DNA Exonerates Marlon Pendleton
Marlon Pendleton in 2006. (Photo: Jennifer Linzer)
Marlon Pendleton, 49, was convicted in 1993 of a sexual assault that occurred in Chicago the previous year. His conviction rested entirely on identification testimony of the victim. He was exonerated and released from prison on November 30, 2006, after DNA testing established his innocence.
Pendleton repeatedly requested DNA testing before trial, but Pamela Fish, a Chicago Police Department forensic analyst, falsely claimed that the amount of semen recovered from the victim was too small to yield a result.
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Stanley Sacks ordered testing in 2006 over the objection of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
In 2011, Pendleton, then 54, was convicted in Lake County, Indiana, of the involuntary manslaughter of his girlfriend, 45-year-old Dannette Adkins, and sentenced to 17 years in prison. — Rob Warden
