Legal Commentary

Illinois Convicts Real Killer 14 Years After Wrongfully Convicted Man Is Released

By TChris

Jeralyn told the story of Rolando Cruz way back in 2002. Cruz, Alejandro Hernandez and another man were charged with raping and murdering a 10-year-old girl who was abducted from her home in Naperville, Illinois in 1983. Cruz and Hernandez were convicted and sentenced to death in 1985. (The jury hung as to the third man and he was never recharged.)

All three men were innocent. The crime was actually committed by Brian Dugan, who went on to murder a 27-year-old woman in 1984 and a 7-year-old girl in 1985. If the police hadn't been so busy fabricating evidence against Cruz and his co-defendants, they might have apprehended Dugan before he committed those later crimes and Cruz would have been spared the 11 years he spent on death row.

Even worse, police and prosecutors knew in late 1985 that Dugan was the killer because he offered to confess to the 1983 murder during plea negotiations concerning the two subsequent homicides. They chose not to believe Dugan because he said he committed the crime alone -- a fact that made the death sentences imposed on Cruz and Hernandez rather inconvenient for the prosecutors who obtained them. [more ...]

As Jeralyn wrote here, the convictions were twice overturned on appeal, but that didn't stop prosecutors from bringing Cruz to trial a third time in 1995 -- despite Dugan's confession and despite DNA tests that linked Dugan to the murder. It was only after a law enforcement witness against Cruz acknowledged committing perjury that the judge in the third trial took the rare step of directing a verdict of acquittal, sparing Cruz from the risk of being convicted and sentenced to death a third time. The charges against Hernandez were dismissed later that year.

Another ten years lapsed after Cruz' 1995 acquittal before prosecutors finally charged Dugan with the 1983 murder and rape. The case against Dugan was supported by a new, more sophisticated DNA analysis conducted in 2002. This week, Dugan entered guilty pleas to the charges.

The question now is whether Dugan will be sentenced to death. Given the nearly dozen years he spent on death row, Cruz thinks it's only fair that the real killer should receive the same sentence. Dugan's lawyers, on the other hand, argue that Dugan's 1985 admission was intended to spare Cruz from the death penalty and should be considered as a mitigating circumstance. A jury will decide Dugan's fate at a sentencing trial scheduled to begin on September 22.

Meanwhile, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn said that the state's moratorium on executions should remain in place until reforms can be implemented to ensure that innocent defendants like Cruz never again face the death penalty. That day will never come, a fact that Quinn surely understands even if he lacks the political courage to admit it. No system of determining guilt is foolproof. The understandable outrage the public feels about the brutal and vicious acts that Dugan committed can't change that reality. The only way to assure that innocent people aren't executed is to eliminate death as a sentencing option.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 31, 2009 (boomark / email).