Who shot Jerry and Marilyn?
Alstory Simon.
Did you know a man named Anthony Porter or Tony Porter?
No, I don't.
Why didn't you tell the, uh, investigator what you knew
about the killing of these people
given that he had told you that an innocent man
was about to be executed?
Anthony Porter was the trigger of all of this.
How does an innocent man sit on death row
for 15 years and gets no relief?
Except for the students of journalism
at Northwestern University.
How the hell does that happen?
In America that happened.
Wasn't China, wasn't Korea.
It was in the greatest country in the world, America.
If it hadn't been for the students
at Northwestern University, he'd be dead and buried.
In 1983, Anthony Porter
was sentenced to death for the murders of teenagers
Jerry Hillard and Marilyn Green
at the Washington Park swimming pool
on Chicago's South Side.
Anthony Porter's 1999 release
was the 10th death row exoneration
since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977.
Allegations of police brutality
and coerced confessions were now commonplace.
The "Chicago Tribune" published a multi-part series
focusing on these botched convictions
malicious prosecutions and the lawsuits
and massive financial awards that followed.
Nearly every phase of the criminal justice system
now operated under a cloud of suspicion.
To free a wrongfully convicted man
who had spent 15 years behind bars
for a double homicide he did not commit
and was 48 hours away from being executed
has got to be the great dream
of any reporter anywhere.
I don't know that you could contrive
a story more wonderful than that.
No, I'm frankly outraged that the state was willing, ready
and able to execute an innocent man.
And if it had not been for his attorneys getting a stay
on September 21st, my students and I
would not have had the opportunity to free him.
David Protess was a Northwestern University
journalism professor, author,
and leader of the school's Innocence Project.
I had the opportunity to take David Protess'
investigative journalism class.
And I ended up working on the case of Anthony Porter.
Anthony had come within 50 hours of execution
exactly a week before we started class.
He received a stay at the last minute.
But he didn't receive a stay because
anyone thought he was innocent.
He received a stay because his IQ had been tested at 51
and there were questions about whether
he was competent to be executed.
We went and we reenacted the crime.
And we found out that the eyewitness who said
he had seen Anthony Porter committing the crime
couldn't have seen it at all.
That witness recanted his testimony.
And the case against Mr. Porter began to fall apart.
The students teamed up with a private investigator.
A fellow by the name of Paul Ciolino.
Then we tracked down the ex-wife of the person
we thought was the real killer.
And she told us on video that she had been there
when her husband committed the crime.
The betrayal led to a man
named Alstory Simon in Milwaukee.
A private investigator obtained a videotape confession
from Simon that he and not Mr. Porter
had killed the couple in the park in Chicago in 1982.
And Anthony was released on the state's motion 2 days later.
I'm absolutely thrilled and ecstatic
that an innocent man is gonna be walking to freedom.
And having played some role in that just makes me feel exhilarated.
As far as the media was concerned, they were heroes.
They spared the innocent guy from death
and it was a huge story in Chicago and nationally.
On the issue of capital punishment.
One of the people is Anthony Porter.
He spent 16 years on death row
he was within 2 days of being executed.
In 1996, Protess freed 4 convicted murderers.
2 of them from death row.
In a case known as "The Ford Heights Four."
People began to jokingly say that my home telephone number
is on every prison cellblock wall in America.
The Anthony Porter case was pivotal moment
in the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois.
It was the case that widely reported to have moved
Governor Ryan from his being on the fence
about the death penalty to being
actively very concerned about its administration.
I'm commuting the sentence of all death row inmates.
167 of them.
Everything that I have believed in
about the criminal justice system
was now coming into question
with the botched conviction of Mr. Porter.
You can sort of draw almost a direct line
from the shock that Governor Ryan felt about
what almost happened to Anthony Porter
to the abolition of the death penalty nearly a decade later.
My first reaction was, "Oh, my God!"
"Don't tell me we almost put an innocent man to death."
It was the most emotional time in my life.
I saw it on the news.
Governor Ryan was on there and he said
"Come on up here, little buddy" and it was Anthony Porter.
And then the governor was explaining the fine work
of this journalism class and I was amazed.
I was confused and actually I got depressed over it.
What did I do wrong?
I prided myself in conducting
good investigations.
It... it just blew me away.
Richard Devine was the state's attorney
of Cook County, Illinois.
Once again
in the crosshairs of the media
and wrongful conviction movement
he ordered a grand jury investigation
into the 1982 murders.
We should get these allegations in court.
Assistant State's Attorney Thomas Gainer
led the grand jury investigation to find out
who really killed Jerry and Marilyn.
The state's attorney's office took testimony
from witnesses who were in the park at the time
of the shooting and also David Protess
his students and investigator, Paul Ciolino.
After the conclusion of the grand jury proceedings
Anthony Porter's conviction was vacated.
He was a free man.
Through the Northwestern investigation, the guilty guy
Alstory Simon was put in prison and the innocent guy
Anthony Porter was released.
There was one problem though,
Anthony Porter killed those 2 people.
It was one big lie.
The thing I remember about Anthony Porter being released in 1999
was the hug picture.
It was enough to make my blood boil.
This case had a motive behind it bigger than the crime.
They did it, they killed the death penalty.
On the wrong case.
Anthony Porter's going back to court today.
He's planning to file a suit against
8 Chicago police officers.
My reaction to the announcement of that lawsuit was... I was livid.
I was furious. I was insulted.
I just couldn't believe that it was happening.
When you get sued like that, you have to go in
and list all your assets.
I can lose... everything that I'd worked for, over what?
Porter's contention, according to the lawsuit was
uh, that we manufactured the case.
They railroaded him.
This was the first time in the 17 years since his arrest
that Porter said he was tortured by police.
To be accused of being racist by the lawsuit, that made me angry.
That ain't me.
We're professionals.
We didn't operate that way.
And I knew that he had no business suing me
because I had not done anything wrong.
Nor had any of the other police officers.
Northwestern had a real good PR machine
and they were churning out a lot of different articles
a lot of different TV interviews
and I started listening to the facts.
What they were saying, and I said wait a minute
this isn't the same case.
I said there's... There's something going on.
But what's going on is not what you see on TV.
Walter Jones was hired to defend the city of Chicago
against Porter's civil suit.
When I got called by the mayor's office
and they said, "Walter, we got a problem."
We've got a guy who has been on death row
for over 16 years and all of a sudden now
he's gotten a pardon of innocence
and the case has turned into a huge mess.
But it's not a case that we are prepared to fold on
because we have some police officers who are adamant
that they never did anything wrong.
I knew that he had not been wrongly accused.
I knew that he belonged in jail.
We got the right guy.
We got the right offender.
Jim Delorto and John Mazzola
are retired federal investigators
who took an interest in this case.
They now work for Alstory Simon's legal team.
My partner Jim Delorto and I went to
Danville Correctional Center to interview Alstory Simon
to find out if he could enlighten us
as to what happened and why he confessed to this crime.
So we went down there, hoping to learn something
and we were astonished by what he told us.
In July 2001, without help from an attorney
Alstory Simon filed a post conviction petition
claiming that he was innocent.
And that his confession was coerced.
I never murdered anybody.
I didn't have no involvement in Marilyn Green's
and Jerry Hillard's death.
New allegations of misconduct in the Porter-Simon cases
have been filed in a complaint
with the Illinois Supreme Court.
It alleges Alstory Simon's lawyer knew
he was innocent and that Porter
should have never been released from prison.
Attorneys Jim Sotos and Terry Ekl
now represent Alstory Simon.
In my heart of hearts, and I will go to my grave
believing that Anthony Porter committed this murder.
And that Alstory Simon is 100% innocent.
I'm just tired of this stuff. I know that I'm innocent
and these people just keep coming up
bringing this stuff up, like, harassing me.
If we're gonna try this case, we have to try this case
like it was a brand new case.
And we must show the jury that he was guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt.
Because if we don't do that
that verdict is going to be $24 million.
People know that I'm innocent
everybody know that I'm innocent, you know.
I'm innocent and this is what happened to me.
Based on all the work that we had done,
there was no question in our mind that
we had gotten this right from the very beginning.
And that Porter was responsible for those killings.
August 15, 1982
in the very, very early hours of August 15 after the conclusion of the,
uh, Bud Billiken Parade.
The community has a big parade which ends at Washington Park
and it's a day of celebration in the black community
with picnicking and games and...
There were thousands of people in the park.
By 7 or 8 o'clock at night,
the neighborhood starts to quiet down.
Everybody's worn out.
They've been partying
since early in the day.
And we look forward to the night because
usually that night was really quite calm.
The night Jerry and Marilyn got killed
I was 13 years old in 1982.
Ray Brown didn't come forward
with his story until 2006
because he heard Porter had already
been arrested for the crime.
William Taylor was the state's star witness
against Porter at his 1983 trial.
Just a fun, warm night, drinking, socializing
and... and it was extremely hot.
So I said, "Well, let's all go to the pool."
On a hot night, people got over the fences
or through the fences.
They swam, actually harmless fun.
They didn't have enough police working that night
to chase them out and I don't think we'd have chased them out anyway.
Jerry Hilliard and Marilyn Green were 18 and 19 years old
sitting in the bleachers of Washington Park
about 1:00 in the morning enjoying the night.
First upon arrival, I walked in through the gate
to get into the bleachers.
'Cause I seen Jerry and I seen his girl.
And I spoke to him in, like
"Little Ray, your little bad self always."
"Now, what you fitting gonna do?"
You know, I'm like "I'm fitting go swimming." You know.
I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
If I had kept my ass at home, who knows how much better
or more... much more pleasant my life would have been.
My partner Geraldine Perry and I were
violent crime detectives and we heard the call of, uh,
2 people shot in Washington Park
in the bleachers just to the west of the swimming pool
alongside of the field house.
And the police, when they investigated the crime scene
they found a necklace on the floor here of Marilyn Green.
And the police speculated that
a motive may have been robbery and that she resisted
because she was shot through her hand and into her neck.
After she got shot, her boyfriend got shot.
He was shot twice in the head.
Marilyn Green, after getting shot, was holding her neck.
She staggered down these steps.
She came out this north gate towards the parking lot
right when Officer Anthony Liace
was pulling up in his squad car.
She was holding her neck
pointing towards the bleachers
and then she ran past Liace
and then Officer Billy Johnson had a squad care there.
Marilynn Green was placed in Officer Johnson's squad car
and rushed to the hospital.
Officers Liace and Anderson ran south behind the bleachers
and saw a man fleeing the area.
They stopped and frisked the man.
Finding no weapon, they let him go.
My partner and I proceeded up into the stands
where we saw a young man leaning back
against the back wall of the bleachers.
I told the 2 witnesses to grab the victim's shoulders
and I grabbed his feet and we walked him down
out of the stands.
He was in very serious condition.
We called for a wagon to transport him
to the hospital soon as possible.
The wagon took him off to Billings Hospital
where he died later.
I found out later that the female victim
had died at Providence Hospital.
It was a loss. I mean, she was so young.
And she had 2 kids.
Well, I love my sister, and I miss her.
And I wish it never happened.
I wish she was never up up in Washington Park.
Detectives Dwyer and Perry interviewed witnesses
Henry Williams and William Taylor.
And learned that Porter had robbed Williams at gunpoint
before entering the bleachers and sitting near the victims.
Henry told me this... this himself.
That Porter had came over by him
and stuck him up.
I came to work at approximately 20 after 4.
My supervising sergeant called me in and he said
"Chuck, you and Dennis are gonna pick up the double
from Washington Park last night."
So we talked to the detectives, we reviewed the reports
and then we talked to the witnesses.
One of the witnesses, William Taylor
he wanted to leave.
At that point, he was telling us he saw the shooting
but he didn't know who the offender was.
But the robbery victim said to us off to the side
"Listen, he's lying to you."
He actually did see the murder.
He knows who did it, but he's really afraid.
Taylor admitted to detectives Salvatore and Gray
that he did see Porter shoot the victims
but he was terrified of Porter and his family.
A couple of the Porter brothers knew me
and that I was involved in this case.
I said, well, anything to keep any harm
from coming to my great grandmother.
Because I actually witnessed him mugging
2 seniors one day in front the building.
After Taylor ID'd Porter as the shooter
detectives called Assistant State's Attorney
David Kerstein from the Felony Review Unit.
It was Kerstein's job to ensure the case
had enough evidence for prosecution.
After talking to the 2 witnesses
I had a conversation with the detectives involved.
And I said, "I'm sorry, it's not enough for me."
So what I demanded that they do
is that we transport the witnesses
to the park to reenact the crime itself.
The 5 of us, we go to Washington Park.
You know, they were walking us through, uh
what happened and where they were at etcetera, etcetera.
Now, I made sure that they were independent of each other
and the reason for it is I didn't want
one of the witnesses to influence the other witness.
The first 2 witnesses to come in were
William Taylor and Henry Williams.
It was about 1:00 in the morning.
They decided to hop the fence in here.
Right behind me, they hopped the fence in here to go swimming.
And they came over the fence, took off some of their clothes
proceeded to the south part of the pool
and they jumped in the water and went swimming.
Then, Williams decides he's had enough
and he comes out right in this area where I'm at
and starts to put his cloths back on.
As he's doing that, he sees a man approach him
and as that man gets closer he realizes
it's somebody he knows from the neighborhood.
It's Tony Porter.
Tony Porter comes up to him and says
"Give me your money."
And Williams says, "I don't have any money."
Porter then takes out a gun and puts it
right to Williams' head, to his forehead.
Reaches in Williams' pocket, pulls out $2 and says
"I'm giving you a break."
He doesn't shoot him and he walks away.
And Williams then said a few minutes later when he looked
to the north end of the bleachers
he could see Porter up at the top
with the 2 victims.
And then a few minutes later, Taylor comes out of the pool
and he starts to dry off and he hears shots.
And he turns around to the north side of the bleachers
where he hears the shots coming from.
Taylor says he sees Porter at point blank range
pointing the gun at a male victim.
And he see's Porter fire the gun.
And the victim falls back.
Taylor then says he sees Porter shoot the victim again.
After the shots are fired, Porter runs down the stairs
right down this walkway from the north
towards me to the south.
I looked up and I saw him running down the steps.
Right past me out the south gate.
Tony Porter.
At that point, I was somewhat satisfied
with what they had told me
matched their interview that I had earlier at the station.
And we found out that the eyewitness
who said he had seen Anthony Porter
committing the crime couldn't have seen it at all.
In 1999, the Northwestern students conducted
a reenactment in Washington Park
and concluded that William Taylor
couldn't have seen Porter commit the murders.
Because his view would have been blocked by an iron fence
and obstructions in the bleachers.
And they all said it took place at the very corner
of the bleachers.
I saw the crime photographs and I says
"Wait a minute, this is wrong."
They're wrong.
The students were not examining
the actual crime location.
And were unaware that the obstructions they cited in 1999
weren't in the bleachers in 1982.
You can look from the pool area up into the bleachers.
Unobstructed, even through the fence you can see.
While Kerstein questioned Taylor and Williams at the pool
a detective overheard 2 men talking
about seeing Porter kill the victims.
Their names were Kenneth Edwards
and Michael Woodfork.
And they asked if we saw
what happened last night and Mike said yeah.
That's when they find out, that's when they get to know the story
that, no, we saw what happened.
So then he started talking to him
and he started walking back with him and he says
"You ain't gonna believe this."
He says, "They saw the shooting"
and they just ID'd Porter.
It was out of nowhere that these 2 other witnesses
who had been previously undiscovered.
No one knew of them, came forward to talk to us.
I am positive
that Anthony Porter killed those people.
I saw him with my own eyes.
With this new information, detectives took Edwards
and Woodfork to the police station for further interviews.
They also spoke with Mark Senior and Eugene Beckwith.
Two witnesses who saw Porter in the stands with the victims.
Like William and Taylor, those 4 guys
entered the pool area from the north
walked along that same walkway
and then when they got to the point right here
where they were about to hop the fence
they looked up in the bleachers and they saw 4 people.
3 men and 1 female.
And Edwards, Beckwith
and Senior would all tell the police
that one of the men up in the bleachers was Tony Porter
and Tony Porter was somebody
they knew from the neighborhood.
And we walked past them and we were like
"What's up Tone? What's up Tone?" you know.
'Cause he was the only one we knew
out of those 4 people.
Beckwith and Edwards decide to go swimming
And they proceed to hop the fence
and come into the pool area.
And they jump in the water.
'Cause they're gonna use the diving boards
at the south end of the pool.
They were on these diving boards
at the time of the shooting.
According to Beckwith, he was on the high dive
and he noticed on the north end of the bleachers
4 people, 3 men and a woman.
And he says Tony Porter
was absolutely one of the person's in that group.
He saw a male stand up and shoot somebody.
He's not sure if Porter
was actually the guy who fired the gun.
Edwards was the guy who had
already jumped off the diving board
and was standing right about where I'm at
which is a raised area.
And from here
you can easily see over the fence
into the north part of the bleachers.
And he actually saw Porter
fire the gun that killed Jerry Hillard.
And all of a sudden you just see pow, pow.
When I see that, I tell Eugene to get down
'cause I don't want them to see us up there seeing them.
I saw Porter.
I saw Tony Porter and I saw him do it.
So I wanna get down because I don't want him to know
that that's us up there because he knows us.
Edwards then exited the pool area to the south
along with Beckwith.
We're not looking back.
We're just taking off.
So once I got off the diving board and went in 9 feet
I swam up to get out of the swimming pool.
And, uh, I see Anthony Porter.
Right there in the bleachers.
He shot 'em and killed 'em and he ran.
You know, leaving out the swimming pool.
Senior and Woodfork were
in the bleachers here talking to a couple of girls
And when the shots were fired
they looked behind them
to the north and saw the shots being fired.
Of the 4 people that were there
how many were men and how many were women?
3 men, 1 woman.
Anthony Porter being one of the men, is that right?
Correct.
None of those 3 people
was Alstory Simon, is that correct?
Not that I can recall, no.
And the Northwestern students
didn't even talk to those 4 witnesses.
"Did you interview any of those people?"
"No, we didn't because they all said
it was too dark to see anything, I think."
"That's what I thought they said."
That's just completely false.
And for her to say that is just mind boggling
to act like the people in the park
were inconsequential.
"Were you aware that Kenneth Edwards identified
Anthony Porter as the shooter that night?"
"No, I guess I didn't see that part of the police report."
A 100% positive Anthony Porter did it.
I saw him.
"Mr. Edwards identified Anthony Porter
as the shooter that night, did he not?"
"I would have to go back over the report."
"And your students didn't investigate
these 4 men, did they?"
"No."
"You didn't ask Paul Ciolino to find those 4 men?"
"No."
"You didn't go out yourself and look for those 4 men?"
Answered, "No."
Question, "None of your group ever conducted
any interview of those 4 men."
Answer, "That's correct."
Would you expect your students to interview
all people who claim to have witnessed a crime
the underlying crime?
- No. - Why not?
Because many of the times they can't be found.
No one even attempted to find any of these witnesses
David Protess admitted that in his grand jury testimony.
We find other independent witness.
But the combination of all 4
speaking to me independently
added up to only one conclusion to me.
And that was Anthony Porter
was in some way involved in this case.
It was at that point I then felt
that a warrant for his arrest should be made.
After the warrant was issued
Porter turned himself in
but denied involvement in the murders.
The state called 3 witnesses
at Porter's 1983 trial.
William Taylor, Henry Williams
and Officer Anthony Liace.
Officer Liace identified Anthony Porter
in court as the person he stopped behind the bleachers.
Anthony Porter elected not to testify
at his criminal trial.
One of his friends did testify
that he and Porter were drinking all night
at Porter's house and outside in the playground
until the early hours of the morning.
It was a jury trial.
They came back and they found him guilty of both homicides.
After the jury found Porter guilty
the death penalty phase began
and the state called 2 witnesses.
Earl Lewis testified
that a couple weeks before the murders
Anthony Porter walked by his house, kicked his dog
Lewis objected, Porter pulled out a gun
and shot Lewis in the head.
Luckily, Lewis survived.
'Cause he was a bully. He was...
He was a terrified man back then.
You say that name back then, Anthony Porter
everybody ran. He was feared.
Just a renegade all the way around.
Douglas McGhee testified that in 1979
Anthony Porter robbed him and viciously beat him.
That robbery and beating took place in Washington Park
in the very same bleachers as the murders.
Judge Robert Sklodowski sentenced Porter
to death by lethal injection.
And likened Porter to a shark
that returns to the same feeding ground.
This was not a case where these people
had never seen Anthony Porter before
and were seeing some stranger.
They all knew who he was
from the neighborhood.
Anthony Porter did these murders
and he got the break of his life
when he got freed from the penitentiary.
The reason that my students were able to do it
when the prosecutors did not
is because the police started with the assumption
that Anthony Porter was guilty
and tried to build a case around him.
They railroaded him.
We started with no assumption at all.
We stared with an objective view of this.
We didn't know whether he was guilty or innocent.
Our goal was to search for the truth.
Anyone who would look at the evidence
and say that what Northwestern did in this case was to search for the truth.
We're working for the truth.
That would be laughable.
This is an email that David Protess sent to Paul Ciolino on November 5, 1998
before there had been any evidence developed against Alstory Simon.
William Taylor hadn't said a word.
They had not talked to Walter Jackson.
They had not talked to Inez Jackson.
They hadn't talked to Alstory Simon.
And yet at the beginning
of November of 1998
David Protess sends
Paul Ciolino an email and says
"Now, it's your turn to find people."
"Here's what I have on the guy we're almost certain was the killer
in the crime for which Anthony Porter faces death."
Protess and his journalism students met Porter and his attorney in prison
on two separate occasions in December 1998.
I mean, th... this is a journalist's dream.
To be in a jail with a prisoner
asking him all the vital questions.
Let's take Shawn Armbrust.
"What was it about that meeting that convinced you he was innocent?"
"Well, the reason we were going to meet him
was to ask him if he committed the crime."
"But the first thing he said was that he was innocent."
"And I've heard people say that before but he was more convincing."
That sounds to me like Professor Protess
was teaching his students advocacy, not journalism.
A grand juror asked another student
Syandene Rhodes.
"What would you say is the objective
of your assignment you were given?"
"I believe the objective would be to find any evidence, interview
anyone you could that would lead you to freeing this man."
So there you have an honest answer.
It wasn't about finding the truth
it was about freeing Anthony Porter.
It's interesting after hearing all this evidence
a grand juror even asked
"Is it possible that you were just a pawn in this whole process?"
The grand juror asks
"What is motivating the move towards this direction
where there's a lot of evidence that you've admitted that you've seen
but passed over blindly?"
And Syandene says,
"I know what I've been doing for the past month and that is
investigating Anthony Porter's innocence."
And the grand juror says,
"Or guilt. He may be guilty?"
So what he has essentially done in the grand jury
there's no question about it.
He has certainly proven that it was
a meaningless investigation by the students.
But more importantly
he's re-convicted Porter.
For the last 16 years he's waited on death row.
Tonight, there's new information
that suggests he shouldn't be there.
Now, the man who helped put him there
the state's only witness is changing his story.
One of the biggest fallacies
of this entire saga
is that Northwestern portrayed
the situation to be that
there was a single witness who had identified
Anthony Porter who then recanted.
There were 6 witnesses implicating Porter.
Northwestern talked to one.
Henry Williams was dead
and Northwestern totally ignored
the other four witnesses that were in the park that night.
And it was based on that portrayal
that they were ultimately able to undo
Anthony Porter's conviction.
They stay on people
to try to finally get something
out of them that fits their theory
of who they think did the case.
Tom McCann, one of the Northwestern students
was the first to contact Taylor.
I got a phone call from a student named Tom McCann.
He wanted to talk about the Tony Porter case.
I said, "Look, I'm through with this."
"I don't want to be bothered."
"Don't call here anymore."
And hung up.
McCann talked to William Taylor
and he prepared a memo.
In the memo, McCann says Taylor
told him, "There was no doubt in his mind
that this man was guilty."
"He will not be happy until Porter is finally executed."
"And before hanging up he told McCann
he didn't want to talk about the case anymore."
That's all Paul Ciolino needed to hear.
Next thing I know
Ciolino and McCann
show up unannounced.
They're telling me, "Well, you know this is all for the better good"
which I had no idea what they're talking about.
And then they're trying to tell me
that in the end
I was wrong.
I don't know how that went down
but they had basically convinced me that
I didn't see him shoot anybody.
But I did see him run out of the park.
And I said, "Well, maybe I did make a mistake,
but I don't think I did."
But I said, "Okay, if this is the way they want to play this,
I'll, yeah, I'll play the game."
You know, just to get them out of my hair.
Because then the cycle of
calling my job
upsetting my life again.
I wanted it done.
I wanted it over with.
And then what, 20... almost 20 years later.
Again?
No by any means possible, here I'll sign this.
And at that point
Ciolino writes an affidavit a statement.
I did not see Anthony Porter shoot anyone.
I'm telling Tom he's just seen something that's very, very rare.
And that's the only surviving eyewitness
in a murder case retracting his testimony.
It was a big moment and it was a critical moment for Anthony Porter.
The significance of this is that William Taylor
is the state's star witness in the case and the only eyewitness in a case
where there is no confession and no physical evidence.
So his recantation, the admission of his lie
indicates that there is now no evidence against Anthony Porter.
So when you watch those clips
you come away with a perception
that the only witness against Anthony Porter
has now recanted his testimony and there's no case against him.
That couldn't have been further from the truth.
Then the eyewitness recanted.
They call it recant and what they get him to say is
"I was in the park, I never saw Porter with a gun,
I didn't see Porter fire the shot."
And this is the journalism's professor
of one of the top, if not the top
journalism schools in the country.
Does an affidavit
that intentionally leaves out
the most important fact of all.
I saw Anthony Porter
run past, down the bleachers stairs
right past me out of the south gate.
That was something that William Taylor
told Northwestern
before they obtained his affidavit
and they just left it out of the affidavit.
"But that was not included in the affidavit
where he saw Anthony Porter in the park that night, right?"
"Right."
They zeroed me out and spun me around.
It's trying to make people think that's all the evidence
there was against Anthony Porter
was William Taylor and he recanted
therefore, it equals Anthony Porter's innocence.
That's a croc of BS.
Anthony Porter, I still think in my heart
is guilty.
This is the question from state's attorney gainer.
"But, Tom, what did you tell us your purpose was?"
"What were you doing this for?"
"To find the truth, but I'm a college student."
"I mean, this took a long time."
"Let's go with that, you're a college student, I understand that."
"Who told you to quit when you got to the Taylor affidavit?"
"No one, we only had a very short time,
so we decided to look at the alternate suspect."
The trail that the students would follow
began with the mother of one of the murder victims.
Mrs. Green told police that Marilyn and Jerry
left for the park that day with Inez and Alstory.
Which everybody knew to be the case.
Inez and Marilyn were friends.
They, including Alstory Simon
were in the park with thousands of other people
earlier in the day.
According to Inez's son
Sonny Jackson, his mother and Alstory
came home early around 7 o'clock in the evening.
The murders didn't take place
until after 1:00 in the morning.
A few weeks after the murders, Simon and his family
moved to another Chicago neighborhood
because of gang attacks on their home.
Months later, they moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
And they seized
on the name of a guy who's name
had surfaced at some point
but with no evidence and concluded
that they were almost certain he was the real killer.
With Simon in their sights
David Protess and 2 female students
drove from Chicago to Simon's home in Milwaukee.
Protess sits in the car
it's late at night.
The 2 students knock on the front door.
Alstory Simon invites them in
closes the door, says, "How can I help you?"
They said that they were doing a...
A story and writing a book on justice and unsolved murders.
And that my name popped up.
I asked them, "What do you mean my name popped up?"
They asked me did Jerry Hillard
and Marilyn Green ring a bell?
I said, "Yeah, it ring a bell."
So what's that got to do with me?
I told them, you know, the truth
that I didn't know nothing about their deaths.
The interview only lasted for
maybe like 5 or 10 minutes.
Then, after I escorted them out
Professor Protess got out of this SUV
and walked over to me
and then tells me
uh, he want to thank me for talking to his students.
And give me a card after introducing his-self.
Uh, when the students walks across the street
Professor Protess, he tells me that
a man is getting ready to die for something I did.
And I said, "Wha... what do you mean something I did?"
"What are you talking about?"
And then he tells me, uh
we know that you killed Jerry and Marilyn.
I said, "Man, I ain't killed nobody, man."
"Whoever telling you that stuff is sending you for a ride."
"You get the hell away from me and... And don't come to my house no more."
And he left.
In 1999, Northwestern, at the urging of Anthony Porter
contacted Walter Jackson, Alstory Simon's nephew.
Jackson signed an affidavit for Northwestern
stating that Alstory Simon had told him
that he had taken care of Jerry and Marilyn.
It sounded pretty suspicious.
Why would this be something he kept to himself for 17 years
and he just reveals to students from Northwestern
but that's what he said.
6 years later Simon's lawyers talk to Walter Jackson
and he told them a much different story.
And what we learned was that Anthony Porter
had set this whole thing up from prison.
Anthony Porter and Walter Jackson
were incarcerated together.
Anthony Porter had saved Walter Jackson from an attack.
He approached Walter Jackson
and he said, "Hey, can you help me out with my case?"
"We're trying to pin this on Alstory Simon
and you can help with that and in return
this Northwestern professor that I'm working with
can help get you out of prison."
"And we need your Aunt Inez to help us with this too."
Walter Jackson admitted
that he lied about Simon's involvement in the murders.
In late 1998, Jackson alleged
that David Protess contacted him
and told him that if he helped free Anthony Porter
he would work to get him out of jail.
And that there would be money waiting for him
when he got out.
So Walter Jackson agrees to do that.
He calls his Aunt Inez.
Alstory Simon's ex-wife, who
they had had a horrible relationship
and she was very bitter at him because of that.
And Walter tells Inez that in return
for her helping pin the murders on Alstory Simon
David Protess is not just gonna get Walter out of prison
he's gonna get Inez's son
Sonny out of prison as well.
He said, "What do you expect me to do?"
And these guys are saying
they'll help me get out of prison.
I'll say whatever they want me to say.
So I made up all that stuff about Al.
Confessing to us and telling us that
and, uh, so it was all a story.
So it was actually hatched by Anthony Porter from prison.
Then, we tracked down
the ex-wife of the person we thought was the real killer.
And she told us on video, that she had been
there when her husband committed the crime.
David Protess and his students
took Inez Jackson to a restaurant.
They bought her groceries and a space heater.
Later they went to Shawn Armbrust's house
in suburban Milwaukee where Inez Jackson
gave a video taped statement
stating that Alstory Simon killed Jerry and Marilyn.
And she gives, as a reason that
Jerry Hillard was a fellow gang member.
He was holding back on drug money.
Then, a fight ensued. Then, he pulled out a gun.
Shot Hillard intentionally
and shot Marilyn Green accidentally.
You heard at least 2, right?
- Hmm. - Okay.
There's 4 people at that pool that night.
3 males, 1 female.
Not one single person said
2 males, 2 females.
Which would have been Northwestern's theory that
Simon was there with Inez Jackson
at the time of the shooting.
There was only one female involved here
and that was the victim.
No one ever mentions me the name of Alstory Simon.
We went to Milwaukee
to contact Inez Jackson.
We had a lot of tough questions for her.
She didn't know what time the murders occurred.
And that them shooting didn't take place till
between 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning.
That there were only 2 shots fired uh, one at... at each person.
Totally inconsistent with what's in the police reports
that the victims were shot 5 times.
You heard 2 shots, right?
3.
- You heard 3 shots? - Mayb...
It happened so fast. I heard bang, bang, bang.
It might been another bang, It would...
Well, how many shots did you hear?
Really, maybe 3, maybe 4, I don't know.
You did not say in that videotape statement
that you heard 3 or 4 shots, did you?
I said I heard
2 shots maybe 3. He wrote down 2.
But in the videotape statement, you didn't say...
I said I heard some shots.
You didn't say you heard 3 or 4 shots, did you?
You said you heard 2 shots.
I don't remember.
And she was gonna stick with that story until
she found out that she was gonna die.
In 2005, Inez Jackson admitted
the whole Simon story was a lie.
And for at least half an hour on that videotape
time and again she asserts 2 things.
1, she lied, and Alstory Simon
was not the trigger man that night.
The only reason why
she gave that information was because she was mad at me
for walking out of the marriage
and she saw a chance to get back.
And the promises they had made about her son
and to help her nephew get out of jail.
She had been promised all kinds of favors from Protess.
Including money in exchange for her testimony.
This wasn't the first time a witness had made allegations
about money from movie and book deals.
Charles McCraney
the star witness in the Four Heights Four case had made
similar allegations against David Protess in that case.
That might have been hard to believe if Protess hadn't
put these promises in writing.
It reads as follows.
"Stopped by to see you about something important."
"Have information for you that should be helpful financially."
Financially is underlined.
Then...
On Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois
Medill School of Journalism stationery
he writes another letter.
"Dear Charlie," and I'm simply reading a portion of this.
"I could go on and on, but I think you get the point."
"I easily can write this book based on your various statements
which frankly would make you look bad
or you could be courageous by telling your real story
about what happened in this case."
"You don't have much longer to wait."
"I'm moving ahead with my investigation
and book, and the movie is sure to follow."
Protess wrote a book called "Gone In The Night",
and a CBS movie did follow.
It premiered a month before Protess
wrote the McCraney letters.
Mrs. Nathan?
- Yes. - Hi, I'm David Protess.
I sent you a letter.
Charles McCraney told private investigators
that David Protess
promised him $250,000 from movie and book deals.
And the way Protess describes that encounter
in his own book is to say that
Protess introduced Ciolino
to the witness Charles McCraney as Jerry Bruckheimer
a Hollywood producer, and then Ciolino told McCraney
"If you're willing to tell your story
it could be worth something."
And McCraney said, "How about start paying for my time?"
And Ciolino then pulled out a gold money clip
peeled off 4 crisp 20s
and tossed them on the table.
But you did, for instance, pay Charles McCraney
or Mr. Ciolino did, 80 or $100 to meet with him
at a Kentucky Fried Chicken, right?
As to the question pertaining to me
the answer is no, I did not.
Mr. Ciolino paid him for his time, right?
Shocked the shit out of me when it happened.
But he's part of your team, isn't he?
Right, but I don't control Paul Ciolino
the same way he doesn't control me.
Right, but if you were there, you were there with him, right?
Objection.
So that seems to me to be part of their MO.
They go to impoverished people who don't have a lot of money
and make them promises
and basically get them to recant.
After she, uh, did that declaration, um
a month or 2 months later, she died.
There is no evidence today
because everybody's recanted in this case.
The only evidence holding
Alstory Simon in prison
was his confession.
And a week later, her husband confessed
to private investigator Paul Ciolino on video.
There was a time when
people believed that
innocent people did not confess to crimes.
And I was among those people.
Everybody in our field now knows that that's not the case.
The original "Innocence Project" was formed in New York in 1992.
Its website lists the telltale signs of a false confession.
If you take those factors and apply them to this case
they're almost all present.
February '99
I had been sitting up about 3 days and nights smoking
rock cocaine and, um, the doorbell rang.
It kept ringing and ringing
you know, like somebody was in distress.
Alstory Simon was approached
at 6:30 in the morning after he had spent the night
doing cocaine, so he was clearly intoxicated.
When I opened the door
here's Paul Ciolino
and Arnold Reed.
They was armed with weapons
and had a video camera and a tripod and badges.
They claimed to be police investigators from Chicago
investigating a 1982 homicide.
And bogarted their way on into the house.
The investigator in this case, as he was
in the Four Nights Four case
was Paul Ciolino, a private investigator
who works hand in glove with Professor Protess.
And he just pushed me on, you know, back up in the house.
Like police do when they coming to make an arrest.
They pushed me and shoved me into a corner part
of where the sofa was.
He stood over me
and Arnold Reed, he started going from room to room.
I'm asking him, "What are you walking all through my house for?"
"Wh... what are you looking for?"
So, Ciolino, he tells me, uh
"We know you did these murders."
"You're going down for these murders."
"And there's nothing you're gonna be able to do about it."
I'm telling them, "Man, I don't know nothing about no murders, man."
"What are you talking about?"
I said, "Man, just get out of my house, man."
He said, "No, we're not going anywhere."
"You better look at the evidence."
"And I'm gonna show you this is why we think you did it."
So he showed me affidavits of some people.
He showed Alstory Simon the statement that Walter Jackson
had made claiming that Alstory Simon had admitted
the crime to him 17 years earlier.
Alstory Simon said, "That's ridiculous. Get out of my house."
Ciolino then pulled out a video camera.
He popped this tape in.
Here's this Afro-American male person
up there on this tape claiming that
he was at Washington Park and actually saw me shoot
and kill Marilyn Green and Jerry Hillard.
And then, uh...
Alstory Simon did not know
that this African-American making these allegations
on this videotape was an actor
hired by Ciolino
and scripted by Ciolino.
He tells me, uh,
"I want you to see something."
He goes to the TV
that I had on, and he turns to a channel.
And there was this professor, accusing me of murder.
It showed my ex-wife Inez accusing me of murder
and being with me and supposed to observed me
me shooting and killing these people.
I couldn't believe it.
At a certain point your story came on
and he watched, and it confirmed everything
I had been telling him earlier in our conversation.
And it just seemed at that moment, he gave up.
I knew she had, uh,
turned bad, but... just completely.
I became fearful of my life though.
Then after, he says, uh, "Look, Alstory, um,
we got all the evidence we need to put you on death row."
"I'm gonna level with you."
"We're not police officers."
I said, "What?"
He said, "No, we're not police officers."
We're investigators working for the same person
that you just seen on the screen, Professor Protess."
So I said, "Well, get the hell out of my house."
They refused to leave.
And he said, "Look, all we wanna do is stop this execution."
And then to create the urgency they told him that
you only have a half hour to help yourself.
If you don't say that you did this crime in self-defense
in the next half hour, the Chicago police
are gonna walk in here, arrest you
take you downtown, and there's nothing anybody
can do to help you. This is your only opportunity.
Then he tells me, uh,
if you... if I cooperate with him
he'll make sure that it was a self-defense murder.
And when he said that, he made me feel like he was
trying to give me a way out.
And he told me that, um,
I would be paid financially well off.
That I'd never have to work again if I cooperated with them.
And I asked him, I said, "Man, are you fucking serious?"
You know. Excuse my language. Oh.
And he said, "Look, you can play hardball all you want.
"But I'm telling you you're going to death row
and there's nothing you can do about it."
But I tell him that I didn't murder anybody.
He puts his hand on his gun, you know,
and started easing it up.
Like this, and tells me that,
"Hey, we can do this the easy way
or we can do this the hard way."
You know, being souped up on that drugs and alcohol...
And I was paranoid.
And I'm thinking, when he said the easy way or the hard way
that he's gonna shoot me in my head and make it look like
that he come to question a... a murder suspect
and I maybe open fire on them, and he had to kill me, you know,
and all this kind of stuff was going through my head.
So again, I tell him to get out of my house.
So I tried to get up
to get to the phone
to call Milwaukee authorities.
Arnold Reed, he blocked me from using the phone.
You know, he put his hand on the phone
and pulled his gun out, you know, literally.
So I sat back down.
Then, Ciolino, he tells me
if you cooperate with us, we guarantee you that
you will come out of this with millions of dollars.
That the money will come from movies and book deals
and all of this kind of stuff.
That Professor Protess will pull the necessary strings
to get you released in a couple of years.
You only have to do a few years.
All we want is to stop this execution.
Now, I'm, uh, scared to death
after what I done saw on this TV screen.
I wanted the man out of my house so bad
and I asked him, I said, "Well, what do you want me to do?"
So he picked up the papers that he showed me.
He started writing stuff on a piece of paper
and underlining different stuff and then told me
I want you to say this on camera.
Ciolino basically used Walter Jackson's affidavit
as a template for Alstory Simon's confession.
So we rehearsed it.
Oh, man, for a long time.
Alright, that's 'cause that's how out of it I was.
And then, uh, when he felt that I had it
down pack and sound convincing enough
we put it on camera.
His demeanor, I thought, was very, uh,
telling in that he was looking at his shoes most of the time.
And, uh, he looked like he was prepped.
And while I was talking, I had the paper, you know
right next to me on the cocktail table.
So if I forget something, you know
I could look at it, you know
and say what he wanted me to say.
And then he told me that the only person who would see
that would be the prosecution.
This tape of Alstory Simon's confession
didn't go straight to the prosecutors, it went to CBS.
It was aired on television.
Newscasters were calling for Anthony Porter's release
without there being any scrutiny of the confession.
Thomas Epach, then the head
of the Cook County State's Attorney's criminal division
claims Simon's prosecution has haunted him for years.
In 2013, he swore an affidavit
sharing some of the inside story.
"Less than 2 days after the video
"of the alleged confession was broadcast by the media
"State's Attorney, Richard Devine
"made the decision to release Mr. Porter from custody.
"At the time this decision was made
"no one from the state's attorney's office
"had received a copy of the original video
which purported to contain the confession of Alstory Simon."
The state released Porter without even having
the confession tape in their possession.
They basically just swung the doors open for Anthony Porter.
With no scrutiny at all.
"In my years of experience as a prosecutor
"it is my opinion that it was highly unusual
"if not unprecedented, to make a decision to release
"an individual convicted of murder
"based upon the broadcast of a video
"the reliability and authenticity
"of which had not been thoroughly investigated
and established."
And when Ciolino was asked by the, uh,
Chicago media in 2006
to address Alstory Simon's allegations
this is what Ciolino's response was.
I don't have any rules.
The Supreme Court says I can lie, cheat, do anything I can
to get them to say whatever I got to get them to say.
The Chicago Police Department is masters at it.
So is every other police department.
And at one point, in a Chicago magazine article
he acknowledges that he
quote, bull-rushed this client into confessing.
"We just bull-rushed him and mentally he couldn't recover."
Ciolino acknowledges that he used an actor.
He acknowledges that he scripted the actor.
But he denies flatly that he ever promised favors
or that he ever threatened him.
The turning point was when Alstory Simon was confronted
with massive evidence of his guilt.
Uh, he was shown the affidavits and the videotapes
uh, that proved that he was guilty.
I asked David Protess about this
fake videotape when I took his deposition in another case.
It is a criticism of Paul Ciolino's
uh, method of using, I believe
a fake videotape in an interview that he conducted.
I would never do that.
- You didn't know he was gonna do that? - Nope.
In David Protess' grand jury testimony, he testified
"I learned a day or two before Mr. Ciolino interviewed
"Alstory Simon that he was thinking
about using this technique."
- You didn't know he was gonna do that? - Nope.
Northwestern David Protess would be the first people
screaming about the tactics of the Chicago Police Department
in coercing confessions out of people.
But why in the world, when that behavior is wrong
would Ciolino say he can do whatever he wants
to get a confession out of somebody
and to get them to say what he wants them to say.
And he has no rules like police officers do.
When I heard what Alstory Simon said there was no doubt
in my mind that Alstory was telling the truth
because I had experienced
the same thing first-hand with Paul Ciolino.
Michael Madonia was involved in litigation
with one of Paul Ciolino's clients.
Paul Ciolino paid a visit
to Mr. Madonia at his home.
He started pounding on the door of my house
and then after that he was gonna push his way in.
I had to put my arm up to stop him from entering my home.
He said that if I continued to collect evidence
that there would be a good likelihood
that I would end up with a bullet in my head.
Sometimes you can be placed in a situation
and do something that you really don't wanna do.
But compelled to do it for the sake of saving your own life.
One expert outlines the factors
that lead to false confessions.
"What happened prior to the confession?"
"Are there Miranda issues?"
"Was the client clean and sober?"
"Was anybody other than sworn
law enforcement personnel involved?"
"Are there any issues of inappropriate
physical misconduct?"
That expert is none other than Paul Ciolino.
I strongly believed and felt
that I wouldn't have had a chance
to sit on death row, no 5 years.
Not even no 5 months.
I believe they would've killed me immediately.
And then the key is he told them
"And I'll get you a lawyer. We'll take care of that."
Because the only way this was gonna work is if they made sure
that Simon had a lawyer who wasn't
really gonna represent him.
He also told me that they was gonna furnish me
with the best defense attorney in the city of Chicago.
He went to my phone, he made a call.
He told me that Attorney Jack Rimland
would be representing me.
Then, they packed up and left.
Attorney Rimland came to my house, introduced himself.
We sat down. Gave me one of his cards.
He didn't appear to be concerned about what had happened.
And I had told Rimland that
"Man, I didn't do these murders, man."
And then he told me that, well, it didn't make no difference.
Because the evidence was so strong against me
that if I rolled the dice that I'm going to death row.
That was the extent of, uh, his visit.
Ciolino got the confession and then handed him over
to his office mate and his own personal attorney
to represent him and tell him that he had to plead guilty.
That lawyer's job was to scrutinize the confession
that Ciolino had taken from Alstory Simon.
Now, how is a lawyer
who is close friends with
the person who took the confession
gonna scrutinize that confession?
The first thing he did was to announce publicly
that he understood that if Alstory Simon was charged
that he would be facing the death penalty.
Which is almost exactly what Paul Ciolino told Alstory Simon
to get him to confess in the first place.
The only promise I made to him was
I would try and make sure he did not get the death penalty.
Shortly after Simon confessed
he called his friend, Reverend Robert Braun.
Braun and Simon had worked together
on many community projects.
I said, "Al, you gotta tell me what went on," you know.
"What's going on?'
"What's this about a confession?"
And... and he says, "My mind ain't right."
He's like, "I couldn't think."
And he said, "I said a lot of stuff
"and they're gonna get me the electric chair, Bob."
I said, "No they won't." Al says, "Yes, they will."
Simon told Braun that he was innocent of the crime
but that Jack Rimland advised him to plead guilty
as part of the deal.
He said, "Bob, I'm taking care of this. Back off."
I said, "Al said that he's... He's innocent of all this
"why are you telling him to plead guilty?"
Rimland also told Braun that Simon
would only serve 2 years in jail as part of the deal.
I says, I don't believe that.
Uh, I'm worried about him pleading guilty
if it involves something to do with murder.
And Bob told me to get rid of this attorney.
That Rimland wasn't doing nothing, you know,
far as exercising my rights.
And to get rid of him
and I should've listened to him, you know.
He ordered me to stay away from Al.
He didn't want me near Al.
Rimland knew, at one point
that I was thinking about going to trial.
And I told him, "Man, I've been doing some thinking
since I was at the police station, locked in."
And I'm going out here
I'm telling the judge every damn thing.
What they did to me and all this
and how it came about being up here.
Rimland clearly panics.
To further coerce Simon into pleading guilty
Rimland told him that he was
a very strong suspect in another murder up in Milwaukee.
And that he could get the death penalty
either in Milwaukee or in Chicago.
And I asked him, "Man, are you serious?
What... what are you talking about?"
And so soon as he left, bam, there it was
the... the story popped up on the TV screen.
Me being the mastermind about this Milwaukee murder.
I was already kind of afraid to go to trial in many respects
because I felt that if I did go to trial
I would get found guilty because of all the publicity
that had been on the case.
There was no charges pending against Al.
The state's attorney in Milwaukee said
they don't have anything on Alstory Simon.
He's not involved in the case up in Milwaukee.
It was all a lie.
A ruse to get him to confess to the Porter murder.
And then he tells me that there's
a plea deal on the table.
That if I'd plead guilty to 40 years
they would give me immunity from prosecution from Milwaukee
and there will be no death penalty and no life in prison.
At the sentencing hearing, Simon stuck to the plan
and apologized to Offie Green, the mother of Marilyn Green.
I made the apology on the advice of counsel.
He said that it would be more helpful to apologize
and that... that should make things
sound more convincing.
You know, if you believe it or not
that that was true, when I'm reading through
all his documents, I find this letter
where Rimland actually states that and the letter
advised Al that this reporter was gonna
come down and interview him about the case.
It urges Al to remember to apologize
and show remorse towards the family
when she comes down there and talks to you.
Which he did.
And doing those 3 to 4 weeks, I would
rehearse on what I was going to say.
Alstory turns around, telling the victim's mother
that Marilyn, unfortunately, got in the way
as he was wielding the gun and accidentally shot her.
But that doesn't go with the facts.
Her daughter was shot 3 times.
So it wasn't an accident.
And he was standing within 2 feet of her
when he... when he fired those rounds.
So whoever killed her was
intentionally trying to kill her and shot 3 times.
It was the most hardest and mental painful thing
that I had to experience.
Knowing the fact that I'm standing up here innocent
and I'm apologizing to this girl's mother
when I had nothing to do with her daughter's death.
At the conclusion of Simon's hearing
Assistant State's Attorney
Thomas Gainer presented the facts of the case to the judge.
But misrepresented the grand jury testimony
of almost every key witness.
Gainer tells the judge that he would call 3 other witnesses.
Senior, Woodfork, and Beckwith.
What he doesn't tell the judge that those
3 witnesses would all implicate Anthony Porter.
And Rimland stood there and never said a word.
And he makes no mention of Kenneth Edwards
who's the most important witness of all.
Who actually said that he saw Porter shoot the victims.
Witness after witness after witness was brought in
to establish that Anthony Porter committed this murder.
And then somewhere along the line in the grand jury
it was obvious that a decision had been made
that they were going to embrace Porter's innocence
and go after Alstory Simon and in fact
embrace this alleged confession to Ciolino.
Thomas Epach concluded that based on
the evidence against Porter, the involvement of Paul Ciolino
in obtaining the purported confession
and the representation of Simon by an attorney with ties
to Ciolino and Protess, I believed that questions
remained about the guilt of Simon and the innocence
of Porter that needed to be fully investigated.
"I expressed these concerns to Mr. Devine.
"Subsequently, I was told that the decision to prosecute
"Alstory Simon had been made by Mr. Devine."
Devine tells WBBM that's not the way he remembers it.
If Mr. Epach had these, uh, issues
I don't recall him, uh, ever raising them with me.
Maybe he raised them with, uh, with other people.
Uh, that's possible, but, uh,
I don't recall them being raised with me.
Devine said he does believe Simon's claims
should be looked at and evaluated.
My view is that the Cook County prosecutors
did not want to be on the receiving end
of any more negative publicity.
The Cook County state's attorney's office
didn't want to be embarrassed and go back
on what they had already set in motion by reacting too quickly
so they made a political decision
to move forward with the prosecution of Alstory Simon.
Richard Devine convened grand jury number 363
in February of 1999 in which witnesses against Porter
and the Northwestern team testified.
The grand jury was not asked to return
an indictment against Simon.
A month later, a second grand jury was convened.
The second grand jury did not hear from any of the witnesses
implicating Porter in the murders, hearing only evidence
regarding Simon's confession
and Inez and Walter Jackson's statements against Simon.
Based on that one-sided testimony
the second grand jury returned an indictment against Simon.
I mean, it's an utter outrage.
It's justice upside down.
How does Jack Rimland plea him guilty
to 37 years in prison?
And you're not gonna investigate the case and expose the case?
And remember when Simon was got the sentence that he got,
most of us who were not paying close enough attention
still thought, well, that's an awfully good sentence.
I mean, Jack Rimland, his attorney or whoever he is
must have done a great job because Alstory Simon, you know
he's gonna be out in about 20 years.
Uh, committing a double murder for which
another guy was sentenced to die.
To suggest that he did his job
by sparing him from the death penalty
he didn't need any lawyer
to not face the death penalty.
And armed with the circumstances surrounding
this confession along with the grand jury testimony
of several witnesses who placed Anthony Porter
at the scene of the murder at the time it occurred.
A reasonably good criminal defense lawyer would've
filed a motion to suppress immediately.
Rimland never told me that he had a strong relationship
with Ciolino and Protess.
He never told me about he shared office space with them.
He never told me that they had a business relationship
and they was all friends.
Then, I find out that while I'm going to trial
and he was my lawyer at the time he presented awards
to the very same people who got me in this.
Attorney Rimland gave an award
to David Protess and Paul Ciolino
for their efforts in freeing Anthony Porter
and implicating Alstory Simon
while Rimland was still representing Alstory Simon
before he had even plead to the charges.
And he was my lawyer at the time.
Soon after Simon was sentenced, his lawyer
Jack Rimland sent a letter
concluding their business together.
That's when I begun to understand
that I had been bamboozled and played.
When Simon finally received the grand jury transcripts
he realized that Rimland lied
about the strength of evidence against him.
The grand jury investigation had been secret
from the public and Simon until this point.
I was so furious
because this man had the thorough evidence
that proved my actual innocence.
So Alstory Simon filed a pro se post-conviction petition.
When I say pro se, I mean he's filing that on his own.
He wrote it himself.
He's not working with a lawyer who is telling him
what theories to bring or anything of that nature.
This is just on his own sitting in a jail cell.
On July 3, 2001, Simon filed his appeal
with the circuit court.
On October 5th, Judge Evelyn Clay
dismissed the petition without a hearing.
With the help of attorneys Jim Sotos and Terry Ekl
a successive petition was filed.
But was also rejected by Judge Clay.
The Chicago media has not embraced
the story of Alstory Simon
being innocent and having been framed by Northwestern to get
Anthony Porter out of jail to create a poster boy
for the anti-death penalty movement.
And the reason, I think is fairly simple.
I think they're vested in the Anthony Porter is innocent story.
And I think they have a hard time
eating that right now and admitting
that they were played by David Protess.
Because Porter wasn't originally pardoned
for the armed robbery of Henry Williams
his wrongful imprisonment only totaled one and a half years.
This didn't entitle him to much
in automatic state compensation.
Cook County announced that they were going to continue
to defend the conviction of Anthony Porter
for the robbery of Henry Williams.
The Chicago media didn't like that.
"The Chicago Tribune" did an editorial
criticizing the decision
and the next day the state's attorney's office
dropped those charges too.
The state's attorney's office decision to keep
the armed robbery charges in place demonstrated
that they believed that Williams was telling the truth.
The problem with that is if you do believe that,
well, then why would you disbelieve him
when he said he saw Porter run up into the bleachers
where the murders occurred?
There'd be no reason to distinguish one from the other.
And Porter has always maintained from day one
that he was never even in the park.
After Anthony Porter was released from prison
he brought a lawsuit against the city of Chicago
and several Chicago police officers.
It was one of the most intensive
ventures that I have ever undertaken.
I said, the only way we're going to do this
is we gotta take this apart from the beginning.
I want every witness re-interviewed.
Because witnesses make great cases.
At the end of the civil trial
Anthony Porter's lawyers asked
the jury to award him $24 million.
The verdict came in.
Porter wouldn't receive a dime.
They awarded him nothing.
The jury rejected that and returned a verdict
for the city of Chicago
and Chicago police officers
finding that they had probable cause
to arrest Anthony Porter for the murders.
The key reasons that we won were the police officers.
I still get emotional.
This case impacted so many police officers.
So many police officers who were wrongly accused
of having done the wrong thing
by somebody who had done the wrong thing.
The reporters asked Walter Jones
how could this innocent man have been denied compensation?
And Jones said, "The real killer has been sitting in that room
right there all day."
A bunch of kids from Northwestern University
who had taken this elective course, a course on Journalism
and the teacher said why don't you look into a couple of these.
The kids dug up the information that was there
available to the police, available to the prosecutors
available to the defense, they found it.
Ciolino says, "The students don't investigate shit.
"What they do, which is valuable, is drudge work.
"If anyone thinks they've been getting
"people out of jail, they've smoked some good shit.
"When Hollywood gets hold of it
the students are going to look like heroes and geniuses."
I really do not believe these students had any element
of malevolence in their work, I really don't.
David Protess engineered the investigation
and Paul Ciolino executed the investigation.
There is now no evidence against Anthony Porter."
He's a master at manipulating things.
And he was great at manipulating the press.
And what I find amazing is that the journalists
would write these articles about the police misconduct
and how the police railroaded Anthony Porter
without even looking at any of the evidence
and, you know, writing like that destroys the reputations
and careers of officers who dedicated their whole life to law enforcement.
I was ridiculed.
It kind of makes you wonder if you took
the right career once in a while
when someone's trying to rail road you
into a different kind of person than you are.
How did it get twisted around?
How did, you know, it do a 180?
It makes me angry that a killer could be
walking out free when they've killed someone.
Took someone life and changed my life forever.
In 2011, Professor Protess was suspended
from teaching at Northwestern.
And leading the Innocence Project.
The state's attorney's office
asked for documents related to the case of Anthony McKinney
who Protess was trying to free.
The University's attorneys resigned after alleging
Protess made false statements
and altered an archived email message.
In an official statement regarding Protess' suspension
the university wrote, "In sum, Protess knowingly
"misrepresented the facts and his actions to the University
"its attorneys and the dean of Medill
"on many documented occasions.
"He caused the University to take on what turned out to be
"an unsupportable case and unwittingly misrepresented
"the situation both to the Court and to the State."
Protess has since formed the Chicago Innocence Project
which isn't officially affiliated
with Northwestern University.
I think people like Protess believe
the ends justify the means.
That the death penalty is wrong
and whatever you have to do to convince people it's wrong
is perfectly acceptable behavior.
I'm sitting here all these years
for something that I didn't do.
I missed out on, uh, bonding with my... my, uh, my nephews
and I have a grandson that, uh, I've never seen.
And believe me, it is... it is mentally painful
to walk around everyday
locked up for something that you know
that you didn't do.
You've just gotta say
time out, do over, right?
Looking back, this does not meet our standards, um
and the truth is that every defendant
from the most innocent to the most guilty
deserves to have an independent attorney.
Who has no ties to anything else in the case.
Whose sole job is to do the best they can for that client.
Had I known all these particular things
I wouldn't never let him represented me.
You gotta let him change his plea.
Get a new sentencing hearing. Get a new trial.
That's what justice is all about.
And if it means that people are embarrassed
well, it won't be the first time, right?
On October 22, 2013
the Cook County State's Attorney's Office stunned Chicago by announcing
the Porter-Simon case would be reopened.
What would make this right is my freedom.
Good afternoon.
This morning, my office vacated charges of murder
and voluntary manslaughter against Alstory Simon
in connection with the murders
of Jerry Hillard and Marilyn Green.
Justice compels that I take action today.
This case has undoubtedly been the most complicated
and the most challenging re-investigation
that we have undertaken.
One of the most significant factors
that led me to today's decision
was the fact that the original
re-investigation into this case
was conducted by a former journalism professor
a private investigator employed by that professor
and a team of young journalism students.
Full name and number.
Alstory Simon.
8-7-0-8-1-7.
You're free to go.
- Good luck to you. - Take care.
This investigation by David Protess and his team
involved a series of alarming tactics
that were not only coercive
and absolutely unacceptable by law enforcement standards.
They were potentially in violation of Mr. Simon's
constitutionally protected rights.
Can you charge, uh, Mr. Ciolino
or Mr. Protess of anything?
No, I don't believe so because any statute of limitation
on either obstruction of justice
or intimidation of a witness is long gone.
I miss my family... and my mom.
She died while I was here.
In my view, the original confession
made by Alstory Simon
and the coercive tactics
that were employed by Investigator Ciolino
have tainted this case from the outside
and brought into doubt the credibility of many important factors.
At the end of the day, and in the best interest of justice
we could reach no other conclusion
but that the investigation of this case
has been so deeply corroded
and corrupted that we can no longer
maintain the legitimacy of his conviction.
What's next?
Um, whatever the Lord has in store for me.
The bottom line is that the investigation
conducted by Protess and Private Investigator Ciolino
as well as the subsequent legal representation of Mr. Simon
were so flawed that it is clear that
the constitutional rights of Mr. Simon
were not scrupulously protected as our law requires.
This conviction, therefore, cannot stand.
God is good, ain't he?
No, I'm not angry at the system.
I'm angry at the people who did what they did to me.
And the situation that they forced me into.
Did Porter get a certificate of actual innocence?
Is it double jeopardy that would preclude
if you were inclined to go after him again?
He didn't... no, double jeopardy is attached.
So Anthony Porter's not looking at any other charges.
I couldn't even if I wanted to indict him.
He actually received a pardon from the governor.
Simon is at the Jacksonville Correctional Center
down in Southern Illinois.
He's being picked up as we speak.
Will be brought back to the Chicago land area later today.
Man, this is not... I'm lost for words.
You know, but I... I feel great, man.
I've been working at it along with Jim Sotos for 10 years.
And uh, it's just an extraordinary feeling.
I just thank God, you know, that, uh, he shined down on me.
Whoo!
Free at last! Free at last!
Wow!
And to think that he's here now standing outside here
a free man is just unbelievable that this journey
this... this, uh, you know, is finally coming to an end, um
it's just an amazing story, um, and it all just went down today.
Whoa!
It's all yours.
Can you bag that up, so I can take it with me?
I can't eat that.
The food was delicious.
I'm so full that I can't even breathe, I can only just blow.
That... that lobster, man, when you were eating that lobster
it looked like you were in heaven.
I was savoring the moment.
Every, every, every flavor.
It's too big, man.
15 years and 8 months.
The world has changed.
And as a 64-year-old man
I have to adapt to it.
Now that I'm free...
What about justice for me?