Chronology of the case of Will Evans
Compiled by Rob Warden
Copyright — 2006, Center on Wrongful Convictions
Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern University School of Law
December 23, 1911 — A light-skinned black man allegedly attempts to rape Laura Johnson, a black woman in her thirties, as she walks along railroad tracks near the town of Grand Chain in Pulaski County, Illinois, at approximately 7:00 p.m. At approximately the same time, a railroad car is being broken into by two black men in the Alexander County town of Cairo, some twenty-five miles from Grand Chain.
December 26, 1911 — Will Evans is arrested by a Pulaski County deputy sheriff and taken to the county jail in Mound City. Unaware of the attempted rape and assuming that he has been arrested for the Cairo crime, Evans gives a false name — Sam White. The victim of the alleged attempted rape identifies Evans by his voice, saying it sounds like that of the man who raped her. Six other witnesses view Evans in jail and claim to have seen him in the vicinity of the crime three days earlier.
January 19, 1912 — Evans is tried, under the name Sam White, before an all-white jury and Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Webster W. Duncan. The victim positively identifies Evans in court, saying she is now certain he is the man who tried to rape her. Evans takes the stand, denying the crime, but does not mention the Cairo crime. The jury deliberates only minutes before returning a verdict of guilty. Judge Duncan sentences him to ninety-nine years in prison. Evans belatedly reveals his actual identity to his court-appointed lawyer, George E. Martin.
January 23, 1912 — At Martin’s behest, Cairo Police Chief Martin S. Egan comes to the Pulaski County jail in Mound City and identifies Evans. Egan tells Martin and, a little later in the day, Judge Duncan that he interrupted a robbery of an Illinois Central railcar at 7:15 p.m. on December 23, 1911, and recognized one of the two men involved as Evans.(The second man involved in the railcar break-in was Evans’s brother Oscar, who had been arrested at the time.) Martin asks Judge Duncan to vacate Evans’s conviction, but Duncan says it is too late for that.
September 19, 1914 — Judge Duncan writes a letter to the Illinois Board of Pardons saying that Martin will soon file a petition seeking a gubernatorial pardon for Evans. Duncan says he has "great confidence" in Chief Egan’s integrity and that Egan’s story "has convinced me that the Negro was wrongfully convicted of the crime of assault to rape." The leter concludes that Evans "is probably in the penitentiary rightfully, but upon the wrong charge."
October 7, 1914 — Martin files Evans’s petition, which is supported by statements from Egan and eleven other witnesses attesting that Evans had been in Cairo at the time of the attempted rape in Grand Chain.
April 18, 1916 — Governor Edward F. Dunn denies Evans’s pardon application based on a negative recommendation from the Board of Pardons.
June 30, 1916 — Alexander County State’s Attorney Alexander Wilson writes the Board of Pardons urging reconsideration of Evans’s case. The letter declares that "an innocent Negro is serving a life sentence" and concludes, "I have no interest in this nigger but am fair enough to any human being to see that he is guilty before being punished."
April 4, 1924 — Evans files a second petition for a pardon, pro se. (The petition is dated January 21, 1924, but not stamped filed until this date.)
May 7, 1925 — Governor Lennington Small denies Evans’s second pardon application based on another negative recommendation from the Board of Pardons.
February 13, 1932 — Evans files a third petition for a pardon, pro se.
April 23, 1932 — Governor Louis Lincoln Emmerson grants Evans a pardon, acknowledging that he "had been the victim of mistaken identity."
