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NEWS & LETTERS, APRIL 2003
Dennis Williams
Dennis Williams, 47, died March 20. He was one of the
Ford Heights Four, and as such he spent 18 years on Death Row for a crime he did
not commit. The suit brought against Cook County, Illinois by him and his
co-defendants made him a millionaire, but could not restore his youth and early
adulthood. On July 2, 1996 I took the day off work so I could stand
in a courtroom and hear Judge Thomas Fitzgerald say to Dennis, Kenneth Adams and
Willie Range, “All the convictions are vacated.” My knees went weak and I
nearly cried. After he became free, Dennis responded to requests to
speak about the death penalty and wrongful convictions. At a Northwestern
University forum, a student questioned him on how he had maintained his
integrity through an ordeal that had taken away half his life. His reply:
You have to understand the power of innocence. Not he nor his
co-defendants, Adams, Verneal Jimerson, and Range ever cooperated with crooked
law enforcement or prosecutors who plied them with threats and blandishments to
testify against each other. The last time I saw Dennis was at an event where
Governor George Ryan announced the pardon of Paula Jones, the 16-year-old who
had been coerced and terrified into testifying against the four. None of
the four held her testimony against her because they knew that she was also a
victim. It comforted me to know that he had won some of his battles
and that he stuck it to the people who had framed and betrayed him. I’m going
to miss that comfort now. He was the first person I ever talked to on the
phone from death row. I hate knowing that that young, stubborn life is
gone. --January |
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