Johnny Savory Interview Part I

Johnny Savory has been in prison for more than two-thirds of his life, before he was released on parole in 2006. Since 1998 he is fighting for DNA testing to prove his innocence, though he has completed his murder sentence. The order to test the evidence for DNA was given now, in August 2013. He is still waiting for the result.

New law protecting one's right during interrogation

 Picture from Johnnie Savory

By Dan Hinkel Chicago Tribune reporter 7:39 p.m. CDT, August 26, 2013
Illinois police will have to record more interrogations of criminal suspects under legislation Gov. Pat Quinn signed Monday that aims to prevent false confessions and wrongful convictions.
The law expands on legislation passed in 2003 mandating the recording of homicide interrogations. The new requirements will take effect in phases over the next three years, and by June 2016, police will have to record interrogations of people suspected in any of eight violent felonies, including aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated battery with a gun and armed robbery.
Rep. Scott Drury, D-Highwood, had originally proposed earlier this year that police record interrogations in all felonies, a measure some law enforcement authorities, including the Cook County state's attorney's office, opposed.
Advocates of recording and prosecutors praised the narrower measure's passage, saying it would shield police from bogus allegations of coercion while protecting suspects from overly aggressive interrogation methods that have produced false confessions.
"I think (the law) will go a long way toward preventing wrongful convictions," said Thomas Sullivan, a Chicago attorney and recording proponent who helped draft the legislation.
Under the new law, courts will presume inadmissible any statement a suspect in one of the specified felonies makes unless the interrogation is either audio- or video-recorded. The first incremental expansion of felonies that must be recorded will happen next June.
Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, led the effort in the Senate to expand recording. He could not be reached for comment.
Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez voiced concern about the financial and logistical implications of the law for large agencies such as the Chicago Police Department. But she said she supported the measure, calling a recorded interrogation "an awesome piece of evidence."
Chicago police spokesman Adam Collins said Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Superintendent Garry McCarthy support expanding recording. But Collins expressed uncertainty about the resources needed to implement a law that comes with no funding attached.
"(Chicago police officials) would hope that the supporters of this important legislation will work with us to secure any needed resources to ensure the expansion is a success," he wrote in an email.
A decade ago, Illinois was the first state to pass a law requiring recorded homicide interrogations, a fix enacted as the state dealt with faulty death penalty cases. Other states soon enacted more sweeping rules, and Illinois' new law will make it the 17th state that — along with the District of Columbia — requires the recording of interrogations for crimes other than homicide, Sullivan said.
Illinois has carved out an unwanted reputation as a leader in wrongful convictions, with the bulk coming from Cook County and surrounding areas. Drury, a former federal prosecutor, represents part of Lake County, where four defendants have been exonerated by DNA since 2010. Three of those suspects confessed after long, aggressive interrogations that were not recorded.
Lake County State's Attorney Mike Nerheim, who took over the office after those cases fell apart, said he supports the new law, though he said he would support an even broader bill that would call for the recording of all interrogations.
"I hope that's where we're headed. I think (that's) where we should go," he said.
dhinkel@tribune.com | Twitter: @dhinkel
Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC

  Picture from Johnnie Savory

Johnnie Lee Savory is an innocent man

Johnnie Lee Savory is an innocent man who spent nearly 30 years behind bars after being convicted for a double homicide in a case where the evicence was never tested for DNA, even though Savory was one of the first to seek DNA testing under a state law passed in 1998. Finally, an Illinois judge has concluded that the evidence should be tested for DNA. After all, who but an innocent man would fight for over 30 years, even after his release, to get the evidence tested? We are happy to see that he will finally find some measure of justice after all these years! Hopefully the DNA will lead police to the real murderer as well. For more on the story: http://trib.in/1d06Dug
(Photo: Zbigniew Bzdak, Chicago Tribune / August 8, 2013)
Innocence Project of Minnesota

Judge outlines murderer's testing

Savory will pay for DNA tests to be done in Morton on evidence from 1977 deaths

By ANDY KRAVETZ (akravetz@pjstar.com)

Of the Journal Star

PEORIA —

DNA testing on items, which Johnnie Lee Savory believes could exonerate him, will be done at the Illinois State Police's crime lab in Morton.
Friday, three weeks after Peoria County Circuit Judge Steve Kouri sided with Savory, saying modern DNA technology could be used to test evidence from the 1977 murders, the parameters of the testing were discussed in Kouri's courtroom.
Both sides will be present when the samples are tested, and the court order states all scientists "shall cooperate with each other." Additionally, any tests that will need to use all of a sample must be approved first by Kouri.
Joshua Tepfer, an attorney with the Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions, wanted to use a DNA-testing firm in Texas, but Kouri was leery given that the distance would require prosecutors to pony up money to have their expert there.
A key provision of Savory's win was that he would pay for the testing. But Kouri's order does allow Savory's attorneys to pick an expert of their choice to be present at the crime lab.
Savory served nearly 30 years in prison after his conviction in the stabbing deaths of Connie Cooper, 19, and her brother, James Robinson, 14, in June 1977 at their Peoria home. Prosecutors had said Savory, then 14, lost his temper while practicing karate with Robinson, killed him and then killed Cooper.
Savory was tried twice. His first conviction was overturned by the Third District Illinois Appellate Court, which determined his alleged confession was involuntary and his Miranda rights were violated. He was retried in 1981 and found guilty of murder. Two of three witnesses who testified at his second trial recanted their testimony two years later.
Among the items he wanted tested are the purported murder weapon, a knife taken from Savory's pants, the pants themselves, fingernail clippings from Cooper and Robinson as well as a bloody light switch plate.
Kouri's ruling was the first in more than 30 years that could count as a win for Savory, who has unsuccessfully tried at the local, appellate and federal level to convince judges to allow additional tests to be done.
Andy Kravetz can be reached at 686-3283 or akravetz@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @andykravetz.

Read more: http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1343095623/Judge-outlines-murderers-testing#ixzz2dX3s2VlA

Johnnie Lee Savory

Illinois, August 26, 2013 - Gov. Pat Quinn (pictured above left) signed legislation Monday that aims to prevent false confessions and wrongful convictions. The new legislation expands on previous legislation passed in 2003 that mandated the recording of homicide interrogations. The new requirements will take effect in phases over the next three years, and by June 2016, police will have to record interrogations of people suspected in any of eight violent felonies, including aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated battery with a gun and armed robbery.
Under the new law, courts will presume inadmissible any statement a suspect in one of the specified felonies makes unless the interrogation is either audio- or video-recorded. The first incremental expansion of felonies that must be recorded will happen next June. Among those attending the signing ceremony were CWC Executive Director Rob Warden (pictured above right), Advisory Board member Tom Sullivan of the law firm Jenner & Block LLP, and CWC client Johnnie Lee Savory (pictured above third from left).
More...
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictions/

More on the Johnnie Lee Savory case

 

 

by Dan Rodriguez

From the lawyers at CWC, whose work was critical in Mr. Savory’s exoneration:

Johnnie Lee Savory – Bridesmaid No More
Everyone in the Bluhm Legal Clinic and the national innocence movement knows Johnnie Lee Savory. In 1977, at age 14, Johnnie was arrested and charged with a double murder – of his friend and her sister – and ultimately convicted and sent to prison for 50-75 years.  While in prison over the next 30 years, he wrote virtually every lawyer doing in and outside of the country seeking assistance. In 2006, led by the advocacy of Bluhm Legal Clinic Assistant Director Steve Drizin, Johnnie was paroled. But even after his release seven years ago, Johnnie has continued his legal fight.
Going on what is now almost four full decades, Johnnie has claimed – adamantly and consistently – that his conviction was wrongful and he is innocent of this crime. But more than anything, Johnnie has not just proclaimed it – he has sought to establish it through the most reliable means of proof available: DNA testing. When Illinois passed its DNA statute almost fifteen years ago, Johnnie was the first in line to seek testing.  His case led to a broad interpretation of our DNA statute and enabled hundreds of other wrongfully convicted defendants to get DNA testing, many of whom have been exonerated.
Unfortunately for Johnnie, he won the war but lost the battle.  The Illinois Supreme Court held that the material he had sought to be tested was not “materially relevant.”  Since this defeat, he has tried to gain access to DNA testing in every way imaginable.  Prosecutors, state circuit courts, state appellate courts, state supreme courts, federal district courts, federal circuit courts, the prisoner review board, and governors have all denied him this right. They have refused to allow him access, at his own expense, to put the state’s physical evidence to this most rigorous of testing.  When it comes to DNA testing, Johnnie’s always been the bridesmaid, but never been the bride.
When Johnnie was paroled in 2006, he immediately became part of our family at the Bluhm Legal Clinic and the Center on Wrongful Convictions. He has worked very closely with all of our exonerees and has helped shepherd them through the process of getting their id’s and helped them to reintegrate back into society.  They have all learned from him and benefitted from his counsel and kindness.  He has attended celebration after celebration when our exonerees have been released, events which must have been bittersweet to him (but he has never shown such bitterness).
Johnnie has also  been a fixture at the national Innocence Network Conferences for years.  His story is all over the internet, on YOUTUBE, and websites.  At the Conference, Johnnie comes up on the stage when exonerees are announced, even though he’s never been exonerated.  Exonerees, lawyers, advocates, and generally anyone involved in the innocence movement come up and embrace him when they see him at the Conference.
For as much as Johnnie has given to the Bluhm Legal Clinic and the Innocence Movement, he has asked for only one thing in return – that we make one more run at obtaining DNA testing for him from the Peoria courts.
The Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth took up Johnnie’s case in 2011 and began to reinvestigate the case in earnest throughout 2012 and 2013.  Under the leadership of Assistant Clinical Professors Josh Tepfer and Laura Nirider, and with the able assistance of many students and private investigator Kevin McClain, we hit the streets of Peoria, located witnesses, reinterviewed them, and tried to develop new evidence of Johnnie’s innocence.  Ultimately, McClain and recently-graduated student Rebecca Stephens (’13) hit the jackpot when they flew to St. Louis and located Ella Ivy, a woman whose testimony had buried Johnnie at trial.  Ivy testified that Johnnie had made inculpatory admissions to her, statements that evidenced that Johnnie knew facts about the crime that only the true killer could have known. She also claimed that during these supposed conversations with Johnnie, a knife – which the State theorized was the murder weapon – fell from his pants pocket. However, when Stephens and McClain met with Ms. Ivy, she recanted much of her trial testimony.
Our investigation also got a boost when a judge allowed us to view the available physical evidence in the case in the presence of an expert DNA analyst from LabCorp, a Texas-based DNA lab.  This allowed us to see that much of the evidence was available and had the scientific capability of being tested.
Asking the court to revisit the question of DNA testing in this case involved some serious complications.
Since so many other courts and entities had denied the request, we had to distinguish this request from others and the case precedent that held that DNA testing in this matter would not be “materially relevant.” To do so, for one, we made the request broader. Whereas previous requests asked for two particular pieces of evidence to be tested, we asked for testing on six pieces of evidence. Further, we explained that where previous testing only had the ability to exclude Johnnie as the source of certain pieces of DNA, the national CODIS database, which was not previously in existence, now allowed the possibility of matching the DNA to an alternative suspect. And we noted that since our request was broader – the possibility of multiple pieces of evidence matching to the same alternative perpetrator was real and significant. A variety of other arguments were raised, all toward the point that the technology has developed to the point where the identification of the perpetrator of this crime could be established with more scientific certainty than at previous times. Students, including Ilan Peress (’14), Kathryn Shephard (’14), Stephens (’13), and Hannah Wendling (’13) took turns drafting sections of our massive legal filing. Tepfer and Nirider put all the pieces together. Amicus briefs were secured and constructed by Northwestern law graduates Danny Greenfield (’08) from Sidley Austin LLP, and Douglas Sanders (’98) of Baker & McKenzie.
On the day of the filing, we took a bus down to Peoria filled with Savory’s supporters and held a rally outside the courthourse and a press conference therein, all organized by Bluhm clinic staff members Christine Agaiby, Delores Kennedy, and others.  Here is a clip from a rally and press conference: http://www.pjstar.com/video/x719493239/Johnny-Lee-Savory-wants-DNA-testing-to-prove-his-innocence.
Over the next six month, many more pleadings were filed in response to the State’s objection to our request for testing. Among the most powerful was a reply to the State’s res judicata argument (i.e., the court should not revisit the same requests that all these other courts have previously denied). The arguments on this point were researched and crafted primarily by Shephard (’14).
In March, we returned in the Spring to argue the motion. Third-year-law students, Stephens and Wendling, took the lead and squared off against the seasoned head of the Peoria County State’s Attorney’s Office – Jerry Brady, as well as his assistant. Assistant Professor Tepfer delivered a powerful rebuttal. And then we waited, but not on our hands. Led again by Wendling (’13), we filed more pleadings, this time a supplemental memorandum of law addressing concerns raised by Peoria County Judge Stephen Kouri during argument.
And then we waited, and waited, and waited.
Until yesterday, the birthday of Johnnie’s long-time advocate Steve Drizin. The opinion allowed our motion in full – granting Johnnie the DNA testing he has long sought. It’s a marvelous opinion by Judge Stephen Kouri that subtly pays tribute to the many individuals who have long fought for this testing. It notes that Johnnie, both pro se and through counsel and at times “with the support of some of the most prestigious law firms  and renowned attorneys in the country,” has “exhausted virtually every remotely possible legal remedy and recourse available.”  The opinion relies greatly on the Ivy affidavit obtained by Stephens (’13), adopts the legal arguments on the issue of res judicata researched and constructed by Shephard (’14), and notes much of the research put forth by Wendling (’13) in the supplemental memorandum of law. In short, the beautifully-crafted legal and factual analysis has the thumbprints of Northwestern law students all over it.
But the best part of it all is that a small step towards justice for Johnnie Lee Savory – 36 years in the making – was finally taken yesterday. Johnnie Lee Savory is a bridesmaid no more.
Judge Kouri’s decision is attached and a a link to a news report is provided — http://www.pjstar.com/news/x853699644/Judge-rules-Johnnie-Lee-Savory-can-use-DNA-tests-on-old-evidence

http://deansblog.law.northwestern.edu/2013/08/08/more-on-the-johnnie-lee-savory-case/

Johnnie Savory 30Years

Johnnie Savory 30Years =10,950 days 12,768,000 mins=946,080,000 sec = 120 seasons
For some thing he didn't do 
Please sign the petition, help ensure justice in the case of Johnnie Lee Savory.
 Johnnie was unjustly incarcerated,

www.ipetitions.com/petition/dnaforsavory/