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After 34 years, a murder conviction quietly reversed in 4 minutes
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James Allen, convicted of three murders on scant evidence, remains a long way from freedom.
James Allen, convicted of three murders on scant evidence, remains a long way from freedom.
While the state vacated Wayne Washington’s 1996 conviction for Marshall Morgan’s murder, he’s still fighting an uphill battle for an innocence certificate.
Gibson, 54, spent nearly 30 years behind bars after he says he was beaten into confessing to two 1989 murders. In an essay, Gibson recounts how his wrongful conviction and long fight for freedom robbed him of his identity, and how he’s trying to move forward.
As attorney Jeffrey Urdangen watched the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack, he thought of the 2007 terrorism case against a former client named Olutosin Oduwole, who was an aspiring rapper in southern Illinois when prosecutors alleged his lyrics were terrorist threats.
Detectives on the 2006 case have been dogged by allegations of witness coercion and Clark’s trial attorney has since been disbarred.
Tens of thousands of individuals have been victimized by perpetrators who would have been locked up had the criminal justice system worked properly, the authors’ research shows. The problem is not just the wrongful conviction, but also the wrongful liberty of the culprit.
Attorneys for convicted murderer say that prosecutor Michael Gerber engaged in “egregious conduct” that led to wrongful conviction based on thin evidence in Wheeling murder case. Gerber, now serving as judge by appointment, is a candidate for a full term on the bench in March.
Cook County judge said judicial candidate Michael Gerber and his co-counsel’s statements in a recently overturned conviction “amounted to a purposeful due process violation that led to petitioner’s conviction.”
Lawsuit: A cabal of the former state’s attorney, a police union official, lawyers and others have falsely portrayed a murder conviction to attack the movement to expose wrongful convictions.