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 Prisoner Alstory Simon, who in 1999 confessed to shooting and
killing teenagers Marilyn Green and Jerry Hillard on Chicago's South
Side, was released from the Jacksonville Correctional Center in
Central Illinois.
Simon's confession 15 years ago led to the release and pardon of
former death row inmate Anthony Porter, who was originally convicted
as the murderer. Porter's freedom was an important victory for
innocence projects that work to overturn wrongful convictions. The
Porter case and others eventually spurred Illinois to abolish the
death penalty.
After he confessed, Simon, now 64, pleaded guilty in 1999 and was
sentenced to 37 years, of which he served 15.
But prosecutors reversed course again and said on Thursday a former
journalism professor at Northwestern University, students at the
university's Medill Justice Project and a private investigator
coerced Simon into making a video taped confession, threatened him
with the death penalty, pretended to have a witness to him
committing the crime and promised him lucrative book deals.
"We're talking about the antics of a rogue investigator and a
professor who went to all lengths," Cook County State's Attorney
Anita Alvarez told a news conference.
Alvarez said Porter cannot be retried because of double jeopardy,
but she said: "There are compelling facts, eyewitnesses there at the
scene who maintain to today that it was Anthony Porter who did the
shooting."
Alvarez said the reinvestigation was the toughest her office has
done, because some witnesses have changed their testimony multiple
times over three decades.
She said that in the years that have passed since Simon made his
videotaped confession, prosecutors have learned to be much more
skeptical of that sort of evidence.
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Alvarez said the Conviction Integrity Unit she created two years ago
would continue to re-investigate cases of alleged wrongful
conviction. The unit has so far vacated 10 convictions.
Alvarez strongly criticized former Northwestern University Professor
David Protess and private investigator Paul Ciolino.
In a statement, Ciolino said he believes Porter was innocent and
noted that Simon confessed to lawyers and reporters as well as to
him. "But for the work we did together with Nothwestern and the
students, Porter's life would have been taken," he said.
The Medill Justice Project and Protess, who now works for the
Chicago Innocence Project, did not immediately respond to telephone
messages seeking comment.
(Additional reporting by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by James Dalgleish
and Cynthia Osterman)
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