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NEWS & LETTERS,
January-February 2003
Illinois
Death Row pardons highlight system of injustice
Ruth
Pena was born and raised in Puerto Rico and immigrated to Chicago in 1975. She
became active in the movement to free the wrongfully convicted when her brother,
Angel Rodriguez, was framed by Chicago police in 1998 and sentenced to 60 years
in prison. In 1999, she co-founded the Comité Exigimos Justicia (‘We Demand
Justice’ Committee). Angel’s case was overturned in March 2000. Ruth has
continued to struggle on behalf of the wrongfully convicted. She was interviewed
by Jason Wallach for NEWS & LETTERS. --EDITOR Comité
Exigimos Justicia (CEJ) began in April of 1999 with three family members of
people who had been wrongfully convicted. At the time, we thought it was just
coincidence that there were three people that had been wrongfully convicted, but
as we began to look at the cases, we saw that it was a systemic problem. And
that was further documented when we learned that in the three cases it was the
same detective, same tactics. What
is amazing is that all these people have been convicted when, for each, no
physical evidence linking the accused to the crime was ever produced; just the
testimony of the detective who claims that investigators get their information
through an informant or a phantom call, and eventually someone comes forth with
"eyewitness" testimony. Documentation has proven that eyewitness
testimony is unreliable, especially in violent crimes. Governor
Ryan's pardon of four wrongfully convicted men [Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley,
Leroy Orange and Stanley Howard] and commuting the sentences of 167 people on
Death Row mean that people have realized that the system is broken. Not only has
he commuted the sentences, but he has pretty much attacked the entire judicial
system in Chicago. Four people were pardoned. Three people were given 40 years
and the rest were commuted to life in prison. I think that it opened the doors
for a lot of people because the community is outraged that it is not just one
case, but that we have a systemic problem. We
worked with other organizations in influencing Ryan's decision. One organization
alone may set up a strategy, but it takes a lot of different people to make
these wrongful convictions known. There's a lot of solidarity. We
played a big role in getting the Mexican consulate involved in the cases of the
Mexican nationals. Two of them were involved in cases investigated by Detective
Guevara. Mario Flores [one of the Death Row inmates whose sentence was commuted
to 40 years--ed.] was not aware that Guevara was involved in other cases until
CEJ contacted him. He, in turn, contacted his attorney Leonard Goodman who
researched Guevara. He documented that Guevara is a rogue cop who does whatever
is needed to close a case--and in the process has been promoted several times.
Many cases have been reversed, revealing Guevara’s games. If
the prosecutors that fabricate or hide evidence in order to get a conviction are
not held accountable, then there is nothing that is going to stop them. The same
thing with the detectives. Nothing will ever stop until their jobs are on the
line. Right now, we don’t have people on Death Row. And nothing has changed
except that the people who were on Death Row are no longer there. The system
itself has not changed. The
movement in support of the wrongfully convicted needs to strategize now to see
that something is done to hold [prosecutors and detectives] accountable--that
there is some legislation. This is a great time to work at it because people
have a lot of energy. It has given a lot of hope for the people who thought that
there was no hope. The fight hasn’t started. It is just a little crack open so
that we can continue the struggle. Let’s
not forget the prosecutors because a lot of times people shouldn’t be
arrested, but once they are, the prosecutors come in and work with the
detectives. In some of these cases, the accused doesn’t know how to speak
English, and the interrogation will have no translator. Often the accused
doesn’t know what he is signing. So it’s not just the cops. It’s also the
prosecutors--they go hand in hand. Of course, there are judges involved, and
there are prosecutors who end up getting promoted because of their conviction
records. It is the system, the entire system. You
shouldn’t have to go through all this red tape to ask the governor to pardon
you for something you didn’t do in the first place. One
of the people that we need to hold accountable is Mayor Richard Daley. He was
the prosecutor on the Death Row [Ten] cases. He hid information that [former
Area 2 Chief Detective Jon] Burge terrorized and tortured people. The
prosecutor, the state's attorney’s office knew what was going on. They either
looked the other way or cooperated. There’s no way that you can walk into a
room where somebody’s just been tortured and not be able to tell that
something happened. [Current State's Attorney] Dick Devine was Daley's assistant. It has taken over ten years to document [what happened] and these people [in power] are putting holds on [the investigations]. How could you expect the truth to come out when the people who were responsible are now on top trying to quiet everything down? If these people are out of the way, we could open up a lot more cases. People need to organize. Write letters if you need to, but unite, organize and protest! |
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