Johnnie Lee Savory (Photo: Center on Wrongful Convictions)
PEORIA, Illinois (August 6, 2013) - Peoria County judge ordered DNA testing in the case of
Johnnie Lee Savory,
a CWC client who languished behind bars for more than two-thirds of his
life—from age 14 to age 44—before he was released on parole in 2006. In
ordering the testing, Judge Stephen A. Kouri wrote that it “has the
potential to produce new, materially relevant evidence” in the case,
adding: “This is an opportunity the legal system . . . has to utilize
today’s technologies to make sure justice was and/or is done.”
Savory has sought DNA testing since 1998, but Peoria County
prosecutors opposed it and the courts denied it on the ground that the
requested testing could not yield a result relevant to his claim of
actual innocence. Now, however, the technology has advanced to a point
where it could be used on previously untestable evidence that has the
potential to yield, to quote the CWC motion, "practically irrefutable
evidence of Savory's innocence."
Savory was twice convicted of the murders of siblings James Robinson
Jr., 14, and Connie Cooper, 19, who were found stabbed to death in their
Peoria home on January 18, 1977. The first conviction rested almost
entirely on an alleged confession that the Illinois Appellate Court
threw out in 1980 on the ground that the confession had been
involuntary.
In the face of the Appellate Court's holding, then-Peoria County State's Attorney John Barra was quoted by the
Peoria Journal Star
as saying that without the confession "there is no substantial evidence
to tie Savory to the crime or the scene of the crime [and] I don't know
how it would be possible to try him without it."
Barra soon changed his mind, however, deciding to try the case again
based on statements attributed to Savory by three of his
acquaintances—siblings Ella, Frankie, and Tina Ivy. The Ivys claimed
that Savory had made statements to them indicating that he had committed
the murders. The retrial was moved to Lake County, where Savory was
convicted in 1981. Since then, the Ivy siblings have on various
occasions recanted their testimony. Moreover, at a hearing following the
second trial, one of the original prosecutors—Assistant State's
Attorney Joseph Gibson—testified that prosecutors had chosen not to
present the Ivys' testimony in 1977 because it was "too shaky."
The only evidence other than the illegally obtained confession and
the Ivys' testimony was inconclusive. It included the alleged murder
weapon—a knife found in Savory's possession bearing then-untestable
trace amounts of blood; a pair of bloodstained pants several sizes too
large for Savory seized from his home; and several hairs found at the
murder scene said to microscopically resemble Savory's hair.
In 1998, shortly after the Illinois General Assembly enacted a law
giving convicted defendants the right to test physical evidence relevant
to claims of actual innocence, Savory's then-lawyers filed a motion for
DNA testing of the bloodstained pants. The blood was of a type shared
by Savory, the victims, and, importantly, Savory's father, Y.T. Savory,
who had suffered an injury consistent with the positioning of the blood
and who had testified he used the knife to undo the stitches.
The then-attorneys attempted to supplement the motion with a request
to test fingernail scrapings from Connie Cooper. The scrapings
previously had been thought to be of no evidentiary value. That request
was rejected by the Peoria County Circuit Court, and the testing of the
pants ultimately was denied by the Illinois Supreme Court, which held
that the bloodstain was only "a minor part of the State's evidence."
Since then, however, advances in DNA technology have made testing of
the knife, the hairs, and the fingernail scrapings possible, according
to the CWC motion, which contends that, if the testing of those items
revealed a common DNA profile that was not Savory's, the "redundant
hits" would be "practically irrefutable evidence of Savory's innocence
and of another man's guilt."
Two friend-of-the-court briefs were filed in support of the CWC
motion—one prepared by lawyers from the law firm of Sidley Austin on
behalf of leading Illinois lawyers—including former Governor James R.
Thompson, former U.S. Senator Adlai E. Stevenson III, and former U.S.
Attorneys Thomas P. Sullivan and Dan K. Webb—and one prepared by lawyers
from the law firm of Baker & McKenzie on behalf of men who have
been exonerated by DNA testing in Illinois.
Center on Wrongful Convictions DNA Motion (pdf)
Sidley Austin Lawyer Amicus Brief (pdf)
Baker & McKenzie Exonerees Amicus Brief (pdf)
Media Coverage:
pjstar |
CINewsNow |
WCBU |
THE EYE
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/pending/johnnie-lee-savory.html
