Word: murderers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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While Cruz was on death row, another young girl was killed. The man who confessed to that murder, Brian Dugan, was the man who had admitted killing Nicarico. When Marshall and a team of prominent lawyers stepped in, they collected DNA evidence proving Cruz couldn't have committed the rape. They also hammered away at the vision statement. At Cruz's third trial, Lieutenant James Montesano testified that he was on vacation in Florida on the day his detectives claimed they had called him about Cruz's vision. The judge angrily dismissed the case and set Cruz free...
...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...
...cousin, fearing Miller was sick, called 911, and when the police arrived, they yelled at her to open the door and smashed a car window. Suddenly they fired 24 bullets into the car, striking Miller at least 12 times and killing her. Miller's family accuses the police of murder. But police say Miller was reaching for the gun despite their orders not to. The explanation hasn't satisfied many people in Riverside's black community. Last week more than 1,200 people crowded into a Baptist church for a protest meeting led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson...
When crime rates are high--or when there is a horrific crime, like the Nicarico murder--the pressure on law enforcement is immense. But get-tough policies can mean getting tough on innocent people--even sending them to death row. With crime rates falling, Americans don't want to go soft on crime, but their sense of fairness is being sorely tested. Communities are beginning to ask how prosecutors and police can be effective while still respecting citizens' rights. Now it's time for law-enforcement officials to start taking the question seriously too. "The criminal-justice system works," says...