The gift of Rod Blagojevich keeps on giving to Republicans. After defying his own party and appointing former Attorney General Roland Burris to replace Barack Obama in the US Senate, Blagojevich provided yet another reminder why Democrats in the legislature should have stripped him of the power to make that appointment while they had the chance. Politico notes that Burris tried running for governor on the back of a man railroaded onto Death Row by prosecutorial misconduct so egregious that one of his deputy AGs resigned in protest (via Political Machine):
Public fury over the governor’s alleged misconduct has masked the once lively debate over Burris’ decision to continue to prosecute, despite the objections of one of his top prosecutors, the wrong man for a high-profile murder case.
While state attorney general in 1992, Burris aggressively sought the death penalty for Rolando Cruz, who twice was convicted of raping and murdering a 10-year-old girl in the Chicago suburb of Naperville. The crime took place in 1983.
But by 1992, another man had confessed to the crime, and Burris’ own deputy attorney general was pleading with Burris to drop the case, then on appeal before the Illinois Supreme Court.
Burris refused. He was running for governor.
Burris refused to drop the prosecution after Brian Dugan, a repeat sex offender and murderer, confessed to the Naperville crime. The jury in Cruz’ first trial never heard about the Dugan confession, and in fact prosecutors continued to press charges against Cruz even after a 1995 DNA test excluded Cruz. Eventually, a grand jury indicted three prosecutors and four sheriff’s deputies and for misconduct after a third trial finally cleared Cruz, although they all won acquittal at trial.
Two people connected to the case resigned early when they recognized the miscarriage of justice in Cruz’ prosecution but could not stop it from proceeding. In 1985, the lead detective resigned over what he saw as prosecutorial misconduct in the case. In 1992, after failing to get Burris to drop the case against Cruz, Deputy AG Mary Brigid Kennedy resigned from office rather than participate in the ongoing prosecution. Before that, however, she sent Burris a memo explicitly noting that Dugan had confessed to the crime and looked like a better suspect, but Burris was less interested in justice than in his campaign for governor.
This is quite a reversal for Democrats. They like to paint themselves as the champions of the downtrodden, but now they’re about to elevate a man who couldn’t be bothered to stop injustice when it stared him in the face. It’s also clear why Burris couldn’t get elected to statewide office during his political career after this incident. Now the Democrats in the legislature who refused to act when they had the chance to call a special election will have to explain Burris and his attempts to put an innocent man to death as a means of advancing his political fortunes.
One interesting side note: Illinois now plans to prosecute Dugan, 26 years after the Naperville crime and more than 13 years after being forced to release Cruz. Usually, it’s impossible to win a conviction on murder after convicting someone else for the crime. It will be interesting to see whether Illinois can bring justice for the death of the 10-year-old after Burris did his level best to keep an innocent man on Death Row for it.
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