Anthony Porter (December 14, 1954 – July 25, 2021) was a Chicago resident known for having been exonerated in 1999 of the murder in 1982 of two teenagers on the South Side of the city.
But Simon later recanted his confession, saying that he had been duped and it had been coerced by private investigator Paul Ciolino, who posed as a city police officer while working with the Innocence Project.
[2] After a yearlong investigation, the charges against Simon were vacated by the Cook County State's Attorney's office and he was freed in 2014, after having served 15 years in prison.
Alstory Simon filed suit in 2015 against Northwestern University's Innocence Project, and was awarded an undisclosed settlement in June 2018.
About 1 a.m. on August 15, 1982, two teenagers, Marilyn Green and her fiance Jerry Hillard, were shot and killed near a swimming pool in Washington Park on the south side of Chicago.
Student Tom McCann and Private Investigator Paul J. Ciolino spoke to William Taylor who, in December 1998, recanted his original statements.
On January 29, 1999, Inez Jackson, the estranged wife of Alstory Simon, then living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he was from, came forward to testify against him.
[citation needed] After representatives of the Cook County State's Attorney office saw Simon's tape, it launched a new investigation into the Porter case.
[2][3][6] Protess and Ciolino vigorously denied any wrongdoing; they said that a number of Simon's claims are false, and they believed that he was guilty of the murders.
[7] In 2011, Northwestern University placed Protess on leave after finding that he had deliberately falsified evidence related to a subpoena issued by Cook County for his records in a different wrongful conviction case.
[9] Alvarez said the investigation by the Medill Innocence Project "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.
[10] Based on information revealed in Porter's suit, which detailed the work of the Innocence Project in gaining new material, Alstory Simon filed a post-conviction petition for relief January 2006 in his case.
Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley, who had been Illinois State Attorney during the prosecution of Porter, asserted that "It was a thorough case, it was reviewed.
"[citation needed] Illinois Governor George Ryan suggested that the exoneration of Porter was evidence that the system worked.
[citation needed] The Northwestern University Innocence Project had earlier assisted in the exoneration of four men on death row.
More recently, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were found to have been wrongfully convicted after having been prosecuted by Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan for the 1983 rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico.
Given these cases, in which several innocent men were found to have been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, there was intense pressure from the public and the media to make a change.