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Season Five Home for the Holidays 5
152 Plays11 days ago
In Today’s Episode, we put together our Home for the Holiday cases.
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Sources:
Various News Sources Mentioned by Name
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Transcript
Introduction & Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Introduction to True Crime XS & Chicago Case
00:00:22
Speaker
This is True Crime XS. All right, so we're doing this Home for the Holidays series, and there's been this trend of cases where I don't know exactly how to tell this story, so I kind of pull up all the information ive I have and put it in front of us. But what we're doing today, we're going over to the south side of Chicago to talk about a case from the early 80s.
00:00:50
Speaker
And you know I spent a lot of time earlier in the year with you, where we were looking at the case of J. Paul Hill, and we did a long extended fall series on his case. So I got to know that like Chicago has this interesting like like history to it that They seem to be trying to get away from their past in some ways as far as like how they've handled crime in general, but like how they've handled defendants and how they've handled a lot of sort of strange cases that have happened. I don't know that there are many that are much more strange than this one.
Background on Crime in Chicago
00:01:29
Speaker
Had you ever heard of today's case before we started looking at it? I don't think so, but I also, um I associated it with another case that I don't think has anything to do with it. So I'm not entirely sure. I may have heard a little bit, but I i may have ah known a little bit about it, but not enough to really do anything with it. I'm not sure if it was this case or the
Details of the Cook County Murder Case
00:01:53
Speaker
other case. okay
00:01:54
Speaker
So today's case is a Cook County murder case, and there's additional convictions in here for robbery and other violent felonies. ah You and I are pulling from a couple of sources. Primarily, we're pulling from the Illinois Innocence Project and the National Registry of Exonerations.
00:02:14
Speaker
But I did notice along the way that there's a book where this case is mentioned. This case pops up on the Center on Wrongful Convictions over at Northwestern Law. mean It also pops up in the Chicago Tribune. The New Yorkers and the the Tribune and ABC Chicago ran a bunch of stories related to this case. And the Milwaukee Journal, it ran an interesting series on this case and a related case.
00:02:42
Speaker
What case did this remind you of? Was that something ah wrongful conviction related? I'm actually not sure, and which is why I'm not sure if this is that case or not. There are elements of it that made me think of a case. I'm i'm fairly certain it's not it. It was very similar.
Anthony Porter's Wrongful Conviction
00:03:02
Speaker
okay so is The reported crime data that happens in 1982, he ends up being convicted in 1983 and is sentenced to death. This is a 27-year-old blackmail and contributing and ah the contributing factors that they list out of the National Registry of Exonerations are ah mistaken witness identification and then perjury or false identification. ah This is a double shooting, double homicide. On August 15th of 1982,
00:03:34
Speaker
Marilyn Green, who was 19 years old, and Jerry Hillard, who was 18. They were shot to death in a park on the south side of Chicago. Immediately after the shooting, police interviewed William Taylor, who had been swimming in the park pool when the murders occurred. At first, William Taylor said he did not see who had committed this double homicide. But later on at the police station, he said that he did see someone.
00:04:02
Speaker
he saw a man named Anthony Porter run by the pool area right after he had heard the shots. After another 17 hours of interrogation, William Taylor's story had changed yet again, and he told police that he actually saw Anthony Porter shoot the victim. Now, Marilyn Green's mother,
00:04:29
Speaker
She told police that she thought the murders had been committed by a man named Alstry
Investigation & Testimonies
00:04:36
Speaker
Simon. That's A-L-S-T-O-R-Y, Simon. And the way she understood the situation was that Jerry Hillard and Mr. Simon had been in an argument over drug money.
00:04:52
Speaker
Marilyn Green's mom went as far as to say that she saw Simon and his wife at the time, Inez Jackson, with the two victims, Jerry Hillard and Marilyn Green, not long before the shooting. So police did go and interview Alstry Simon and Inez Jackson. But according to statements that were later obtained by defense investigators,
00:05:20
Speaker
The police simply showed them a photograph of Anthony Porter and they asked the pair if they had any information about the crime. They responded that they had not been in the park that night. According to the rest of testimony that's gonna not appear for a while, they said they weren't asked any further questions and they never heard from the police again.
00:05:47
Speaker
A few days later, Alstory Simon and Inez Jackson they moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Legal Defense & Financial Constraints
00:05:54
Speaker
Now, for Anthony Porter's part, after hearing that his name had been mentioned in connection with this double homicide, he went into the police station. He told them he was innocent.
00:06:07
Speaker
There was no physical evidence that connected him with the murders, but he ends up being charged with two counts of murder, one count of armed robbery, one count of unlawful restraint, and two counts of unlawful use of weapons. So after he's arrested and charged, he qualifies for a public defender.
00:06:30
Speaker
But his family thinks it might be better for Anthony if they put up the money for a private lawyer. They retained a guy named Akim Gursul. And the family had agreed to pay him $10,000. But by the time Anthony Porter goes to trial, they've only paid about $8,000. What do you think about that? What do I think about qualifying for a public defender and then paying for an attorney?
00:06:59
Speaker
um Well, it this gives us a unique um set of facts and a a situation that we're talking about to discuss that particular thing, right? What is your thought on it? but The specifically saying that like, you know, forego the public defender because you're going to need a private lawyer. Well,
00:07:26
Speaker
Ah, man. I can give you my perspective if you want. i'm I'm glad to hear your perspective first. I do have one. I think it i think my perspective depends on the decade we're talking about and the jurisdiction. Okay. And so that could be true. i I'm not sure it really does. I don't know that classifying attorneys as you know a public defender, which it would be paid for by the state because of our constitutional right for representation before being in prison for a crime, right? yeah
00:08:01
Speaker
So that's what a public defender is. A private attorney is someone that you hire and you pay them for their time, and it's usually very expensive. I don't know that saying that you need a private attorney over a public defender is ever going to be an accurate statement. I feel like you could pay a really bad private attorney $100,000 and get the same result that you would have gotten with your free constitutionally appointed public defender. So you're saying it's like kind of just throwing money at a situation that maybe isn't going to change? I'm saying that if anybody ever finds themselves sitting in a situation where your rights are at stake, you need to make sure that your public or private representation is upholding those rights. It's startling to me. One of the the most startling things I've ever seen in my life is when you are thrust into a situation
00:09:08
Speaker
Like in this case Anthony he had heard a rumor and was like hey I didn't do this right yeah he like literally was trying to confront an issue had on and come out ahead of it and it didn't work in his favor and then his you know supportive.
00:09:26
Speaker
family members were like, uh, public defender might not do what we need to have happen here. So let's pay money for an attorney to, i I feel like that the way it's presented, they felt like they were going to get a better quality of representation. I think that's how it's presented here. I mean, so there was a period of time and for me, it's as recently as the nineties.
00:09:57
Speaker
where if you were in for first appearances on serious felonies, or if you were in for like, say, a serious misdemeanor, so like rule out traffic infractions and and like minor misdemeanors. um There was a period of time where like, literally, depending on the judge that you were standing in from, they would sort of scroll through a list of names of people who were like on an appointment list. And I remember like standing and listening to some pretty serious domestic violence cases and it's probably 97, 98 in a major city and like listening to who was being appointed to different cases and like knowing those attorneys, like a couple of them were like getting
00:10:53
Speaker
trial hours for these felonies and these serious misdemeanors. And like some of them were just like construction lawyers or environmental lawyers who were coming over and like, like testing it out and they were being appointed. And so that would be an appointed attorney as opposed to a public defender, right? Right. And and so that's slightly different, but but most public defender's office, particularly in major metropolitan areas for the last 20, 30 years, they,
00:11:21
Speaker
aren't only, I personally believe they're better than retaining a private attorney you don't know because they have resources and they have more importantly relationships. So typically a public defender's office comes with multiple attorneys and a staff. It might be small, but like they know how to use their time. They typically have an investigator on that staff.
00:11:48
Speaker
They typically have a relationship with the local prosecutor's office that you can't always know if you're getting by retaining an attorney. I think that makes all the difference in the world for a myriad of reasons.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, and that is that's a startling realization for anyone, I feel like. um To know that like your attorney needs to be able to talk with whoever's ABA that's prosecuting your case, right? And probably the police, yeah. It can make all the difference in the world. You're absolutely right. I will say, with very few exceptions,
00:12:29
Speaker
ah Hardly anyone can afford to pay to defend themselves in any sort of serious case. Like ifve if you're talking like a murder rape kidnapping trial. yeah ah Hardly anybody. Like I, I can tell you right up front that today, if you sit down in a major Metro area and you're charged with We'll say not just charged. We'll say you've been charged and you've also been indicted on three or more felonies. You're not going to hear a low number for the retainer. And we're gonna talk about those numbers here in a second. we're Actually, we just talked about those numbers here as being like $10,000. You're gonna hear a number that like is legitimately 75 to $150,000 as the retainer.
00:13:28
Speaker
And even if you can come up with that, once you see the actual agreement and you realize that they're like, i don't I don't know if people have seen this a lot, you'll see like six different hourly rates. There's trial time, there's expert witnesses, there's the investigators time, there's the admin staff's time, and you're paying different amounts for all of these things. And I can tell you that One of the first things most assistant district attorneys prosecuting major felonies know is that if you burn through that money, it is better for them, for the prosecutors. So they are going to hand you a lot of discovery that's going to be billed to that retainer. They are going to give a lot of very true statements to your attorney that is going to require hours from the administrative staff and the investigators.
00:14:20
Speaker
you're gonna burn through that retainer long before you ever see the inside of a courtroom with a jury sitting there to decide what's happening to you. And you're right, it is so expensive that I do not think 90% of defendants can afford it. Right, and so I would say you're safe to go ahead and multiply your retainer by five and that's what it's gonna cost you.
00:14:48
Speaker
ah Minimum of three whatever it is if they say 25 grand or 75 grand if you multiply it by a minimum of three It's gonna cost you that and I think if the more serious felonies you are a hundred percent, right? It's gonna cost you five times. Yeah, and um so That being said I feel like I felt I it it I feel sort of sorry for this for Anthony and his family's position here, because from all sides of at least what we're looking at, it seems like they were all trying to do the right thing, right? Yeah. And it and I will say this for for a lot of attorneys, maybe not all of them, but a lot of attorneys, that includes the attorney. Like the attorney like getting paid
00:15:42
Speaker
is one thing, but like even if the attorney's heart is in the right place and they're trying to do right by your client, that doesn't mean that that money will be spent in a way that helps the client. It does not. Well, no, yeah. um that is That is something that I personally, I find a lot of issue with is the the economy of the judicial system and how it runs afoul of justice.
00:16:10
Speaker
It is a living, breathing economy all on its own. and that no To me, that's wrong, but it is what it is at this point in time. There's a lot of reasons why things happen independent of justice, right?
00:16:26
Speaker
oh yeah And so to me, you know we talk about the parallel roads and what actually happens in a case versus what happens in a trial in the courtroom. And um I would say that there's an additional slightly curved parallel road that could be taken in with regard to the judicial economy of any given case.
00:16:51
Speaker
Right, so the numbers here kind of go like this. They retain a Kim Gerstle. He's a private Chicago lawyer with a pretty good reputation. He says he's going to represent Anthony Porter for $10,000. By the time trial rolls around, even though that was the agreement and probably was insufficient to begin with, Anthony Porter's family has only given him around $3,000. At a point in time,
00:17:19
Speaker
Gersel's gonna admit he basically had to stop moving forward with parts of the case, including investigating certain aspects of the case, because the money wasn't there, which I think goes to your point, that like the public defender wouldn't have that option. They would have to be more economic with their time and resources and money, but they would not have run out and quit on the case. Does that kind of fit what you were thinking?
00:17:48
Speaker
Right. and And honestly, the private attorney shouldn't have run out and quit on the case either. And the judge shouldn't have allowed any of it to happen. Oh, I agree with that. It's odd to me. I've never understood that. This probably goes way too far for this particular, what we're talking about on today's show, but it's always ah questionable to me how you end up in a position like that because, you know, the state needs to be making its case. And so independent of ah the state making its case, what, what would a defense attorney possibly have to do? Right. What do you mean? Like, are you talking about like showing up for court or are you talking about what they actually do?
00:18:27
Speaker
Well, because he was talking about like not having the money because he was paid like just a portion of what has already probably very reduced rate was and he ran out of money to do things. But, you know, how is the state making a case that, you know, now we know, you know, today and previous to today at some point that there was no case, right? Right. Okay. I see what you're saying. Okay. so I'm going to answer that in in a in a bunch of non-answery ways. So the first thing that happens is when he gets arrested, or if you want to start at the crime, that's August 1982. By the time he goes on trial, it's September 1983.
00:19:13
Speaker
So it's a year, in almost a year and a month late. Appearances have happened. The state has presented theories. And if this guy stops investigating because he only got three grand out of 10 grand that he thought it was going to cost him to deal with this case, he was just called a third. Let's say he's only done a third of what he was supposed to do. That money was kind of burnt in the preliminary hearings. If you're,
00:19:38
Speaker
facing a year before you go to on trial, you've at least had your first appearance, which he probably doesn't have the attorney at first appearance. That's when he would qualify for his public defender. Let's assume he then gets indicted because it's ah this is going to be a capital case. Because it's a capital case, then there's going to be a hearing where somehow some way the state makes it known to the defense in front of the judge. Guess what?
00:20:08
Speaker
we're going for the death penalty. So in some jurisdictions, it has to sort of be certified or a reason has to be put forth, but ultimately that's a pretty rubber stamp move unless there's something extenuating. They just say because of this defendant lying in wait or because there are multiple crimes committed or particularly heinous nature of the crimes, we're going for the death penalty.
00:20:35
Speaker
So then you've got at least one trial conference that's going to happen in there, probably a discovery hearing, potentially even if it's just a year, another trial conference where everybody gets together and just calendars this. So Gersel's money has run out early in this process. And I promise you, there's not going to be a lot of expert witnesses coming on. Would you agree with all that? Yes, I agree with that. OK.
Trial & Guilty Verdict
00:21:01
Speaker
So for context on this,
00:21:05
Speaker
And I don't mean to turn this into like a preachy lesson. um it is It is a capital case, Anthony Porter's murder trial. So there's gonna be two things that happen here. The first section of the trial is where they decide if he did this or not, and that's the guilt or innocence phase. The second phase of this trial is gonna be only if he did it. So if they decide he's guilty in the first phase, then the second phase,
00:21:34
Speaker
There's presentations made as from both the prosecution and the defense where they basically say, this is what his punishment should be. So this is September 1983. I'll run down the very minor side of this that the prosecution has.
00:21:55
Speaker
and kind of line the facts up. So the facts are the story that like we kind of started with. Henry Williams and William Taylor, they go to Washington Park in Chicago. They go into the pool area. At the same time this is happening, Jerry Hillard and Marilyn Green are in this bleachers area that's to the west of the pool. Henry testifies that as he was getting dressed after swimming, he sees Anthony Porter approaching with a gun in his hand. And he asked Henry Williams if he had any money. Allegedly, Porter put a gun to Williams' head. He took andre williams two dollars and he laughed Henry Williams Henry Williams testified that he saw Porter in the bleacher area, which would have been just a few feet away from where Jerry Hillard and Marilyn Green were sitting. As he was getting dressed, he heard shots being fired.
00:22:55
Speaker
So he climbed back over the fence and left. But William Taylor testified that as he was drying off, he saw Porter standing less than two feet from Hillard with his arm extended and a gun in his hand. He said that Porter then shot Hillard, Hillard fell back, Porter shot him again.
00:23:19
Speaker
Porter then ran down the bleachers towards where William Taylor was. He passed within three feet of him and he left. So shortly after one o'clock in the morning, an officer named Anthony Lyons of the Chicago Police Department, he testified that shortly after one in the morning, he responded to a call that a man had been shot in Washington Park.
00:23:43
Speaker
As he approached the pool area, he observed Marilyn Greene running from the north end of the bleachers, holding her neck with her right hand and gesturing toward the south end of the bleachers with her left hand. As the officer continued toward the bleachers, he said he saw a person that he later identified as Anthony Porter running next to the bleachers. But the officer had stopped and frisked him and let him go because he didn't find any weapons on him.
00:24:09
Speaker
The next testimony comes from the Cook County Medical Examiner, Joanne Richmond. She performed both autopsies on Marilyn Green and Jerry Hillard. She said that Green had three gunshot wounds She was shot twice in the right side of the neck at close range from something like one to two feet. She was shot a third time in her left hand and she died from massive bleeding due to these wounds. She said that Jerry Hillard was shot twice from close range and he died from these gunshot wounds to his head. On the back of his left hand, there was a black powdery sub. Henry Williams and William Taylor had both been taken to the police station for questioning. They identified Anthony Porter from a mug book
00:24:51
Speaker
And according to their testimony in court, they said they had seen Porter regularly in the neighborhood for up to three years before the shooting. William Taylor testified that when he was at the police station on August 15th, 1982, he said he did not see the defendant shoot Hillard because he was afraid for his life. He also claimed that he had seen the defendant mugging two elderly men in the neighborhood.
00:25:18
Speaker
and that the defendant had once jumped on one of his friends, creating a fight. William Taylor feared for the safety of his great grandmother, who was the person that he lived with at the time. So on August 18th, he identified the defendant in a police station lineup. That's it. That's the whole case. That's everything they present in court. What did you think of that?
00:25:43
Speaker
I don't know. Um, I guess that sort of helps explain my whole point and all of the, I am not sure how this case, do do you feel like the case was made? I feel like it's lacking. I can understand how a jury would look at like this little pile of witnesses and think, okay, that's enough.
00:26:03
Speaker
But wait, wasn't this just a... No, I'm sorry. It's seven witnesses. No, I misread something. When you're talking about a situation where you've got your eyewitness finally giving the full account after 17 hours. Right.
00:26:24
Speaker
ah You've got a situation where there's a police officer serve that frisked the defendant. Allegedly, yes, but let him go. Right. But this was in like a very short period of time. Minutes, if that. Of the crime. Yeah. Of the murders. Okay. And there was nothing that caused him to arrest him at that point. No. No.
00:26:46
Speaker
I mean, it seems like that wouldn't happen. It does. And it also seems like like what I described would be like a lot of time. I think this trial maybe took place in four days, maybe five. That's long for a murder trial in some places. It's short for a death penalty trial in my mind. yeah Well, yeah, i I don't know. I mean, to me, it seems very short. but i It doesn't seem like, again, we have the benefit of knowing that this is someone who was exonerated. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe we are looking at it through that lens. You're right. My thought is, you know, you have this situation, a guy like knows that he's a suspect. He tries to come out in front of it. His family tries to support him and they hire an attorney. They probably couldn't afford, who probably wasn't worth what they actually paid for. And it does. None of this matters, right? None of it matters because he ends up being found guilty no matter what.
00:27:42
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I will say there is at least one report that I read where a came fell asleep during the trial and the judge woke him up. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like that's what I'm saying. but And that was the attorney they paid for. Right. So they're like, we're going to support our loved one who has been charged with this crime.
00:28:00
Speaker
And you know we're putting out money we don't have to pay this as attorney who's not worth the money we don't have who to defend this person that we know didn't do this crime. And to me, this is like a hamster on a wheel, right? yeah I mean, this is so frustrating. All the different moving parts, all the different elements that scream like, what is happening here?
00:28:23
Speaker
When you have a reluctant witness who has piecemealed a story together that might as well be a work of fiction, it's very concerning to me. And I don't understand if police that are doing this actually but are investigators that are doing it. Do they actually believe that they've solved this? Yeah, like that's this is all the time and effort that we're going to put into this double homicide. That was it.
00:28:50
Speaker
There was a lead investigator that like he doesn't add much. He just connects the dots between us and that's the end of it. Then we have the defense case. The defense only presents three witnesses. So the first witness they bring in is a guy named Eric Warren. He's a photographer who he went and photographed the physical pool area.
00:29:09
Speaker
at the request of counsel. According to his testimony, he was doing this in the summer of 1983. So it's a year later, he goes and he takes pictures of the pool area. And the attorney uses him to give the layout of the pool area. Then he calls a guy named Kenneth Doyle. Kenneth Doyle says that he was at Anthony Porter's mom's house on the evening of August 14th, 1982. He and Porter were sitting on the back porch and they were drinking until about two in the morning.
00:29:36
Speaker
They went with a friend to a nearby playground and they continued to drink until 9 a.m. That's Doyle's testimony. Now, under cross-examination, Kenneth Doyle admits that when he talked to detectives on August 17th, 1982, he told them he'd been drinking with Porter until 10.30 p.m. and he spent the rest of the night with his mom. So one way or the other, he ends up having to admit he lied to the police and he gave them that earlier time because he thought they were going to arrest him. And the last witness is a woman named Georgia Moody.
00:30:05
Speaker
Now, Georgia Moody is a common law wife of one of Anthony Porter's brothers, and she testified that she saw Anthony Porter at his mother's house on that evening and that Porter and Kenneth Doyle were playing cards with her children. They didn't go outside and they were not drinking. According to Georgia Moody, ah around 2.30 in the morning, Porter left the house with Kenneth Doyle and another friend. So these three witnesses do not take very long on the stand. The jury gets the case because everybody rests after them. They deliberate for nine hours and they come back and they find Anthony Porter guilty of two counts of murder, one count of armed robbery, one count of unlawful restraint, and two counts of unlawful use of weapons. Now we move into the penalty phase. That's what do we do with this guy that we've now found guilty. During this phase of any trial, evidence is presented
00:30:53
Speaker
that is like supposed to lend towards the Senate. like How do we punish this person? Generally how this works in most jurisdictions, regardless of whether or not it's a capital trial,
00:31:05
Speaker
is a pre-sentencing report is prepared, like in today's term, and factors are listed by each side. This pre-sentencing report is typically done by someone in the Department of Corrections, like a probation and and parole professional who, like, this is their job. And they put together, like, a bio of defendant's life.
00:31:24
Speaker
And they include factors themselves that are both aggravating and mitigating. And the defense presents more mitigating factors, mitigating factors being factors that mean we should go lighter on this person. And the prosecution presents more aggravating factors, aggravating circumstances.
00:31:41
Speaker
the idea being, give this person the maximum. But an aggravating circumstance can be any kind of factor situation that sort of increases the defendant's overall responsibility for the crime. They're culpability. Generally, such matters as, is this person going to be a danger to the community if they get out? And evidence relating to the specific circumstances of the crime, if that makes sense, that's what's going to come out at this point. ah Do they have a prior criminal record? Was there something where this is a particularly vulnerable victim. And this is where a lot of times they'll put in what are called impact statements. If we're talking about a murder, it's usually the the victim's fam. If we're talking about some other type of crime, it might be the victim themselves. Those other circumstances, the mitigating circumstances, in a capital case, what they're for is to say don't put him to death.
00:32:32
Speaker
But the idea is that they somehow either lessen the defendant's responsibility or their culpability. That could include a bad upbringing, disadvantages in life, economically, educationally. It could be that the defendant themselves have some sort of some sort of educational or intellectual deficit. They might talk about like good things that the defendant does like in their life or for the family or for the community. The jury gets instructions from the judge and they weigh all of these out.
00:33:01
Speaker
And in a capital case, the decision is should the defendant get life without parole or some other version of life, depending on the decade, or should they get death? Anthony Porter's attorney does a really weird thing here. I don't know what you thought of this, but in the second phase of this, the penalty phase of this, what typically happens is the same jury that has decided guilt or innocence, they move,
00:33:30
Speaker
into the penalty phase and they decide how they feel about all these aggravating and mitigating factors. Instead, Akeem Gersul waves Anthony Porter's right to a jury trial for sentencing and instead requests that the sentencing hearing be strictly before the judge. So he's asking that the second phase of this trial be a quote, bench phase. Now, if you hear Gerstle talking about this later on in life, he was told by his boss that his fee wasn't paid. And if we go in front of the jury and do all of this, there's going to be more deliberations. It's going to take a lot of time. So ultimately we need you to do this so that we're not adding more money to this bill. It's never going to be paid. And you need to, to waive this right.
00:34:22
Speaker
and you need to request a bench sentencing. In bench sentencing, the only person that the defendant has to like make their case to and the prosecutor has to make their case to is the judge. What do you think about that? I think it's a terrible idea, 99% of the time. There are rare instances where I think bench trials are more appropriate. Actually, bench sentencing decisions.
00:34:47
Speaker
I do not think, i' I'm just saying, like I think sometimes bench trials are appropriate. I do not i do not think bench sentencing is is usually appropriate. Right. And now, um I think, and I could be wrong, but I think that sentencing now is largely very different. Yeah. Okay. I think that the purpose behind ah the decision that was made is God awful.
00:35:14
Speaker
yeah It's actually disgraceful and it undermines my belief in humanity. I'm sorry. I just, I feel like for somebody to say, Hey, you're not going to get paid. So we got to get this done. It doesn't matter if he gets put to death or not. Well, not only that, it's going to be a lot of pressure on him because more than likely it's the managing partner of his firm. There's more than just Anthony Porter on the line here. If Gerson doesn't do what?
00:35:45
Speaker
essentially a person who controls a lot of his future wants him to do. Right. And to me, there's all kinds of the wrong things being focused on just from the jump. And I would find it very hard to believe that something like this would happen today, but. It would be more difficult to happen today. I mean, I will say this for Gerstle, he's making these motions in front of the jury. So think about that for a second.
00:36:09
Speaker
You definitely don't want the judge to deny the motion at that point because you basically just said I don't have any faith in these people are going to put him to death He's doing this in front of the jury and he takes it a step further and I don't know why he does this um But maybe I do he he basically he He throws a Hail Mary And his Hail Mary is That His investigator has come to him like kind of while they're standing there. I don't know if that's really what happened, but there's a little theater to it. He basically says that he has recently discovered that one of the jurors and the mother of the victim attend the same church. And he feels like the juror failed to disclose this relationship and he moves for a mistrial. And I will say I, I think movement for a mistrial at various places in a trial,
00:37:05
Speaker
are pretty commonplace. Like it happens and they're usually pretty brief, but this is a weird way to do it. And the information is like something that it does catch the presiding judge's attention for a second. ah The judge brings a juror in and says like, what's going on there? And the victim's mother is someone that's not really well known to this juror. And she says, it didn't have anything to do with this. And she says, actually, until all this started, I didn't even realize that's what was happening. Like, I didn't even know that there was someone in this that like was part of my church family in some way. Now, well, I mean, and everything that occurred was like completely what should happen, right?
00:37:51
Speaker
yeah Because if you find that there's a conflict of some sort, that is detrimental to your client, you move for a mistrial, the court decides if you know there are grounds for one. I would say if she was like, yeah, she was my best friend, they'd be like, well, we didn't do a good job in jury selection, did we? I mean, you see, what that that's why this is the whole process, right? Yeah, but I mean, you know if if somebody told me that that Porter's attorney had done that on purpose, I would say, nuh-uh.
00:38:20
Speaker
I don't believe you. I don't think it was paying enough attention to do it on purpose. Like, like I don't think, I don't think he would have missed a juror on purpose, like deliberately let her slide through. I think it was just, that was the only thing he had. Well, right. and And even in presenting it for grounds for a mistrial, it, uh, it wasn't great, but I, I do feel like that perhaps, I mean, I don't know, uh,
00:38:48
Speaker
I don't know what would have been more worthwhile, like letting the jury decide if he should be put to death or making the motion for the most trial. Because, you know, there's an efficiency.
00:38:58
Speaker
Uh, there's a inappropriate efficiency constraint being put on this by somebody, by the boss or whatever. Yeah. This whole set of circumstances is, is not, it's not conducive for fairness in a trial, which goes back to what you said at the very beginning of this. I think we would have had a completely different outcome if you'd gone with that public defender.
00:39:24
Speaker
might not have been good, but it would have been. It's my opinion that somebody that, that a private attorney that's licensed by a state bar, uh, that is in a professional position and working in their professional capacity that would advise somebody at their firm or do it themselves to with what was said here, uh, they are in the wrong profession. I would agree with that. Okay.
00:39:52
Speaker
And it is unconscionable to think of and it's like, Just an additional slap in the face on top of somebody that, you know, knew he was a suspect, went in trying to head it off. His family hires this attorney. They don't pay him. You know, who knows why? Maybe they couldn't afford it. Maybe they didn't feel like he was doing his job. There's all kinds of stuff. and But once you make an appearance in a court hearing, you can't just stop. ah Yeah, you actually have to motion for the judge. And like, depending on where you're at and in the
00:40:28
Speaker
case and in the jurisdiction that you're practicing in, it can be quite difficult to get off of a case that you have taken as a retained attorney. Well, expect you're not going to get off during a trial, like that's almost, I mean, maybe if you get attacked by your client, but... so Yeah, we talked about that in a couple of different cases. So at this point, we're in the sentencing phase, but we're only in front of the judge. And according to the court records, the state goes first,
00:40:57
Speaker
And they present different parts of Anthony Porter's prior criminal history as aggravating factors. Like these are reasons this judge should put Anthony Porter to death. So on April 27th of 1979, Anthony Porter had jumped bail. What for? I don't know. It's not in the records. But he was out on bail. And when you jump bail, it means you've put up some money or property or something and said, you'll come to court.
00:41:28
Speaker
And Anthony Porter decided he didn't need to come to court. So for this jumping bail, he gets put on probation. In June of 1979, he violates his probation. And the reason for the probation violation was that he had robbed and physically assaulted Douglas McGee, who had been sitting on the bleachers next to the pool in Washington Park.
00:41:55
Speaker
He had also pled guilty to robbery and bail jumping on October 6th, 1980. And at that point in time, he gets an active sentence and he goes to do three years in the Illinois Department of Corrections prison system. He is released from prison about a year later and they put him on parole. They're going to leave him on parole for the rest of his active sentence. Well, while on parole,
00:42:22
Speaker
Anthony Porter gets into an argument with a man named Earl Lewis. Anthony Porter kicked Earl Lewis's dog. And when Earl Lewis confronted him, Porter said he was going to hurt Lewis. He placed a gun to Earl Lewis's head and he fired. Lewis ducked away just as his gun went off and the bullet only grazed his forehead. So then Anthony Porter pled guilty to aggravated battery in the case of Earl Lewis. That was the prosecution's reasoning for saying this was a capital case. That basically Anthony Porter was just going to keep committing crimes like this. He had already escalated
00:43:11
Speaker
from robbery to assault and now double homicide and he was going to do it again. Right. And so that's not necessarily wrong, right? I mean, if you present it just like you just presented it, it sounds like this guy should be put to death.
00:43:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's deliberately why I ordered it just like the prosecutor did. Like, that isnt that is a that is a compelling case to listen to. But doesn't it make you wonder why, like, okay, so he shot the guy, right? I mean, even though it was a graze, apparently, why wasn't he charged with attempted murder? Why was he out of jail to begin with? Like, things like that start coming into my mind. But that's from today's perspective, right?
00:43:54
Speaker
yeah That's today's perspective. and You got to remember 1979, you're dealing with like a ah young 20s Anthony Porter. and Now he's graduated to 27 years old when this is happening. While we know the ending, right we know the exoneration occurs and we we have this Monday morning quarterbacking view of it. As you presented it, this guy's trouble. Yeah, that that's exactly what they're saying here, is this guy's trouble.
00:44:20
Speaker
So the defense gets their chance to try and mitigate what the prosecution has said. They can't do much about the guilty verdict at this point. So they're just trying to save his life. And the evidence they present in mitigation is that Porter went to church and he had helped clean the church allegedly for the last two years. He also ran errands for an elderly man who had been recuperating from a heart attack.
00:44:47
Speaker
And he assisted his grandmother who suffered from epileptic seizures by preparing her food, cleaning her house, and helping her take her medicine. ah Porter's mother testified on his behalf. She had raised him as one of nine children. ah They were raised in the projects, which was considered to be a disadvantaged reporter. And they brought on several witnesses who testified that they thought Anthony Porter would become a useful citizen if given the chance.
00:45:15
Speaker
And all of these people ask that Anthony Porter's life be spared. And the judge found no mitigation in that. And he basically said, on September 9th, 1983, he looked at all of this and said, Anthony Porter is a terrible person. He actually called him a perverse shark in the waters of the south side of Chicago, and he sentenced them to death.
00:45:42
Speaker
so There's not much to this. Being sentenced to death like that is kind of a big deal. When Judge Robert Sklodowski sentenced him to death, you get some automatic appeals. The Porter family's not paying for them anymore, so they're going to go through a capital defender's appellate process. And they exhaust the appeals attempting to get Anthony Porter a new trial. His date of execution is set.
00:46:15
Speaker
His family had made funeral arrangements. 48 hours from his execution in late 1998, 83, he sentenced to death. were now in 1998. The Illinois Supreme Court grants a reprieve, not because he might be innocent, but because he had scored very low on an IQ test. So the Supreme Court of Illinois orders the lower courts to determine whether he's able to even comprehend the nature of his death sentence.
Reinvestigation & Alstory Simon's Confession
00:46:46
Speaker
So that delay puts into motion a professor named David Protus,
00:46:51
Speaker
David Protus is out of the Medill School of Journalism. This is at Northwestern University. He brings on a private investigator named Paul Chilino, that's gonna reinvestigate the cave. In December of 1998, the investigator talks to William Taylor and William Taylor takes back his testimony.
00:47:12
Speaker
He said in his affidavit to this investigator and one of the Northwestern students that the police had pressured him to name Anthony Porter as the shooter. Now, in January of 1999, Al Story Simon comes back into the picture.
00:47:29
Speaker
And this professor, David Protos, along with a couple of his students and this investigator, they talked to his now estranged wife, Inez Jackson. She says she was present when Alsary Simon shot Marilyn Green and Jerry Hiller. She said she didn't know Anthony Porter, but that he had nothing to do with his crime. And four days later, February 3rd,
00:47:53
Speaker
Alstory Simon confesses on videotape to this investigator, and he says that he killed Jerry Hillard in self-defense during an argument over drug money. And Alstory also says that when he went to shoot Marilyn Green, it had been an accident. A little while later in February 1999, prosecutors satisfied themselves with the veracity of the confession. Those are the words used on the National Registry of Exonerations.
00:48:23
Speaker
And Anthony Porter, having spent 17 years on death row, has the charges dismissed. In September of 1999, Alstory Simon pleads guilty to second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. He gets sentenced to 37 years in prison. And Governor George Ryan grants Anthony Porter a pardon based on actual innocence.
00:48:49
Speaker
So in 2000, he's able to file a claim where he gets about $150,000. He also filed a federal civil rights lawsuit that goes to trial, but a jury decided he didn't get any money. His lawyers appealed that verdict, but it was upheld. You following me so far? I'm following. Here's where this case just takes a hard left turn. In December of 2005,
00:49:18
Speaker
Alsory Simon's attorneys file a post-conviction petition seeking to vacate his conviction. Alsory says that the investigator with the Northwest students had coerced them into falsely confessing to these murders. And of course the investigator denies this. But the petition says that Inez Jackson had recanted her statement that she was present when Alsory shot Marilyn Green and Jerry Hillard.
00:49:49
Speaker
Inez Jackson's nephew, Walter Jackson, he had told these Northwestern students and the investigator that he saw Al Story Simon commit these murders, but he recants and says that his statement was just false. So at this point in time, Al Story Simon says that Jack Remland, who was his attorney, had pressured him to plead guilty even though he was innocent of the crime.
00:50:18
Speaker
And in 2014, Remland said that Alsory Simon had admitted to him that he committed the murders. And he said that Alsory Simon had also confessed to another attorney as well. So in May of 2006, Alsory Simon's lawyers obtained a statement from a man named Raymond Brown, who was 13 years old at the time of the murders, that Anthony Porter was actually the gunman.
00:50:48
Speaker
Raymond Brown said he was in the park. He heard gunshots and he saw Anthony Porter fire a gun. He saw Jerry Hillard lying in the bleachers. And then he saw Anthony Porter run past him, still having that gun in his hand. So at this point, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Evelyn Clay, she denies Alsterie Simon's petition in September of 2006. That ruling is upheld by the Illinois Court of Appeals.
00:51:18
Speaker
and then the Illinois Supreme Court, they take a look at it, but they declined to review the ruling in full in May of 2008. In October of 2013, Cook County State's attorney, Anita Alvarez, is heading up the conviction and integrity unit, and she agrees to review Alstory Simon's case. On October 30th of 2014,
00:51:46
Speaker
Anita Alvarez files a motion to vacate Alsterie Simon's conviction. That motion is granted. The charges against Alsterie are dismissed and he's released. Anita Alvarez says that Alsterie Simon had falsely confessed because of the tactics employed by the journalism professor and by his private investigator.
00:52:11
Speaker
They had used a video with an actor posing as an eyewitness to the murders. On the video, this actor, as like a witness, says that he saw Alsary Simon commit the crime. And that video had been shown to Alsary immediately before he gave his confession.
00:52:34
Speaker
So this investigation by David Protis and his team of students and this investigator involved a series of alarming tactics that were not only coercive and absolutely unacceptable by law enforcement standards. They were potentially in violation of Mr. Simon's constitutionally protected rights. That's according to Anita Alvarez. At the end of it, Anita Alvarez says, I cannot definitively tell you it was Porter.
00:52:57
Speaker
And I cannot tell you it was Simon. I'm just saying that based on the totality of the circumstances and the way I think Outstory Simon was coerced, in the interest of justice, this is the right thing to do. Do you think Outstory Simon did this?
00:53:11
Speaker
I do. I don't think he would have confessed. Under those circumstances, you mean? Correct. But it also wasn't the right thing for the journalist to do, right? um She said it wasn't up to law enforcement standards, which of course not, but it also wasn't law enforcement doing it. Correct. And so it's a really messed up case. I understand the grounds that they vacate. I feel like the judge was right in vacating the charges. um I don't know how it came to be so muddled,
Ongoing Debate & Exoneration
00:53:41
Speaker
right? If you'll recall, at the very beginning of the story about um Anthony Porter, I believe that Marilyn Green, who was one of the victims, her mom, right? Was it her mom? Yeah. She told police that she thought they were killed by Al Story Simon, right? Yeah, Offra Green is, she's the mother of Marilyn Green and very early on, she makes a statement and she doesn't believe that Anthony Porter was in involved. Right, and it is an injustice to the victims. However, there are a lot of players along the way that make that injustice occur and it didn't have to happen that way. I don't think Anthony Porter was involved in it because of, I feel like the cop that came into contact with him shortly after the murders would have, ah especially since
00:54:33
Speaker
This was somebody that was there within minutes, right? I mean, this is a very quick succession and it would have been obvious. And then I don't think that having an actor say that they saw somebody is enough to to convince somebody that didn't do something that somebody else has been convicted for.
00:54:54
Speaker
So you don't think the video with the actor was enough to this way? I just realized, okay. So it was in how, how much time went by between. It's you, you mean between the two convictions years, years, years later. It's like, um, first conviction is in 1983. Then,
00:55:20
Speaker
That's Anthony Porter. Anthony Porter's conviction is overturned in 99. So I think you're right. I think that the actor on videotaping stuff, I think that's just an excuse at this point. And I think it was a bad move by David Protos and like all of those people that were involved. I totally agree with Anita Alvarez on that. Now I'll say this, the lawyers in this case,
00:55:48
Speaker
um There were so many involved by the end of it. So, Al Story's case, the way that goes down, he's exonerated, quote, unquote, in 2014 because of that incident. And lawyers get ahold of him again. So, in February of 2015, Al Story, Simon's attorneys, they filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, and that lawsuit is against The journalist, Protus, it's against his original ah attorney who was like basically encouraging to plead guilty, ah the investigator, and against Northwestern University. Now, the cases against the attorney and against the investigator, they get kicked. Well, right, because private parties can't violate anybody's constitutional rights.
00:56:42
Speaker
Right. They were just saying they were apart. They were just a part of all that. Ultimately, the, the attorney and the investigator are let go out of the case. And then in 2018, the cases that involved the journalist in Northwestern university, they're settled like for an undisclosed amount amount out of court because like essentially they didn't wanna like keep harping on this and it did cause some problems with like the reputation of Northwestern and the integrity of the journalist. And at the end of the day, a judge looking at a request from Alstory Simon for a certificate of innocence, he said, no way, no how. So he agreed with you that ultimately
00:57:31
Speaker
It was probably Al Suri-Simon. And he was swayed by Offie Green's statement. ah That's Marilyn Green's mom. And I think that when all of that happened, if we were to look at it, it probably is sort of an Occam's razor move there. It probably is more likely. The way it had been described in her statement, and I pulled it up, it honestly, it doesn't make a lot of sense. But if I glean from it,
00:57:57
Speaker
what I can like to help us here. Uh, I think that she knew her kid had money and she knew that Inez and Allstory were her dealers or her dealer and her dealer's girlfriend. And that more than likely she was trying to get some drugs and that's why she had mentioned them early on because it made the most sense to her.
00:58:25
Speaker
There are aspects of Anthony Porter's life that still kind of make sense with this. So I never get a fully clear understanding. Like, like he's, it's not a case where I a hundred percent go, yes, it was definitely Oscar green and Anthony Porter didn't do those. But unfortunately Anthony Porter passed away. Uh, so we won't be able to ask him. Uh, he ends up dying in July, 2021. He was 66 years old and that professor,
00:58:55
Speaker
You know, he was still on for a long time. He's finally, I think he's gone from Northwestern now. I know he was on leave for like a long period of time while this was happening, but I saw the other day that I think he's attached to the Chicago Innocence Project, if he's still alive today, ah David Protis. I was just like, what in the world like would make somebody think, what would make somebody think like that was okay?
00:59:23
Speaker
they were um not law enforcement. yeah I mean, there was literally nothing that was happening there that wouldn't, I don't think that they felt like, well, I don't know actually. I don't, I could see somebody doing that in a like abstract sort of way to figure out like, Oh, was this work? But like to turn around and use it as evidence is weird.
00:59:48
Speaker
Yeah, he comes up again a little later on. We're going to talk a little more about David Protos, but this the Chicago folks don't come up as much, particularly in this series. I feel like I've beaten Chicago to death this year. There was a huge lawsuit eventually filed by the investigator in that case. I don't know if you ever saw that one. It was like a it was a massive defamation suit because he basically said, I can't work anymore as an investigator because I did this. Who did he file the lawsuit against?
01:00:18
Speaker
against Northwestern and David Perotis. And we're talking about the the private investigator. Yeah, yeah, the private investigator that was involved there. That's one of the reasons. well Did he not take responsibility for his actions? He felt like he had been under, you know, kind of the protections of the Innocence Project. it there's a There's a backstory to an older case where ah That professor had been involved. So he carried this reputation that just wasn't as Accurate as it could be um And we may actually talk about that in the course of the series But you know at the end of the day, yeah, he ends up suing him. I could not find the outcome of that I think it settled out of court but he filed a lawsuit essentially stating that he was duped by all of that and had destroyed his career as a private investigator and
01:01:15
Speaker
I think that's absolutely ridiculous that he sued about that. I mean, he he was a grown man taking part in something. Oh, I agree with you. That's ridiculous. I'm putting it in because it's like sort of a you know fact of the case. Yeah, I hear you.
01:01:31
Speaker
um That guy was like one of the consultants on CBS News for a while. And I think that's what he was really upset about. I don't know if he still does that. I would have to go look. But I think it hurt his like talking head career more than anything else. Do you think that um there was something about that that was that made him think that it wouldn't hurt his career? I think he thought he was i think he thought he was solving a homicide. Well, he I mean,
01:02:02
Speaker
it He actually was let helping somebody get away with murder. That's definitely a better way to look at it.
01:02:14
Speaker
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01:04:21
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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