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| Forensics: Chicago |
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-
-
- Michael Evans,
Paul Terry, Dana Holland and LaFonso Rollins
-
- 4 men get pardons, clean
slates
- After serving 10
to 27 years, all cleared by DNA tests
By Maurice Possley and Steve
Mills Chicago
Tribune staff reporters, January
7, 2005
Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Thursday
pardoned four Chicago men of crimes ranging from rape to murder,
calling their wrongful convictions "tragic."
The four--Michael Evans, Paul
Terry, Dana Holland and LaFonso Rollins--had each spent between
10 and 27 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. All
were exonerated after DNA testing.
Evans and Terry were both 17
when they were convicted of the 1976 abduction, rape and murder
of 9-year-old Lisa Cabassa on the South Side. Both had been sentenced
to serve 200 to 400 years in prison.
In an article published in
January 2003, the Tribune found that key testimony in the trial
was altered. They were released 8 months later after DNA tests
failed to link them to the crime.
The four men join a growing
group both in Illinois and across the country whose wrongful
convictions have been exposed by DNA testing. More than 150 defendants--many
of them found guilty because of erroneous eyewitness identifications,
coerced confessions or faulty crime-lab analysis--have been exonerated
in the U.S., including 25 in Illinois.
"Serving time in prison--years
in some cases--for a crime you didn't commit is one of the worst
things that could happen to someone," Blagojevich said.
"Thanks to DNA technology, these four men were exonerated.
A pardon will help each of them rebuild their lives, and that's
why I granted them."
The pardons clear the way for
the men to obtain an award from the Illinois Court of Claims,
which provides compensation for wrongly convicted defendants.
The formula for award amounts is based on the number of years
spent behind bars.
Rollins and Holland, who spent
about a decade in prison, will each qualify for about $145,000
under the formula.
Even though Evans and Terry
each spent about 27 years behind bars, they will only get about
$160,000 because that is the maximum allowed, said Jeff Urdangen,
attorney for Terry.
A spokeswoman for Blagojevich
said his office would do whatever it could to expedite the compensation
requests.
"This is the first official
finding from a governmental authority that these men are actually
innocent," said Karen Daniel, an attorney at the Northwestern
University School of Law Center on Wrongful Convictions who helped
free Evans, Terry and Holland.
"The pardons will make
a huge difference in their lives," Daniel said.
Holland served 10 years of
a 90-year prison sentence for a 1993 rape on the South Side before
DNA tests showed he did not commit the crime. He was released
in June 2003 after he was acquitted in a retrial of a related
charge of attempted murder.
Holland said in an interview
that he was studying the Bible and preparing to speak to offenders
at a halfway house in Downstate Rantoul on Thursday when Daniel
called with the news that he had been pardoned.
It was what the 36-year-old
had been waiting for. Since his release, Holland said he has
struggled to find work and has supported himself by doing odd
jobs. Potential employers still view him as a sex offender and
will not hire him, he said.
The long gap in his resume--his
time in prison--also hurts his employment chances.
"Nobody wants to take
a chance," said Holland.
The Tribune began investigating
the case against Evans and Terry in 2002.
Lisa Cabassa's body had been
found in an alley the morning of Jan. 15, 1976, after she disappeared
while walking home. More than a month later, a woman told police
she had seen Evans and two others abduct the girl less than a
block from her home.
At first the witness said she
saw the abduction at 6:37 p.m., then changed her account to about
8 p.m. when she realized she didn't leave work until then. When
Lisa had failed to come home, her mother told police she left
the house at 6:30 p.m., but by the time she testified at the
1977 trial, she said Lisa left at 8 p.m.
In 2002 the Tribune contacted
the slain girl's parents. Both said the mother changed her testimony
to make it agree with an account given by the witness, raising
questions about the integrity of the case.
Eight months later, with DNA
tests in hand, prosecutors dismissed the case against Evans and
Terry. No one else has been charged.
Evans said he had been hoping
for the best but preparing for the possibility that he would
not get a pardon.
Initially, the Cook County
state's attorneys did not support Evans' bid for a pardon before
the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, which makes recommendations
to the governor on pardon petitions.
Despite DNA tests that cleared
Evans, the office said it had not found any reason to "doubt
the integrity" of the case against him and therefore it
took no position on his request for a pardon.
After the Tribune obtained
copies of prosecutors' letter to the review board, the office
submitted an additional letter emphasizing "the substantial
insufficiencies in the evidence that led our office to drop the
charges." The letter, signed by State's Atty. Richard Devine,
said the office was changing its position to say "we do
not oppose" Evans' pardon request.
Still, Evans said Blagojevich's
decision was a big surprise. "I was always hoping for the
best," Evans said, "but I was trying to be patient
and was preparing for the worst in 2005."
Now 46, he has worked at a
fast-food chicken restaurant for part of the nearly two years
since he was released, but he has also struggled.
"After doing 27 years
incarcerated for a wrongful conviction, it's hard to find employment
and get recuperated back to society," he said.
Evans said he is enrolling
in a GED course and has given thought to going to college "so
I'll be productive in society."
He said the pardon also would
dispel any lingering belief that he had anything to do with Lisa
Cabassa's murder. Even though his family stood by him, some people
remain convinced of his involvement.
"[My family] always believed
in me that I was always innocent," he said. "But they
were always praying for this great day to manifest."
The years behind bars were
particularly hard on Terry. Shortly after he was imprisoned,
Terry began to deteriorate, and over the years he went from being
a vital teenager preparing for a job interview to a man so debilitated
by mental illness that he was virtually non-verbal.
Now living outside Chicago
with relatives, Terry is not working and remains a cautious man.
"I appreciate it," Terry said in a telephone interview.
"I hope this will really give me freedom."
Urdangen, also an attorney
at the Center on Wrongful Convictions, said the pardon "will
be a strong moral and psychological boost for a man strongly
in need of one.
"His family will be thrilled.
Paul will officially be considered what he is--an innocent man."
Rollins was released last July
after DNA tests exonerated him of the 1993 rape of an elderly
Chicago woman. He had served 11 years of a 75-year sentence.
At the time of his arrest, Chicago police said he confessed.
Rollins, who celebrated his
29th birthday Dec. 28, has been unable to find a job. "Every
time I try to get a job, they ask about my background and when
I say I just got out of prison, they look at me sideways. I've
been trying. But I just can't do nothing."
The pardon, he said, will "give
me the freedom to fulfill my dreams, to accomplish my goals."
His dream, he said, is to be a fashion designer. "I have
200 designs for women's shoes and boots," he said. "I
want to design women's clothes."
"In a way, the ends of
criminal cases are anti-climactic," Daniel said. "Clients
get exonerated, sentences get set aside and charges are dropped
by prosecutors with no further comments.
"These pardons wrap up
the criminal cases in such a meaningful way," she said.
"The highest elected official of the state offers closure
to the long, devastating legal battles, finally saying, `You
are innocent.'"
- - -
Four men pardoned
Gov. Rod Blagojevich pardoned
four Chicago men who were recently exonerated by DNA testing.
Michael Evans and Paul Terry
Year convicted: 1977
Released: August 2003
Convicted of a 1976 abduction,
rape and murder of a 9-year-old and had been sentenced to 200
to 400 years in prison.
LaFonso Rollins
Year convicted: 1994
Released: July 2003
Convicted of a 1993 rape of
an elderly Chicago woman and had been sentenced to 75 years in
prison.
Dana Holland
Year convicted: 1995
Released: June 2003
Convicted of a 1993 rape on
the South Side; released after being acquitted in a retrial of
a related charge of attempted murder. Had been sentenced to 90
years in prison.
Chicago Tribune
Copyright © 2005, Chicago
Tribune
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
