Heywood Pugh Case Data
Compiled by Rob Warden
Copyright © 2006, Center on Wrongful Convictions
Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern University School of Law
Crime date: September 5, 1936
Jurisdiction: Cook County, Illinois
Crime: Murder
Related crime(s): Robbery
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Race or ethnicity: African American
Arrest date: September 17, 1936
Victim: Walter J. Haag
Victim’s occupation: Railway Express Agency driver
Victim’s gender: Male
Victim’s race: White
Victim’s age: 42
How defendant became a suspect: Happened to be in vicinity where crime occurred twelve days after the fact.
Principal evidence of defendant’s guilt: Signed confession
Principal defense: Claim confession was beaten out of him
Type of trial: Jury (all-white)
Conviction date: January 17, 1937
Convicted of: Murder
Sentence: Life
Appellate record: None (there was no direct appeal, and Fowler died in 1949)
Basis for exoneration: Exculpatory information police had withheld for seventeen years — statements from two eyewitnesses to the murder identifying the killer as Eddie Leison, a south side thug
Legal form of exoneration: Charges dismissed
Release date: June 23, 1953
Days of incarceration: 6,127
Prior record: None
Compensation: $51,000 — $3,000 for each year Pugh was wrongfully incarcerated
