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| Why Do So Many Juvenile Suspects Confess to Crimes They Didn’t Commit? |
| By jjie.org - Gary Gately |
| Published: 09/24/2013 |
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Justice came slowly for the “Englewood Four.” Seventeen years after being convicted and imprisoned as teenagers for a rape and murder they did not commit, they were finally cleared by a judge. During interrogations, all four had falsely confessed to the 1994 rape and murder of a 30-year-old prostitute in the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Last November, the Englewood Four – Michael Saunders, Harold Richardson, Terrill Swift and Vincent Thames – filed federal lawsuits claiming they were framed by police even though no physical evidence linked them to the crime and DNA evidence from the victim, which later matched that of a man who had killed two other prostitutes, had exonerated them. The lawsuits alleged police used deceit, intimidation, threats, “prolonged isolation” and “outright physical coercion” to get confessions from the teens. According to the lawsuits, one teen’s chest was pounded with a phone book and a flashlight, and another teen was threatened with being shot behind the police station unless he confessed. Read More. |
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