Wrongful Conviction Lawsuit Defense Blog : Wrongful Conviction Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Andrew M. Hale Law Firm

 The Chicago Tribune is reporting this morning that:

Roughly a month after the advent of a law allowing the wrongfully convicted to circumvent the governor in seeking certificates of innocence, Gov. Rod Blagojevich pardoned four exonerated men convicted of crimes ranging from rape to murder.

Two weeks ago, the men filed for certificates of innocence with the circuit courts after waiting for a response from Blagojevich, who has been criticized for taking too much time to respond to clemency petitions. Blagojevich pardoned 26 people Thursday.

Among those pardoned based on innocence were Marlon Pendleton and Jerry Miller, who were falsely convicted of sexual assault charges before DNA evidence exonerated them. Also pardoned was Luis Ortiz, convicted of a torture-murder in 1997 and exonerated in 2002, and Robert Wilson, pardoned after nearly a decade in prison for an attempted murder after he was falsely identified.

The Tribune does not identify all 26 individuals.

The clemency petitions are not the method by which these individuals were or are released from prison.  In Jerry Miller's case, he has been free for some time.  His request for a pardon is merely a formality. Miller needs an innocence pardon to seek money for his imprisonment from the Illinois Court of Claims. Given Blagojevich's lengthy time to respond to clemency petitions, lawyers for these individuals lobbied for a new law allowing a judge to issue a "certificate of innocence" to circumvent the Governor and allow for a petition before the Illinois Court of Claims.  Not clear who beat whom to the punch, but these individuals either got certificates and/or pardons based on innocence. 

As previously reported by the Center, Jerry Miller has a federal lawsuit against the City of Chicago, several police officers, and crime lab personnel.  

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Robert Wilson has filed a civil rights lawsuit in the Northern District of Illinois against eleven Chicago police officers, a Cook County Assistant State's Attorney, the County of Cook, and the City of Chicago. Wilson was charged with attacking June Siler on February 29, 1997 as she waited for a bus at 2851 South King Drive in Chicago. Wilson was arrested on March 1, 1997 and alleged that over the next 30 hours the police  physically abused him, denied him sleep and food, denied him his blood pressure medication, intimidated him, promised him leniency if he confessed and threatened him with violence if he did not confess. Wilson wound up confessing to the attack on Siler. Wilson was convicted at his criminal trial and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Siler identified Wilson as her attacker at trial. Wilson filed a petition for habeas corpus on January 13, 2006, alleging that his attorneys should have been allowed to present evidence that another man, Jerryco Wagner, had attacked several women during the time Siler had been attacked in the same vicinity. District Judge Ruben Castillo granted the petition and, thereafter, Siler recanted her identification of Wilson. On November 30, 2006, the State chose not to initiate a new trial against Wilson. Wilson spent 9 years in prison before being released. Wilson's complaint contains claims for violating Wilson's right to a fair trial, conspiracy to violate Wilson's constitutional rights, failure to intervene, malicious prosecution, civil conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, respondeat superior, and indemnification. Wilson is represented by Locke Bowman from the MacArthur Justice Center, Northwestern University School of Law. The case has been assigned to Judge Kocoras.

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On Monday, December 4, 2006, Robert Wilson was released from the Logan Correctional Center. Cook County presiding judge Paul Biebel, Jr. vacated Wilson's conviction after Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Celeste Stack advised the judge that her office would not be seeking a new trial. June Siler, the victim of a throat slashing in 1997, recently recanted her prior testimony that Wilson was her attacker. Wilson had been convicted of attempted murder and had served 9 years of his 30 year sentence. Wilson signed a written confession but claimed at his criminal trial that the confession was false. Last month, Chicago Tribune reporter Maurice Possley wrote that in a recent "tearful interview" Siler said that Wilson was not her attacker, despite the fact that she identified Wilson as her attacker at her criminal trial in 1997.

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