Five innocent teens exonerated of 1991 rape; three of the defendants falsely confessed
Robert Taylor with his father (CWC Photo)On Thursday, November 3, 2011 Cook County prosecutors moved to vacate the convictions of three of five innocent teenagers convicted two decades ago of a rape murder they didn’t commit, but to which three of the defendants confessed. The two whose convictions have not yet been vacated already were free, having served their sentences. Prosecutors indicated they soon will move to vacate those convictions as well.
Those whose convictions were vacated Thursday are Robert Taylor, who is represented by Center on Wrongful Convictions attorneys Joshua Tepfer, Laura Nirider, and Steven Drizin; James Harden, who is represented by Peter Neufeld and Craig Cooley of the New York Innocence Project and Jonathan Barr, who is represented by Tara Thompson of the University of Chicago Exoneration Project. Taylor and Hardin each were sentenced to 80 years in prison and Barr to 85 years. Taylor was released from Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet on Thursday, and Harden and Barr were scheduled to be released from Menard Correctional Center on Friday.
Background
Cateresa Matthews, a 14-year-old Rosa Parks Elementary Student, disappeared on November 19, 1991, and was found dead with a gunshot wound through her mouth 19 days later on a path near I-57 in Dixmoor. Eleven months later, the Illinois State Police obtained confessions from three teenage peers of the victim (including CWC client Robert Taylor, who was just 15 years old). The confessions also implicated two other teenagers, James Harden and Jonathan Barr, who the police always suspected. The CCSAO then charged all five teenagers with sexual assault and murder.
The case began to unravel when pre-trial DNA testing of semen recovered from the 14-year-old victim excluded all five charged teenagers as the source. The CCSAO pressed on, however, explaining the DNA results away at trial by arguing that the semen must either belong to a consensual sexual partner of Cateresa, or perhaps could have been left by a wandering necrophiliac who happened upon the body. Indeed, the State felt so strongly that the confessions trumped the DNA evidence that it offered two of the confessors – Robert Lee Veal and Shainne Sharp – sweetheart deals to plead guilty and testify against Taylor, Harden, and Barr. Indeed, without the guilty pleas and testimony of Veal and Sharp, the State would have been forced to drop the charges against Harden and Barr, as they didn’t confess and the State had literally no other evidence against them. All five were convicted, and Harden, Barr, and Taylor remain incarcerated to this day.
In 2010, the CWC found Robert Lee Veal, who immediately recanted his testimony. Not long thereafter, Shainne Sharp did the same. Meanwhile, after a year-long search, the extracts of the previous DNA testing were found, and to the credit of the CCSAO, prosecutors agreed to further DNA testing.
In March 2011 came the bombshell – the DNA matched to a man named Willie Randolph, a serial offender with rape and armed robbery convictions who was 32 years old at the time Cateresa was murdered, but who was currently on the streets. The CWC immediately moved to vacate the defendants’ convictions. Little happened for months as the CCSAO promised the Court that it was “investigating.” It became clear, however, that the investigation was inept at best when the CWC discovered that Randolph had been arrested for a drug charge. When the CWC contacted prosecutors, they admitted that they were unaware of his arrest.
For months during the “reinvestigation,” the CCSAO opposed any form of relief. Given that the DNA exclusion was known at trial, the CCSAO’s position in court filings has been that the results are neither “new” nor “relevant.” Indeed, the CCSAO thinks so little of the fact that a 32-year-old, gun-toting convicted rapist’s semen was in the body of the 14-year-old gunshot victim that they have opposed even the holding of an evidentiary hearing, requesting that our motion be dismissed on the pleading itself. Additionally, as in the Englewood case, they have opposed our efforts to discover information about Randolph’s prior crimes. Meanwhile, Randolph remains in custody on the drug charge with no indication that he will be charged with any crime relating to the rape and murder of Cateresa. -- Rob Warden
