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Forensics: Chicago
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Harold Hill
and Dan Young
DNA Clears Two Of Rape,
Murder Convictions
Chicago Tribune, January
31, 2005
CHICAGO -- Ten years after
Harold Hill and Dan Young were sentenced to life imprisonment
on rape and murder charges, prosecutors Monday dropped all charges
in the case because new DNA results could not link the pair to
the crime.
At a hearing before Criminal
Court Judge Kenneth Wadas, Assistant State's Attorney Celeste
Stack dropped the state's opposition to a motion for new trials
in the Oct. 14, 1990, slaying of Kathy Morgan.
Stack then formally dropped
the case.
The hearing lasted less than
three minutes, and at its end, Wadas ordered, "Release defendants
-- this case only."
Young, 44, and Hill, 31, remained
at the Pontiac Correctional Center during the hearing. But just
before 3 p.m. Monday, Young walked into the winter cold, a free
man.
"I feel better about being
out of here," Young said, moments after leaving the corrections
facility. "I shoulda never been here the first time."
The exonerated man later celebrated
his freedom with a dinner of fried chicken and cake.
The prosecutors and defense
attorney Kathleen Zellner said Hill still had about three years
left on an unrelated armed robbery conviction.
Morgan was found raped and
strangled Oct. 14, 1990, in a burning abandoned building at 1435
W. Garfield Blvd. Police arrested Young and Hill in 1992, and
two years later each was convicted and sentenced to serve life
in prison.
After the hearing Monday, First
Assistant State's Attorney Robert Milan said the cases pre-dated
use of DNA testing in Illinois courts, and repeated subsequent
testing failed to link the pair to the crime scene.
The decision was made to drop
the case after testing of DNA evidence found under the victim's
fingernails and on her clothing excluded Hill and Young, NBC5's
Renee Ferguson reported.
Stack estimated that the Cook
County State's Attorney's Office spent nearly $100,000 reviewing
the case.
"This is a case that was
troubling from the get-go," Milan said. "We took the
evidence where it led us."
Zellner said the wrongful convictions
were the result of nearly identical false confessions, and bite-mark
evidence that was tenuous at best.
"There were obviously
a few people who contributed to these men being wrongfully convicted,"
Zellner said. "Once again we have a situation of a false
confession."
Young told reporters he had
no idea what was on the paper he signed.
"They beat me and made
me sign a confession. I can't read or write," Young said.
Stack said bite-mark analysis,
unlike DNA, is a subjective science, noting that about half of
the seven dental experts who reviewed the evidence could not
exclude Young or Hill.
Zellner, who represents several
defendants in post-conviction cases, praised prosecutors for
their dedication to reopening the case.
"The state's attorney
did a wonderful job on pursuing this," Zellner said. "We
went to two different labs, we had dental experts from Canada
-- we tested everything."
Zellner said civil suits were
likely forthcoming from both defendants, but did not offer specifics.
Young's sister, Betty Ray,
called her brother's exoneration "long overdue," and
said she knew all along he was framed.
"You know your brother,
and this is something he could never have done," Ray said.
"I believe they (police) just wanted to pin this on somebody
to close the case, and they got the wrong guy. Thank God for
DNA."
Both Milan and Stack said they
could not meet their burden of proof at a new trial, but Stack
stopped short of saying the men were innocent.
"I don't know if they're
innocent," Stack said. "That's something I can't answer."
Authorities do not know who
killed Morgan. Attorneys on both sides said the focus of the
Morgan case must now shift to finding the real killers.
Milan said that, so far, none
of the DNA profiles collected has matched anyone in the FBI computer
system.
He also said that, thanks to
evidence such as DNA and a rigorous screening process, false
convictions like Young and Hill have become increasingly unlikely.
"Today we have the luxury
of DNA. ... They didn't have that then," Milan said. "We
feel pretty good about how we review cases in 2005."
http://www.nbc5.com/news/4147192/detail.html?z=dp&dpswid=2265994&dppid=65193
More
Forensics under the microscope
2 men exonerated in 1990
murder
By Steve Mills and Jeff
Coen, Tribune staff reporters, January 31, 2005
Cook County prosecutors today
dropped murder charges against two men who have spent more than
12 years behind bars, after DNA test results undermined their
confessions and testimony from a dentist who implicated the two
through a bite mark and a hickey.
Dan Young Jr. and Harold Hill
were exonerated after a forensic dental expert reexamined the
bite mark on the victim's body, and a final round of DNA tests
again came back and failed to implicate the two defendants.
The case against Young and
Hill was featured in the Tribune's October 2004 series, "Forensics
Under the Microscope," which exposed the use of faulty forensics
in the courtroom.
The series showed how bite
mark testimony has been used as a prosecutorial tool though there
is no accurate way to measure its reliability, and the story
quoted a dentist used by the prosecution against Young and Hill
as saying he felt "pushed" to testify in a harsh light.
The Tribune first wrote about questions surrounding the case
in 2001, in a series that investigated how police obtained false
confessions.
Young was to be immediately
released, while Hill was still being held on a separate robbery
conviction.
"We took the evidence
where it led us," said Cook County Assistant State's Atty.
Bob Milan, who acknowledged that the case against Young and Hill
was "troubling from the get-go."
Today's hearing before Criminal
Courts Judge Kenneth Wadas lasted only two minutes. Prosecutors
first withdrew their opposition to a new trial for the two men,
then moved to drop the charges against them.
Young was released today from
the Illinois state penitentiary in Pontiac. Hill will remain
behind bars, though the attorney for the men said Hill's sentence
was enhanced by the now-vacated murder conviction and he, too,
should be set free.
The attorney, Kathleen Zellner,
said the "case was flawed from the beginning," noting
that a third man charged in the case was set free not long after
his arrest after police discovered he was in jail when the murder
occurred.
Like Young and Hill, that man
also confessed to police.
Young and Hill were sentenced
to life in prison without parole after their 1994 convictions
for the killing of Kathy Morgan, 39, whose body was found in
a South Side building in 1990 after firefighters were summoned
to extinguish a blaze.
The two have long contended
they were innocent.
Their exoneration today followed
a report last month that discredited the only physical evidence
that linked them to the slaying.
Dr. David Sweet, considered
one of the top forensic dental experts in the world, said in
a report sent Dec. 13 to defense and prosecution attorneys that
a bite mark on the victim was not suitable for comparison because
the body had been damaged by a fire apparently set to cover up
the crime.
The report rebutted testimony
given by Park Ridge dentist John Kenney that Young and Hill were
responsible for marks on Morgan.
The state's attorney's office
and Zellner had jointly agreed upon Sweet to analyze the evidence
and to accept his opinion.
Hill had sought a new trial
based on the dental examination as well as previous DNA tests
that failed to link them to the crime. The DNA tests that have
been completed to date have identified the genetic profiles of
two other unknown men.
Latest test results of DNA
taken from the victim's clothing again came back negative for
the two defendants, prosecutors said today.
The only other evidence linking
Young and Hill were alleged confessions to detectives. Those
confessions have been questioned because police at the time said
a third man, Peter Williams, had confessed as well. After police
learned Williams was in jail at the time of the crime, he was
released.
Hill, who was 16 when Morgan
was killed, was arrested on unrelated charges about 18 months
after the slaying. Chicago police detectives Kenneth Boudreau
and John Halloran obtained a confession from him saying that
he, Young and Williams all took part in the crime.
Two days later, detectives
arrested Young, who court-appointed doctors said had an IQ of
56, which is 14 points below the most commonly used benchmark
for determining retardation. Young said police beat him.
Williams was the last to be
arrested. He gave the most detailed confession, but he later
said he was handcuffed to a radiator for hours and urinated on
himself because he was not allowed to use a bathroom.
The detectives denied they
abused the men.
After this morning's court
hearing, Young's sister, Betty Ray, said her family always knew
he was innocent.
"You know your brother,
you know your family," Ray said. "This is something
you know that he could never, ever have done."
Police simply wanted to clear
the murder, Ray said. She added, "They just wanted to pin
it on someone and close the case fast, in a hurry, but they picked
the wrong guys."
Prosecutors said they spent
tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in reviews
of the case and new testing. In the end, there was not enough
evidence to pursue the matter in good faith, Milan said.
The new lab work included testing
at the forefront of current forensic science, prosecutors said.
In no test was DNA from either Young or Hill isolated, they said.
Milan said today's investigators
have the "luxury" of such evidence, which was not available
when charges were first brought in the case. If the case had
been brought in 2005, it would not have resulted in charges,
he said.
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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
