The Role of False Confessions in Illinois Wrongful Murder Convictions since 1970
Center on Wrongful Convictions Research Report
By Rob Warden
Executive Director, Center on Wrongful Convictions
Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern University School of Law
with research assistance from Jennifer Linzer, Sarah Lively, Judith Royal and Brianna Smith
Revised May 12, 2003
Until recent years, false confessions, false forensic evidence, and, more generally, wrongful convictions were widely assumed by the legal profession and general public alike to be only regrettable anomalies in an otherwise well-functioning criminal justice system.
Most Americans - not excepting jurors and judges - find it almost incomprehensible that someone would confess to a crime he or she did not commit, absent, of course, torture or serious mental derangement. In recent years, however, we have seen that confessions and other highly inculpatory evidence sometimes are not what they seem.
Since 1970, 42 wrongful murder convictions have been documented in Illinois. Twenty-five of the convictions, or 59.5%, rested in whole or part on false confessions. Fourteen of the cases involved the defendant's own confession. Three of the 14 also involved confessions of co-defendants, and the remaining 11 stemmed principally from co-defendants' false confessions. Of the 25 cases, all but two involved additional obvious problems - including dubious forensic evidence, police failure to pursue viable alternative suspects, incorrect or perjured eyewitness identifications, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective assistance of defense counsel.
This report analyzes known Illinois wrongful convictions, but does not purport to reflect the full extent of the problem - for two reasons. First, the actual extent is unknown. The systemic problems that contribute to convictions of the innocent become visible only when innocence has been established; whatever problems there may have been in other cases cannot be analyzed for the simple reason that the cases themselves are not known. Second, every problem that may have contributed to a wrongful conviction also is unknown. For instance, when a witness commits perjury he or she might do so because of police or prosecutorial misconduct. While the perjury may be plain, however, precisely why it occurred may not.
It also should be noted that we make no claim of infallibility in the assessment of actual innocence, or in identifying the factors that led to the convictions analyzed in this report. Such assessments must be, to some extent, subjective. What we have tried to do is provide an accurate, intellectually honest description of each case - and we invite anyone aware of errors or additional facts that might put a case in a different light to call such information to our attention.
With those caveats, the 44 cases in this study are cases either (1) in which actual innocence has been acknowledged by courts or (2) in which prosecutors have dismissed charges after appellate courts have reversed convictions and raised substantive questions about either the validity or sufficiency of the evidence.
Findings
Of the 42 defendants whose wrongful convictions in Illinois murder cases have been documented since 1970:
- 14 (33.3%) either falsely confessed or authorities claimed they had confessed during questioning.
- 14 (33.3%) were charged and convicted based in whole or part on a codefendant's false confession or perjured testimony.
- 3 (7.1%) both confessed - or were said to have confessed - and were implicated by a codefendant's false confession or perjured testimony.
- Of the 25 wrongfully convicted defendants who confessed or were convicted based at least in part on a codefendant's confession:
- 13 (52.0%) were inculpated in part by police misconduct.
- 10 (40.0%) by prosecutorial misconduct.
- 11 (44.0%) by false or misleading forensic evidence.
- 10 (24.0%) by incorrect or perjured eyewitness identification testimony.
- 6 (24.0%) by non-eyewitness perjury - most often testimony of informants who claimed the defendant confessed while in jail.
Of the 42 wrongful murder convictions:
- 23 (54.8%) might have been avoided if authorities had diligently pursued viable alternative suspects known before trial.
- 8 (19.0%) might have been avoided had the defendant received effective assistance of counsel.
Of the 25 wrongful convictions based on false confessions:
- 13 (52.0%) might have been avoided if authorities had diligently pursued viable alternative suspects known before trial.
- 5 (25%) might have been avoided had the defendant received effective assistance of counsel.
Appendicies
Summaries of the cases of 44 defendants who were convicted of murder in Illinois and subsequently legally exonerated - Appendix A.
Chart identifying factors contributing to convictions in the documented Illinois wrongful murder conviction cases - Appendix B.
