Word: months
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...charges against three former Du Page prosecutors (two of them later became a sitting judge and an assistant U.S. Attorney) and four sheriff's deputies. The defendants all insist they are innocent, and the Nicarico family has rallied to their defense. The trial, likely to last more than a month, may be tough going for prosecutors. They will need to persuade a jury that a phalanx of law officers tried their best to send an innocent man to the electric chair. Such a thing should be unthinkable. Sadly...
...Page Seven trial comes at a moment of extraordinary soul-searching for the Illinois justice system. Earlier this month Anthony Porter, who has an IQ of 51, was freed from death row after serving 16 years for a double murder he did not commit. At the time of his trial, Porter could not afford an investigator to work on his case, and his lawyer called a grand total of three defense witnesses. Porter was freed when a Northwestern University journalism class investigated his case and obtained a confession from another man. A key prosecution witness, who later recanted, now says...
...another Illinois case this month, four men who served up to 18 years for a double murder they did not commit reached a $36 million settlement with Cook County. In their suits, the so-called Ford Heights Four charged that the sheriff's office fabricated evidence and ignored or hid leads pointing to the four men who actually committed the crime. In the past dozen years, Illinois has freed 11 men from death row--one less than it has executed since 1977. Nine of the freed men were black or Latino...
...frame game some Illinois authorities have allegedly been playing hits the headlines at a time of heightened national concern over aggressive law-enforcement practices. In New York City, authorities have been on the defensive since last month, when a West African street peddler named Amadou Diallo was killed by police. He died in a barrage of 41 bullets as he entered his Bronx apartment building. The police say the officers fired on Diallo because they thought he was reaching for a gun. He was unarmed...
...Jersey police pull over a disproportionate number of minority drivers, then look for a crime or violation to charge them with. A study found that the troopers are five times as likely to target blacks as they are whites. Governor Christine Todd Whitman fired the state-police superintendent this month for defending his officers by saying minorities are more involved than whites in drug trafficking...