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BREAKING NEWS
The Englewood Four Are Exonerated
Today marks the end of a very long ordeal for four Chicago
men who were unjustly convicted as teenagers. After 17 years, Michael Saunders,
Harold Richardson, Vincent Thames and Terrill Swift—have finally been
exonerated of the 1994 murder of Nina Glover. The State’s Attorney’s Office announced
at a hearing today that they are dismissing the indictments against the four
men. The decision follows a judge’s November 2011 order to vacate the four
convictions.
Saunders, Richardson, Thames and Swift have spent most of
their adult lives in prison. They were between the ages of 15 and 18 when they
arrested. Based on false confessions and without a shred of physical evidence,
they were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 30-40 years in prison. Their
cases, and others in Cook County, reveal a dangerous pattern of injustice based
on false confessions. The Innocence Project is calling on Cook County to
conduct a review of all cases involving juvenile confessions. In the past four
months, ten people have been exonerated through DNA testing in Illinois after
being unjustly convicted based on confessions they gave as teenagers.
Innocence Project supporters and others played a role in today’s
victory by continuing to pressure State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to join in
seeking to overturn convictions of the “Englewood Four.” Prosecutors knew for
nearly a year that DNA testing implicated a convicted murderer and cleared the
four men, yet they stood by the wrongful convictions. In that time, more than
70,000 people signed a petition calling for their exonerations.
Although all four men had already been released,
today heralds the beginning of their new lives out of state supervision and on
their own. Saunders says “It’s been a long time coming, and now that it’s over
I just want to take it all in.”
The four men are represented by the Innocence Project, the
Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth, the Exoneration Project of the
University of Chicago Law School and Valorem Law Group.
Thank you for your part in this and for your continued
commitment to justice,
Maddy deLone
Executive Director
The Innocence Project
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