Judge Robin Schmidt’s ruling denying a reconsideration of the reduction of cash bond to the Appellate Court.

Schmidt denied Finley’s bond reduction in April. The original bond reduction hearing for Finley and Peter Cadigan, who are both facing charges in connection to the death of Earl Moore Jr., was in February.

In a previous hearing, Schmidt believed Finley’s bond and that of her coworker, Peter Cadigan, who is also facing first degree murder charges, was appropriately set because of the seriousness of the charge and the 20-to-60 year prison sentence that their charge carries. 

Hanken believes his client has never been a flight risk for evading, citing Finley willingly taking a suspension and a 90-day police course as well as talking to Illinois State Police without legal counsel.

“As the trial court found no factual finding of risk of flight by Defendant/Respondent-Appellant by reliable evidence and merely opined that there may be an “inherent risk” due to possible punishment, clearly that risk would be diminished by the posting of $60,000.00 of Defendant/Respondent-Appellant’s family and friends hard earned money,” the motion reads. “There was nothing in the record to suggest in any other way, shape or form that Defendant/Respondent-Appellant would flee and cause such hardship.”

The incident of Finley and Cadigan placing Moore Jr. in a stretcher face down was captured on Springfield Police officers’ body cameras that were on the scene.