Despite exculpatory evidence, and resignations by a lead prosecutor and one of the detectives in the case. Last I heard, Attorneys General were supposed to seek justice rather than political favor.
Last I heard, the term for trying to waste innocent people for your own gain was “murder.”
Ace, tired of outrageous overstatement, zigzags back to wry understatement:
DNA exoneration, and implication of another man. That other man confessing. A lead detective and top prosecutor resigning in protest.
I believe they call these “red flags” in the legal business.
Yes. I believe they do.
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Roland Burris is a political hack, but don’t get behind Rolando Cruz. Rolando Cruz got on the radar in the Janine Nicarico murder case when he was bragging in a bar about raping and killing the 10 year old girl. Even though it was a dive bar populated with criminals and low-lifes, they were so sickened by his stories that somebody dropped a dime on him. He later repeated the stories to police.
After Cruz’s conviction, a clown, Brian Dugan–a sociopath–later gave details to police (some right and some wrong) indicating he may have committed the murder, but he wanted a deal including taking the death penalty off the table before he would cooperate and confess.
DNA wasn’t on the table in 1983. Prosecutors did not want to take the death penalty off the table for Dugan given the circumstances of the crime and the fact that some of the details he was releasing through his lawyers were wrong. Some in the department were happy with the Cruz conviction. They did not want to jeopardize the conviction by playing a game with Dugan under his rules that could result in both parties going free.
Burris’ shining moment as a political hack came when the NBC affiliate in Chicago, Channel 5, ran a story on a Sunday about Senator Carol Moseley Braun. apparently she had moved her mother Edna to the most expensive nursing home in Illinois from her home State and it was being paid for by public assistance by the taxpayers of Illinois. Furthermore, Edna inherited more than $100,000 after the passing of a relative and Edna signed over the check to Carol–after Carol had her mother sign a note saying that she was giving the money to Carol to avoid paying restitution to public assistance. It seems that Carol was in the legislature and had a hand in passing a Bill which required recipients of windfalls to pay all or part back to the State based on the accumulated lifetime total of public assistance. Before 2PM on Monday, Roland Burris–the Illinois Attorney General at the time– appeared on a radio talk show to announce that “he had gone over the case with a fine-tooth (sic) comb and he could not find a single incidence of impropriety under the law.” Just for effect, he repeated that three times, raising his voice and dragging out “fine tooth”, every time someone questioned the comprehensiveness of his examination. Callers asked how he could have possibly dismissed that note from Edna that Edna swore Carol had her write. Burris replied “What note?” “The note they showed last night,” said the caller. “I am not aware of any note,” said Burris. “I thought you said you reviewed the tape of the broadcast,” said the caller. “I went over everything with a F…I…N…E…tooth Comb,” said Burris. Then again. And again.
But if Burris was being told by some detectives and prosecutors that there was exculpatory evidence . . .?
Surely in a case like that–where there is genuine doubt–one should at least push for a lifetime conviction, in case more such evidence emerges?
Cruz didn’t have an execution date set and with the controversy, it was doubtful that one would ever be set. There are people that think every convicted killer is ‘innocent.’ Even those that brag about raping and killing a twelve-year-old girl–like Cruz. The principals in the case were satisfied that the right men were in jail. For most of this debacle, the only evidence that Cruz was innocent was in the tales that Dugan was telling through his lawyers–there was no physical evidence. (A priest was ‘pretty sure’ he had seen Dugan at his church which was a few blocks from the murder scene, but this recollection was years after the fact.) As I said, some of the details were only known to police and the killer. But he got details wrong as well. Dugan also had contact with Cruz in prison. Dugan and Cruz were next-door neighbors at the time of the murder. More than a few people suspected that Dugan only knew what he learned from Cruz (and his cohorts) and the newspapers (he was on record having checked out such material from the prison library.) Some thought it was a plan designed to free Cruz and the others. The case against Dugan would then fall apart when he would change his story. There was also that part about Dugan not doing anything until the death penalty was off the table. Since Cruz and Dugan knew each other before the crime and lived next door to each other, there is still the possibility that they were all involved. Cruz did have details that were not released, and that has never been explained. The limited DNA sample available for testing excluded Cruz from the rape. Only.
Burris’s stand was to let the investigation play out–keep Cruz in jail while continuing pursuing the evidence and letting the appeals process play out. When DNA testing came into play(with technological advances), it did.