John Seasly, Author at Injustice Watch

Certificate of innocence is bittersweet victory for man who served years in prison

A Cook County judge granted a certificate of innocence Monday for Ieliot Jackson, who spent nearly eight years in prison for a 2009 drug sale.

by John Seasly December 16, 2019January 8, 2024

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5 big ideas to stop sentencing innocent people to death

How can courts stop sentencing innocent people to death? Our Unrequited Innocence project highlighted some potential solutions.

by John Seasly December 13, 2019December 5, 2023

Appeals and Wrongful Convictions

“I was the one selling narcotics,” witness testifies in innocence hearing

Isaac Williams testified Monday that he–not Ieliot Jackson–sold heroin to an undercover police officer in 2009. Jackson hopes Williams’s testimony will help him obtain a certificate of innocence for the drug charges that sent him to prison for nearly eight years.

by John Seasly December 9, 2019January 8, 2024

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Damien Wayne Echols: DNA testing contradicted false confession

The nude, bound and mutilated bodies of three eight-year-old Cub Scouts were found in a water-filled ditch in a forest near their West Memphis, Ark., homes, one day after they disappeared in May, 1993.

by John Seasly December 9, 2019December 5, 2023

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Kimber Edwards: Accused of involvement by actual killer, who later recanted

After police in University City, Missouri, found Kimberly Cantrell shot to death in August, 2000, suspicion quickly fell on her ex-husband, Kimber Edwards, who had been charged with failing to make child support payments.

by John Seasly December 9, 2019December 5, 2023

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Kevin Cooper: Nearly a dozen judges find case suspicious

In a wealthy neighborhood of ranches thirty miles east of Los Angeles, a home was broken into in the early morning hours on a June night in 1983 and three members of the family, along with a family friend, were brutally killed.

by John Seasly December 9, 2019December 5, 2023

Associate Judges

No Hispanic judges chosen in associate judge election

After criticisms about diversity among the associate judges last year, the Circuit Court of Cook County elected several people of color to the bench, but no Hispanic finalists made the cut.

by John Seasly December 5, 2019December 5, 2023

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Robert M. Kubat: Key evidence of innocence withheld at trial

In June, 1980, a Lake County, Illinois jury sentenced a truck driver named Robert M. Kubat, who had been in and out of prison for years, to death after convicting him of the murder of Lydia C. Hyde, 63.

by John Seasly December 3, 2019December 5, 2023

Archive

Jarvis Jay Masters: Accuser’s description of Masters matched inmate who confessed

Jarvis Jay Masters remains on death row, accused of murdering a corrections officer at San Quentin prison in 1985.

by John Seasly December 3, 2019December 5, 2023

Archive

Ralph International Thomas: Victims last seen with another man

In 1986 the bodies of two so-called “Deadheads” — fans of the Grateful Dead who traveled with the group on tour — were found beaten and shot to death in the San Francisco Bay.

by John Seasly December 3, 2019December 5, 2023

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