BY JOHN STUDER
CHICAGO - After serving almost 17 years on Illinois death
row, Anthony Porter was released February 5 after a professor
and students at the Northwestern University department of
journalism exposed the fact that he had been railroaded to
prison by the Chicago cops and the State Attorney's office.
They amassed clear evidence that Porter was
innocent - including an affidavit from the state's central
witness against Porter that he had been browbeaten for 15
hours by the cops into giving false testimony to frame
Porter, and a videotape of a Milwaukee man confessing he had
committed the shooting Porter was sentenced to death for.
"We start by blaming the police for the worst kind of railroading I've ever seen," David Protess, the Northwestern professor who led the journalism school group that broke open the case, told reporters after Porter was freed. The evidence showed Anthony Liace, the Chicago cop who pointed at Porter at his trial in 1983 and identified him as running from the scene of the shooting, lied on the stand. Porter was at home playing cards with his nieces and nephews.
Porter's attorney, E. Duke O'Neill, decided to let the trial judge, who had a reputation as a "hanging judge," rather than the jury rule on whether Porter would be executed or sentenced to life in prison. O'Neill made this decision, according to affidavits collected by the journalism school team, because it required less work on his part and he had not been paid his full fee by the Porter family.
Porter had been scheduled for execution Sept. 23, 1998. Two days before, the Illinois Supreme Court granted Porter's attorneys more time to show that he was not mentally fit to stand trial.
When Porter, who is Black, was released from Cook County Jail, he was greeted by Dennis Williams, another former Illinois death row inmate, as well as by family. Others present included Rolando Cruz, who had won freedom after 10 years on death row, David Protess, and Northwestern students.
Porter's case has reignited a debate in Illinois over the death penalty. Since 1977, when the death penalty was reinstated here, 11 people have been put to death and 10 have been freed after their convictions were torn apart. While Blacks make up only 10 percent of the population of Illinois, 102 of the 161 prisoners on death row today are African Americans. Some forces refuse to admit there are any problems in Porter's case. The Chicago cops, for instance, are refusing to review their handling of the case.
Governor George Ryan, who initially reacted by saying that the freeing of Porter showed that "the system worked," now says he will call a "summit meeting" of state officials to "study the system."
Chicago mayor Richard Daley, the former State's Attorney whose office prosecuted Anthony Porter and who has called himself "pro-death," has called for a temporary postponement of executions while the cases of those currently on death row are reviewed. Others have called for a one-year moratorium on executions to allow for review of the process of capital punishment. State Representative Coy Pugh has submitted a bill to this effect.
The Chicago Sun-Times ran an op-ed article by Seymour Simon, a former Illinois Supreme Court justice, calling on the governor to stop executions while a committee composed of the state attorney general, the seven members of the Supreme Court, the majority leader of the state Senate, and the speaker of the House studies what has "gone wrong with" the death penalty in Illinois.
Demonstrators disrupted the Chicago City Council meeting February 10, holding up banners reading "Moratorium Now."
"My party, the Socialist Workers Party, supports every step that stops executions," Joshua Carroll, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor, said in a statement. "At the same time, we oppose proposals to use a temporary moratorium to set up a `blue ribbon panel' to clean up the death penalty. The goal of these proposals is to let the public outcry subside and to institute minor reforms in order to win acquiescence to continued use of the death penalty, allowing the state to get back to the business of murder and intimidation.
"The only answer to the anti-working-class horror of the death penalty is to abolish it, today, once and for all," Carroll said. He explained the death penalty "is a weapon of terror wielded by the ruling class and its courts against the working class, especially Blacks and Latinos, in order to keep them cowed." He added that the rulers are "preparing to use it more, not less, as battles over jobs, wages, entitlements, and democratic rights heat up today."
Pointing to the fact that the state plans to execute Andrew Kokoraleis on March 17, Carroll urged workers to use the victory in Porter's case to fight to stop this killing.
John Studer is a member of United Steelworkers of America Local 1011.