SUB- HEADING: "But a judge on Thursday orders Pursley back to jail for a drug-use assessment."
 
ROCKFORD — A state appeals court on Wednesday upheld a Winnebago County judge’s decision a year ago to grant a new trial for a man who spent 23 years in prison for a 1993 murder he says he did not commit. “I feel it sends a clear message,” Patrick Pursley, 52, said Thursday, adding that the decision was made relatively quickly and that is a good sign for him. He made his comments before a court hearing in Winnebago County to consider increasing his bond for testing positive on drug tests. “The appellate court got it right,” said Kevin Murphy of Jenner and  Block, a Chicago attorney who represents Pursley. “Patrick has presented new and powerful evidence of his innocence, and a jury will now be allowed to hear that evidence, if the state decides to retry him.” Pursley had mostly been out on bond since Judge Joseph McGraw said new ballistics evidence likely would change the result of a retrial. Prosecutors had appealed McGraw’s decision to the 2nd District Appellate Court, which is the court that upheld McGraw’s decision. A spokeswoman for the Winnebago County State’s Attorney said prosecutors are reviewing the ruling to decide whether to take an appeal to the state Supreme Court. At the Thursday hearing, McGraw ordered Pursley to turn himself into the Winnebago County Jail on Friday for an in-custody drug-treatment assessment. It will be used to determine whether inpatient or outpatient services at Rosecrance would be best, McGraw said. Pursley had been jailed for a short time in January after he allegedly tried to pass off urine in a bag as his own during a drug test, which he denies. A court official on Thursday ticked off other drug tests that Pursley had failed the past few months. He will next appear before McGraw on Thursday. Pursley was represented in the retrial request by attorneys arranged for through the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University. He was convicted in 1994 for the shooting death of Andy Ascher, 22, who was sitting in his car with his girlfriend on Silent Wood Trail in southeast Rockford when a robber approached them and shot Ascher. The suspect was wearing a ski mask. Pursley was arrested several weeks later after police received a Crime Stoppers tip. At his trial, experts said the gun that Pursley was associated with was the only one that could have been used in the shooting. But newly discovered evidence showed that was not the case. Pursley has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Rockford police officers and forensic scientists from the Illinois State Crime Lab “knowingly fabricated and solicited false evidence implicating (Pursley) in the crime and pursued and obtained (his) conviction using that false evidence.”

The entire story can be found at: