CHICAGO (AP) — A Cook County judge has thrown out
the convictions of four men in a 17-year-old murder after new DNA evidence
linked someone else to the crime.
Judge Paul Biebel on Wednesday also ordered a new
trial for all four men: Michael Saunders, Harold Richardson, Terrill Swift and
Vincent Thames. The four were teenagers when they were convicted in the murder
of 30-year-old Nina Glover in Chicago.
Their attorneys say their confessions were coerced.
DNA links another man — now dead — to the crime.
Rob Warden of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at
Northwestern University says there have been more than 100 exonerations in
Illinois since 1989. Of those, 31 involve new DNA evidence.
Warden says there have been 25 documented false
confessions leading to wrongful convictions in Cook County.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
