By Steve Mills, Chicago Tribune reporter
June 29, 2013
The evidence on which Daniel Taylor pinned his hopes for
someday being released from prison never really changed — police records
showing that he was in a Chicago police lockup when a brutal double murder
occurred in November 1992.
But over the more than two decades since his arrest, Taylor
experienced setback after setback. In spite of his powerful evidence, he was
taken to trial, convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in prison. He saw his
appeals routinely turned back by various courts.
What's more, he was repeatedly rebuffed by Cook County
prosecutors who put more stock in his lengthy confession than they did in the
police records — and even the testimony of police officers.
It seemed, Taylor said, that nothing would win him back his
freedom.
But then during a brief court hearing Friday at the Leighton
Criminal Court Building, a Cook County prosecutor announced that the office was
finally dismissing Taylor's conviction. Hours later, he was freed from Menard
Correctional Center in southern Illinois.
The Tribune first brought the controversial case to light in
2001 as part of an investigation into false confessions. In the dozen years
since then, Taylor's plight has remained an example to some of the difficulty
in persuading prosecutors to reverse course when DNA evidence isn't at issue.
In his only interview Friday after his release from Menard,
Taylor told the Tribune he was lifting weights when he was called in from the
yard by guards. Told to see a counselor, Taylor, who didn't even know of the
last-minute court hearing in Chicago, feared he was about to be given bad news
Learning of his newfound freedom set in motion a whirlwind
for several hours for Taylor. He was allowed to say goodbye to his friends,
including a co-defendant who, he said, began to weep.
Taylor left most of his belongings behind, but he made sure
to give away his books — to inmates he believed would read them and not just
use them for show in their cells.
He walked out of the maximum-security prison into a hot and
sunny late afternoon with $41 in his pocket — into the embrace of his brother,
his brother's fiancee as well as a mother whom he had not seen since his trial
in 1995.
After exchanging hugs and kisses, a prison official told
Taylor and his family that they had to leave the parking lot.
"Like I wanted to stay on the property," he said,
laughing.
Taylor swapped shoes with his brother, David, donning the
Nikes even though they were too small. The brothers joked about the gray in
Taylor's neatly trimmed beard.
While prison was frustrating and he sometimes tired of
having to show an angry face to other inmates, Taylor said he knew his fight
for freedom would be lengthy and never considered giving up.
"I knew they wouldn't do the right thing
immediately," he said as he later sat down to eat a chicken sandwich for
dinner. "It would be an understatement to say I'm angry about it. But it's
an anger that's in check and understood."
With Taylor's seemingly strong alibi, the question remained
why it took so long for the Cook County state's attorney's office to dismiss
the conviction.
In a statement, State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said her
decision followed a detailed review by her conviction integrity unit and her
judgment that Taylor's release was in "the interest of justice."
But several factors could have played a role in the
drawn-out process for a case that spanned the tenure of three elected state's
attorneys: Jack O'Malley, whose office tried the case, and successors Dick
Devine and Alvarez, both of whom — until Friday — aggressively fought to
preserve the conviction.
As David Erickson, a former Illinois Appellate Court judge
and onetime high-ranking prosecutor, noted Friday, the criminal justice system
just "moves slow."
Taylor's case also lacked DNA evidence, often the impetus
for courts to reverse convictions or for prosecutors to abandon them. It also
featured confessions by Taylor and all seven of his co-defendants. Each
implicated one another.
Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
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