QUOTES OF THE DAY: "As the verdict was announced in U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang’s courtroom, the plaintiff, Adam Gray, bowed his head and leaned into his attorney, Jon Loevy, who hugged his shoulders. Afterward, Loevy told reporters that Gray’s life has been “damaged immeasurably” by the ordeal, but that he’s trying to get his life back on track. “Adam was arrested before breakfast, they had the case closed before noon, and were home early for dinner,” Loevy said in the lobby of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. “It took 24 years for the system to sort it out.” Gray made a short statement, saying, “These dirty cops need to be stopped.”
“It’s out of control,” he said. “Break down that blue wall of silence.” Gray then left the courthouse while the news conference was still going and walked to the nearby hotel where he’s staying."
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Gray’s attorney said he had been questioned for seven hours and couldn’t endure any more. The lawsuit alleged that police at some point in the interrogation had “obtained” an empty milk jug and concocted the story about Gray filling it with gas. Tests revealed there was no gasoline or gas residue in or on the jug, the lawsuit stated. At one point, one of the interrogating detectives allegedly told Gray that a copy machine “could determine if he had lead from gasoline on his hands,” court records in the case show. The detective made a copy of the teen’s hands and told him “the machine showed lead.” The same detective also allegedly told Gray he believed he might be innocent, but “the only way you’ll get out of here is if you say you did it,” court records show. Later, the detective allegedly offered to drop Gray off at school if he confessed, but if he didn’t confess, “he would be given the electric chair.”
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STORY: "Federal jury awards record $27 million to man arrested in fatal fire by Chicago police at age 14," by Reporter Jason Meisner, published by The Chicago Tribune, on May 25, 2023.
GIST: In what may be a local record for a wrongful conviction case, a federal jury Thursday awarded $27 million to a man who spent more than two decades in prison after being wrongfully convicted in a double-fatal arson as a teenager, finding that Chicago police coerced his confession, fabricated evidence and violated his civil rights.
As the verdict was announced in U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang’s courtroom, the plaintiff, Adam Gray, bowed his head and leaned into his attorney, Jon Loevy, who hugged his shoulders.
Afterward, Loevy told reporters that Gray’s life has been “damaged immeasurably” by the ordeal, but that he’s trying to get his life back on track.
“Adam was arrested before breakfast, they had the case closed before noon, and were home early for dinner,” Loevy said in the lobby of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. “It took 24 years for the system to sort it out.”
Gray made a short statement, saying, “These dirty cops need to be stopped.”
“It’s out of control,” he said. “Break down that blue wall of silence.”
Gray then left the courthouse while the news conference was still going and walked to the nearby hotel where he’s staying.
The $27 million in compensatory damages awarded by the jury appears to be the highest award ever given to a single plaintiff in a wrongful conviction case here, edging out the $25.2 million handed to Eddie Bolden in 2021 for his wrongful murder conviction.
The jury, which deliberated for parts of three days before reaching a verdict, did find in favor of the one surviving police detective named in the lawsuit, Daniel McInerney, awarding no punitive damages.
A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department had no immediate comment.
In addition to being on the hook for the compensatory damages, the city has also paid millions of dollars to outside lawyers to defend itself in the case, which Loevy called a questionable move that city officials should have to answer for.
“This is a case that should have been resolved,” he said. “This is a case that Adam was reasonably trying to resolve for a long time. The city of Chicago instead decided to pay outside counsel millions and millions of dollars in legal fees to try and say they didn’t do anything wrong. ... It’s becoming frustrating.”
Loevy would not describe in detail what kind of settlement offers were made, but he said, “All of Adam’s demands were surpassed by what the jury just did,” and that the city’s offers “now look kind of silly in comparison.”
Gray, who was arrested at just 14 and had been sentenced to mandatory life without parole, was released from prison in May 2017 after Cook County prosecutors decided that advances in fire science raised too many questions about his conviction on charges of setting a fire in 1993 that killed two people on Chicago’s Southwest Side.
His 54-page lawsuit, filed five years ago, named the city of Chicago as well as a host of former Chicago police detectives, a youth officer, a retired Cook County assistant state’s attorney and a former fire marshal.
The lawsuit alleged that detectives “concocted and coerced” a false confession from Gray after hours of illegal interrogation while refusing to allow him to see his mother and brother, who were at the station trying to talk to him.
Instead, detectives told Gray that his mother had told them “she did not care about him and refused to come to the police station altogether,” the suit alleged.
Police and prosecutors had alleged that at the time of the fire, Gray was angry with a girl who lived in a two-flat in the 4100 block of South Albany Avenue because she had rejected him.
Investigators alleged that the eighth grader ignited an accelerant that he poured on the enclosed back porch on the second floor and the stairs.
While the girl and her parents escaped, the second-floor tenants, Peter McGuiness, 54, and his sister, Margaret Mesa, 74, died.
At Gray’s trial, prosecutors focused on evidence that the fire had been intentionally set and the confession from Gray.
Two fire investigators said they found alligator charring and deep burn patterns at the scene and concluded they were evidence of a hot fire set with an accelerant.
A milk jug found in the alley behind the home contained what police believed was an accelerant. A gas station clerk said Gray bought gas shortly before the fire.
In a statement to police, Gray admitted buying gasoline to set the fire, but he later denied the admissions, saying he’d confessed only because of pressure from the officers questioning him.
Gray’s attorney said he had been questioned for seven hours and couldn’t endure any more.
The lawsuit alleged that police at some point in the interrogation had “obtained” an empty milk jug and concocted the story about Gray filling it with gas.
Tests revealed there was no gasoline or gas residue in or on the jug, the lawsuit stated.
At one point, one of the interrogating detectives allegedly told Gray that a copy machine “could determine if he had lead from gasoline on his hands,” court records in the case show. The detective made a copy of the teen’s hands and told him “the machine showed lead.”
The same detective also allegedly told Gray he believed he might be innocent, but “the only way you’ll get out of here is if you say you did it,” court records show.
Later, the detective allegedly offered to drop Gray off at school if he confessed, but if he didn’t confess, “he would be given the electric chair.”
Gray’s path to having the charges against him dismissed was a long one.
While advances in fire science date to the early 1990s, around the time Gray was convicted, it took investigators years to embrace those changes.
Instead, they continued to investigate fires using methods they learned from veteran colleagues or gathered from their own experience, even though the practices weren’t rooted in science.
Today, the new rules are widely accepted by fire investigators, resulting in prosecutors and defense attorneys around the country reopening old cases to determine whether the fires at the center of them were, in fact, arsons. Many convictions have been set aside.
In Gray’s case, Loevy said, the bad science was just one of myriad problems with the investigation.
“It was an all-star team of wrongful conviction,” Loevy said. “You had a false confession, you had junk science, and you had faulty eyewitness testimony, all coming together for Adam Gray.”
Gray, meanwhile, has tried to rebuild his life since his release from prison. Loevy said he’s now married and lives a quiet life in the woods. “But they took a lot from him,” he said.
Minutes later, realizing that Gray had left the courthouse, Loevy looked around and laughed.
“Adam’s done,” he said. “He’s not stepping foot in another courthouse. He’s done with the judicial system.”
The entire story can be read at:
ct-adam-gray-wrongful-conviction-lawsuit-verdict-arson-20230525-jtlnbl7bb5ez7jsz74rbw3kfoy-story.html
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
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In what may be a local record for a wrongful conviction case, a federal jury awarded $27 million to a man who spent more than two decades in prison after being wrongfully convicted in a double-fatal arson as a teenager, finding that Chicago police coerced his confession, fabricated evidence and violated his civil rights.
As the verdict was announced in U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang's courtroom, the plaintiff, Adam Gray, bowed his head and leaned into his attorney, Jon Loevy, who hugged his shoulders.
"Adam was arrested before breakfast, they had the case closed before noon, and were home early for dinner," Loevy said in the lobby of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. "It took 24 years for the system to sort it out."
Read the full story from the Tribune's Jason Meisner.
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