Word: nicarico
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Even supporters admit Cruz went looking for trouble--and he found it. After the Nicarico slaying, police searched for leads in Aurora, the working-class town where Cruz lived. Perhaps prodded by a $10,000 reward, Cruz began telling wild stories. The police took him on as an informant, settling him in a witness-protection housing complex, while he told what one of his lawyers concedes were lies. "It was a big game," says Northwestern University law professor Lawrence Marshall, who represented Cruz on appeal. "Nobody's defending Rolando for playing that game, but it doesn't deserve a death...
That's where it was headed. Investigators began to suspect that the talkative Cruz was involved in the killing, but they had no solid evidence linking him to it. Then the so-called vision statement materialized. Detectives say Cruz told them he had a vision of Nicarico's killing, including details only the killer could know. The statement was the most damning piece of evidence against Cruz when he was tried and convicted of the crime. Still, it was always a little fishy. Despite its importance, the detectives hadn't tape-recorded it or even taken notes about...
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...
...concluded that the vision statement was fabricated and that Cruz had been framed. He filed 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...
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...