Northwestern University

Daniel Taylor’s 20-year wrongful prison term

June 29, 2013 (CHICAGO) (WLS) —

A Chicago man who spent 20 years in prison is freed after a new investigation reveals he had an alibi. Daniel Taylor was in police custody at the time and Saturday night he spoke out.

Taylor was 17 years old when he says police coerced him into confessing.

Taylor’s exoneration is the 90th in Cook County since 1989. He is the 34th known to have been wrongfully convicted based on a unreliable confession.

 

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Story: Daniel Taylor to be released from jail, murder charges dropped

Taylor’s fight for freedom began with a letter from prison to the Chicago Tribune. Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions then took up his case.

Taylor returned home early this morning

“To get up and use the washroom when I want to, to make a meal when I want to, to go outside and take in the fresh air when I want to,” Taylor said.

Freedom. Something most of us take for granted. Daniel Taylor never will.

The 38-year-old is home after spending 20 years in prison for a 1992 double murder in Uptown. Charges were dropped after Cook County prosecutors interviewed more witnesses and reviewed more documents. But, there is only one document that Taylor and his lawyers say should have cleared him from the beginning.

“I never thought I would need the paper work, the copy they gave you when you leave,” he said.

Taylor is talking about jail records that prove he was in police custody being held on a disorderly conduct charge at the time of the double murder. Despite that, Taylor was charged with several others.

“The level of trickery that they used at the police station with a 17-year-old with a 2nd grade education was beyond me at the time,” he said.

Trickery that Taylor says included being handcuffed to a wall, beaten and coerced into signing a confession.

“I think that maybe the jury couldn’t get passed the fact that he confessed even though there was this evidence he was in custody the whole time,” said Judy Royal, Center on Wrongful Convictions.

After being sentenced to life without parole, Taylor had given up hope. He tried taking his life in prison. TayLor decided to fight for his freedom after getting some advice from a cell mate.

“The only way to get it done is to get it started,” he said.

So the fight began with legal help from Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions. Taylor’s hard work and patience finally paid off after two decades behind bars.

“My thing is to move forward,” he said.

Taylor says he is giving himself a three-week grace period to get used to freedom. After that, he says it’s time to work on his future.

Taylor earned his GED in prison and he would like to go to college. His goal is to work with at risk youth, kids similar to him before he went to prison.

Death Row exoneree Randy Steidl
 to speak Nov. 27 at NKU

November 13, 2012 http://www.lanereport.com

 

As part of the Journey of Hope Tour sponsored by the Northern Kentucky University Chase American Constitution Society, the ACLU of Kentucky and the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, NKU will host a free public lecture by death row exoneree Randy Steidl on Tuesday, Nov. 27, at noon in room 302 of the James C. and Rachel M. Votruba Student Union.

Steidl and a co-defendant were convicted for the 1986 murder of newlywed couple Dyke and Karen Rhoads in the small town of Paris, Ill. The two maintained their innocence but it was not until Northwestern University journalism students got involved that Steidl’s case received a proper review.

The entire case against Steidl was based on unreliable eye-witness testimony. Even though their stories conflicted with one another, both witnesses claimed to be present on the night of the attack and both described a gruesome scene. Yet, in spite of the violent stabbing that occurred, there was no physical evidence tying Steidl to the crime.

It was only after the in-depth investigative journalism conducted by Northwestern students that new information was uncovered and old evidence invalidated. With the aid of a local police officer, students were able to present enough evidence of Steidl’s innocence to call for a new trial. Eventually, all charges were dropped and Steidl became the 18th person to be released from the Illinois death row because of a wrongful conviction.

Steidl described his ordeal in a CNN interview. “Torture,” he said. “Actually being innocent and knowing that the state of Illinois wants to kill me for something I did not do.”

His NKU visit comes just weeks after the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights called on state lawmakers to abolish the death penalty and less than one year after a team of Kentucky legal experts published a 400-page report alleging serious flaws within the state’s death penalty system.

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