[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
In the past 10 years 8 convicts in Illinois have cheated the executioner.
Maybe if they hurried things along a bit more as suggested by many here...
Sunday, April 12, 1998
By Carolyn Tuft
Of The Post-Dispatch
In the past decade, eight men have been sentenced to die for murder in
Illinois
only to be later found innocent and released.
Two others who received long prison sentences for murder also were
eventually proved innocent.
Even when another person confessed, prosecutors sometimes retried those
already convicted of the crime.
Here's a look at the cases:
- Perry Cobb and Darby Tillis were accused of robbing and killing two men in
1977 on the north side of Chicago. Three trials later, a Cook County jury
convicted Cobb and Tillis on testimony of a female friend and evidence - a
watch in Cobb's possession that belonged to one of the victims.
Cobb maintained he bought the watch from a boyfriend of the female friend.
The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the conviction based on an error by
trial Judge Thomas J. Maloney, who has since been convicted of taking bribes in
criminal cases. He took the money in exchange for granting lighter
sentences.
A prosecutor in Lake County later came forward to tell the state's attorney
that the female friend told him that she and her boyfriend had committed the
crimes. Prosecutors ignored the Lake County prosecutor and tried Tillis and
Cobb twice more.
The last one in 1987 set them free. The other two suspects were never
charged.
- Dennis Williams, Willie Rainge, Verneal Jimerson and Kenny Adams were
accused of the abduction and murder of a couple taken from a filling station in
Homewood, near Chicago, in 1978 and shot to death. A witness claimed to have
seen the four men near the murder scene.
All were convicted. Williams and Jimerson were sentenced to death. An
investigation by Northwestern University journalism students showed that
police had fed a key witness information that helped convict the men. DNA tests
exonerated all four suspects.
Four other men later confessed to the crime. Police were aware of their
identities but never interviewed them.
- Alejandro Hernandez and Rolando Cruz were accused of the kidnapping, rape
and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico on Feb. 25, 1983. A DuPage County
jury convicted the two and sentenced them to death.
Months later, Brian Dugan, a repeat sex offender and murderer, told police
he killed Jeanine and provided a detailed description of the crime.
In 1988, Hernandez and Cruz won new trials. DNA tests linked Dugan to the
crime, but prosecutors retried Hernandez and Cruz for the murder, not Dugan.
In all, they were tried three times. During the third trial, a police
officer testified that he'd lied under oath and, in 1995, the pair were found
innocent.
Four police officers and three former prosecutors involved in the case were
charged with official misconduct.
Dugan was never tried for the crime.
[This was a case widely used as a horrible example of the bureaucratic
delays that keep killers alive on death row. Our own NY Governor George
Pataki railed against keeping these killers alive and wanted the state to
get on with executing them. We now have a death penalty so we can kill
innocent folk too.]
- Joseph Burrows was accused of robbing and killing an 88-year-old retired
farmer at his home southeast of Kankakee in 1988. Gayle Potter, a cocaine
addict, implicated Burrows, who was convicted and sentenced to die for the
crime based on the addict's statement.
Potter later admitted she'd lied and that she'd killed the farmer. Burrows
was freed in 1994.
- Gary Gauger was accused of killing his 74-year-old father and 70-year-old
mother in 1993 at their farmhouse near Richmond, Ill. There was no physical
evidence linking Gauger to the crime, but police said he incriminated
himself during an 18-hour interrogation.
A jury convicted Gauger and sentenced him to die. On appeal, Gauger won his
freedom in 1994 after an appellate court ruled there was no probable cause
to arrest Gauger.
Last June, two motorcycle gang members were charged in federal court with
the murders.
Copyright (c) 1998, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
------------------- In taberna mori
Ut sint vina proxima
Morientis ori.
-- The Archpoet, 12th Century
Best, Terry
"Lawyer - one trained to circumvent the law" - The Devil's Dictionary
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