Freed by a Journalism Professor and His Students
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Reporting by David Protess and his students, both before and after his time at the Medill Innocence Project, has had a part in freeing more than 10 wrongly convicted men from prison — five of them from death row.
David Dowaliby
CONVICTION The 1990 murder of his 7-year-old daughter.
PROBLEMS WITH CASE Erroneous interpretation of forensic evidence and faulty testimony.
RESULT OF INVESTIGATION Verdict was reversed in 1991.
Steven Linscott
CONVICTION Murder of a neighbor in 1980. Acquitted of rape at the same trial.
PROBLEMS WITH CASE Inconclusive forensic evidence.
RESULT OF INVESTIGATION Verdict was reversed in 1992.
‘The Ford Heights Four’
DEFENDANTS Verneal Jimerson, Dennis Williams, Kenneth Adams and Willie Rainge.
CONVICTION Murder of a suburban couple in 1978. Mr. Jimerson and Mr. Williams were on death row.
PROBLEMS WITH CASE Crucial testimony was extracted by coercion, and witnesses were brutalized by police.
RESULT OF INVESTIGATION Verdicts were reversed in 1996.
Aaron Patterson and Eric Caine
CONVICTION Double murder of an elderly couple in 1986. Mr. Patterson was put on death row in 1989.
PROBLEMS WITH CASE Mr. Patterson’s confession was a result of police brutality.
RESULT OF INVESTIGATION Mr. Patterson was pardoned by Gov. George Ryan in 2003; Mr. Caine was released from prison in March 2011.
Gordon Steidl and Herbert Whitlock
CONVICTION Double murder in 1986. Mr. Steidl was placed on death row; Mr. Whitlock received a life sentence for single murder.
PROBLEMS WITH CASE Discredited testimony.
RESULT OF INVESTIGATION A retrial was ordered for Mr. Steidl, and prosecutors dismissed the case in 2004. Mr. Whitlock was released from prison in 2008.
Anthony Porter
CONVICTION Double murder in 1982. Put on death row.
PROBLEMS WITH CASE Evidence pointed to another suspect, who later confessed.
RESULT OF INVESTIGATION A court halted his execution 50 hours before its scheduled time to consider whether his I.Q. was so low that he should not be executed. He was released from prison in February 1999.