Surviving Justice

Six current and former students of Francis W. Parker School and Whitney M. Young High School (Sydney Bronstein, Henry Cutler, Becca Lewis, Madison Mullen, Willy Vogt, and Grace Zelle) immersed themselves in Chicago’s wrongful convictions community for 10 days in June 2012.  This website captures their experience as oral historians.

This tuition-free program for high school-age Chicagoans trained youth in the techniques of oral history, while developing curriculum for future trainings around the country. Interns spent two weeks documenting oral histories within the Chicago wrongful convictions community, developing real-world expertise in harnessing the power of personal narratives from within the criminal justice system. Through film, readings, field experiences and personal encounters, interns drew upon resources in the Chicago legal and human rights communities, under the guidance of educators from Francis W. Parker School and members of the Voice of Witness Education program.

Read More

Juan Rivera (no relation to Jacques Rivera) served 19 years in prison for a crime that he did not commit. In 1992, Rivera was convicted of the rape and murder of 11-year old Holly Staker. Rivera was convicted based on a confession that he had signed during an extended interrogation. There was no physical evidence that linked Rivera to the crime, and DNA ultimately excluded him as the perpetrator. On January 6, 2012, Rivera was released from Statesville Prison. He now works at Northwestern University, and will attend college there in the fall of 2012. We were fortunate to sit down with Juan Rivera at the Center on Wrongful Convictions and hear his story.

“I CONFORMED MYSELF TO A MONSTER”

My childhood was not conducive to any child. I was born in Puerto Rico in 1972, on October 31^st. A year later my family went to New York, South Bronx. That’s where I was raised. I didn’t have a family structure. My parents allowed me to do as I pleased, whether it was right or wrong. I did a lot of ignorant things, such as staying out late, doing drugs, partying – typical ignorance of a child that didn’t have any structure. At the age of 18, we moved to Illinois.

My first experience in prison was in Joliet. One individual got killed as soon as we got to prison. For three years, I became anti-social. I didn’t speak to my family. I didn’t speak to anyone, just me dealing with how I would live in prison.

There’s no such thing as family communication. If your family doesn’t have money to put on the phone, you won’t talk to them. If they don’t put money so you can buy envelopes or stamps, you won’t write them. And if they don’t have no money to come visit you, then you will never see them.

I conformed myself to an animal to push people away. I had to fight for my food, for my clothes, to sleep. It was literally hell. And I lived that for three years straight. I had to fight people off of me from raping me, from stabbing me. I got stabbed twice. I conformed myself to a monster. If a person looked at me wrong, before they approached me, I approached them, physically. I didn’t give them a chance to get the first punch. I always took the first punch.

Read More

Currently the Executive Director of Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, Rob Warden has devoted his entire professional career to exposing wrongful convictions. Since co-founding the Center, Warden has worked on more than half of the total exonerations in Illinois. In 2003, Warden was inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame.

I knew that the system was intellectually corrupt; that it was, people have used the word, broken. I would dispute that; it’s not broken, it’s dysfunctional. Broken implies that at one time it was not broken. It’s always been broken.  It was always kind of troubling in the back of my mind.

Since I was a little kid, I just remember having these notions of what if they had the wrong guy. I lived in South West Missouri. Missouri had a death penalty. I mean I was literally 5 or 6-years-old and these thoughts were occurring to me—what if they’ve got the wrong guy.  And so I’m not sure that anything really changed me. I am not a religious person. In fact, I am an atheist and I have been one since I was sophomore in high school. So it’s nothing like that. It’s just—this system doesn’t work. And I’m really offended by the notion that I live in country that will railroad people onto death row, certainly execute innocent people—I’m sure it’s happened many times—and sentence juveniles to life in prison without the possibility of parole, which we have done in this nation up until today. Today, this very day, June 25^th, 2012, the United States Supreme Court held no more juvenile life in prison without parole.

Frankly it just doesn’t work, and we have to do some things to make it work.  What we really need to do is reform the system to prevent this from happening to so many people because it’s not adequate to go after them one at a time, after the fact.

“WE CAN’T HELP EVERYBODY”

We can’t help everybody. We simply can’t. And it’s painful. Yes— it’s very painful.  One of the things that I learned—if you can imagine what it’s like to, say, be a cancer specialist— is if you get close to your patient, this is going to be devastating to you; this will kill you, it will drive you crazy, you would be in grief all the time. That’s one of the things we have to practice here. You have to keep a distance from the client.

When one of my sons was a young student, Dennis Williams was still on death row and he’d call my house and collect, and I made the mistake of letting him talk to my son Billy.  Billy became friends, over the telephone, with Dennis Williams. And I suddenly realized, my god, what’s this going to do to my child if Dennis Williams is executed. This will be devastating to him. And I vowed, I will never let anything happen like that again.  You’ve got to insolate yourself and your family from these things, because if you don’t, it can be absolutely devastating.

Read More

Jacques Rivera, Jr., was 7 years old in 1988 when his father, Jacques Rivera, Sr., was arrested for fatally shooting Felix Valentin, a gang member. Two years later, Rivera Sr. was sentenced to 80 years in a maximum-security prison.  In late 2011, the crime’s only eyewitness (Orlando Lopez, who was 12 years old at the time of the murder in 1988) recanted his testimony that he recognized Jacques Rivera, Sr., as the killer.  When the charges were subsequently dropped, Jacques Rivera, Jr., was reunited with his newly exonerated father, after watching him serve 21 years for a crime that he did not commit. Jacques Jr., who has matured greatly since his father’s incarceration—he is expecting his first child with his fiancé—has been hopeful about his father’s transition back into society. He is enjoying building a new relationship with his father, who he considers to be a much better man after prison. 

WE HAD TO ACCEPT IT FOR WHAT IT WAS

When I was younger we lived in an apartment building.  Next-door was this garage— they bought cars and whatnot.  One time, the guy who worked there was telling us— it was me, my brother, and our two friends— to come help him move the cars and clean them out.  He told us they would give us some money.  We went next-door.

We were driving cars at 9-years-old. Moving a Mercedes- Benz and parking them real close.  I remember we made like $5 that day. And to us, that was like a million bucks. I remember my friends were like, “We’re gonna go to this candy store down the street.” And I remember when I went upstairs to wash my hands and face, I went to go into the kitchen and there was no milk and no bread.  Of course, with my five dollars, I went to the store. I remember crying the whole walk back home. 

When I went back upstairs my mom was like, where’d you get this stuff— she thought I stole it.  And then I told her what happened.  And then she started getting emotionally wrecked. And ever since that day me and my ma were like Batman and Robin.

It was a process. I had to play sister too, sometimes. I taught my sister just about everything: how to shave her legs, period time, you gotta put it on like this.

I think me and my ma had more of an understanding of trying to make it.  It was more of a real big hustle, very big. We had to accept it for what it was. I was just told that he was never getting out—that’s what I was always told my entire life.

DON’T LOOK BACK

I didn’t know that he didn’t do it. I didn’t know.  I thought he was guilty. I remember my grandma would go back and forth to all these things that they had for wrongfully convicted people.  Then when I went there and a guy started explaining it to me—you know your dad didn’t do this—I was like come on, you guys are just trying to make me feel better.

Read More

We met with Jane Raley at the Center on Wrongful Convictions, where she works as Senior Staff Attorney. Her motivation to be a criminal defense lawyer came when she was in high school. Her work as a public defender led her to be a strong advocate against the death penalty, as she was very concerned with the lengthy sentences of her clients. Jane Raley has litigated numerous cases, and continues to defend wrongfully convicted men and women. Jane worked on the exonerations of Juan Rivera and Jacques Rivera, Sr.

“FRANKLY, I THOUGHT THAT MOST OF MY CLIENTS WERE GUILTY”

When I was doing death penalty work I was more concerned with saving my clients life than I was on litigating whether they were innocent or guilty. Frankly, I thought that most of my clients were guilty. One of the reasons I thought my clients were guilty was because they had confessed. I used to train lawyers across the state of Illinois and I said innocent people don’t confess. That was my mantra. Innocent people don’t confess. If you’ve got a confession move on! Concentrate on the death penalty issues. Concentrate on the issues so we can save this guys life. And boy was I wrong. Boy was I wrong!

Half of those cases where I am training attorneys to ignore these issues, it turned out that these men were innocent and that they had falsely confessed. The more we learned about confessions we realized that people really do falsely confess. The reason we learned about this was because of the DNA era. We began to know in certain cases with scientific certainty that someone was actually innocent. And then we looked and said, oh my gosh there was a confession in that case, and let’s look at that confession.

Read More

In 1988, Jacques Rivera, Sr., (no relation to Juan Rivera) was accused of murdering a 16-year-old boy.  He spent 21 years in prison, wrongfully convicted based on an eyewitness misidentification, and was released in October of 2011.  Before going to prison, Rivera was part of a gang and involved in drugs.  Since then, he has found his religious faith and is a strong advocate for keeping children out of gangs.

I WAS GOING AROUND TELLING THE TRUTH 

[In prison]I backed out of the gang and started mentoring young men and other guys from the same gang in prison.  The gang didn’t like that, so they sent a guy at me, telling me that they respect and they honor my decision to back out.  They said I couldn’t be mentoring to these younger guys because I was discouraging them.  They’re out here fighting each other on the streets and killing each other, but then when they get to the prison they come together, and it blew my mind.  I was like, so what is your purpose, why we out there killing and fighting each other if we’re coming to prison to be cool with one another?  What I came to realize was that they weren’t telling us the truth.  I told the guy that came at me, you think I’m discouraging them or do you think I’m telling them something that should have been told to me and you a long time ago? He said, “What’s that?”  I said, the truth. I was going around telling the truth to these guys. 

THEY DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH

So in May of 2011, Jane Raley, my attorney, came out, and said, “Well, I didn’t want to bring this to you but the state asked me to—they offered me a deal.”  If I would plead guilty to it, they would let me go. I didn’t take it, well, basically because of my faith in the Lord, but I also had to think about the victim’s family.  Twenty-three years they had been told that I killed their son.  And for me just to get my freedom, not knowing I didn’t do it, saying, man forget that, I don’t care about, you know, I want to get out there with my kids.  I want my freedom, man, I plead guilty to it.  I told them, no, I can’t do that.  I told them I can’t take that deal.  Only for the purposes of the victim’s family.  They need to know the truth and they deserve to know the truth so I said, if I need to come back to do another 19 years then so be it, but I’m not going to plead guilty to something I didn’t do and they deserve to know the truth.

It was like my third day out, and to be honest with you, I wanted to go back.  I really did, man.  By the third day it was just too much.  Maybe your moms have the little knife holders in the kitchen?  My mom’s biggest one, the butcher knife, I slept with it for almost a month.  I used to get up and one morning she asked, “Hey, did you see my big knife?”  I said, “What big knife?” She goes, “My butcher knife, the one that’s in the thing?” I go, “Oh, this one here?” She said, “Well, what are you doing with it?”  I locked all the windows­—she lives on the second floor and I’m locking all the windows and she’s like, “What are you doing that for?” So nobody can climb up here and climb in the window.  And she’s goes, “Why would somebody want to do that for?” I said, “I don’t know!” I felt secure, man, so I locked all the doors, locked all the windows, and you know, I was scared.

After Jacques Rivera was wrongfully convicted in 1988 and spent 21 years in prison before he was exonerated, his sister, Candida Rivera spoke to us about what he experienced upon his release.  

“THE LAST IMAGE YOU SEE OF HIM”

In the beginning, we would go see him in prison. We were able to take pictures, get food, and stuff like that. Little by little, things changed within the system. It was just getting harder and harder to see him. They were trying to get you to not go. They don’t want you there. I could tear right now—when we would leave the room, he was kind of down below, we would have to walk upstairs. He was always down there and waving at us. And that’s the last image you see of him, in his uniform.

 ”MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME”

Things would’ve been different if Jacques hadn’t gone to prison. I think his kids missed out on a lot. When we were in Arizona this past year, my husband is older than I am, so he has two grandsons and they’re the ages of Jacques’ sons when Jacques was incarcerated. He loved going to play ball with them. We would go to the park and he would play football and baseball with them. He would tell me: “Are we gonna go see the boys today?” And I’m like, I don’t wanna see those kids. They drive me crazy! I feel that he’s making up for lost time, he missed playing with his boys. I think their lives would’ve definitely been different had they been together.

Read More

Flint Taylor has been practicing human rights law with the People’s Law Office in Chicago for over 25 years. Among the firms most high profile cases is the on-going litigation against Jon Burge, former commander of Area 2 of  the Chicago Police Department, notorious for the torture and abuse of criminal suspects. Taylor’s interest in human rights law was first sparked in 1969, when Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was murdered in his bed.

A LIFETIME COMMITMENT TO FIGHTING RACISM

I grew up in a very homogeneous white suburb in Massachusetts. My parents were open-minded, I was into athletics, and kind of a straight kid. Then I went to Brown, and when at Brown it was the start of the resistance to the Vietnam War, and I was kind of slow to come to that. I started to do a little human rights work in my hometown and during the summers. During my senior year at Brown, it was 1968, and I started to become much more aware of the struggle against the Vietnam War.

And when I came to Chicago, it was right after the Democratic National Convention. I went to Northwestern Law School, and got involved with the lawyers who ultimately started the People’s Law Office. So I was here in 1969, as a student working with the lawyers, and in that sense, I was in on the starting of the People’s Law Office, and became involved in representing Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers, when the Black Panthers were very powerful in the African-American community. I was then becoming immersed in the kind of work I would ultimately devote my life to.

THE MURDER OF FRED HAMPTON – “Ain’t nothing but a northern lynching.”

In the summer and fall of 1969, we worked to get Fred Hampton out of prison on an appeal bond. And when he got out I heard him speak at a church, and he was just incredibly dynamic, and this time I’m being immersed with all these people that I’ve never had any experience with before. That summer I had the choice of either going back to Boston and working with Ted Kennedy, just in his campaign, not any big deal, or to stay here and deal with the Panthers and all that was happening, and that was kind of a life choice that I made without really knowing that I made it. But that kept me here, as events transpired, and Fred Hampton was murdered in his bed on December 4^th. If I wanted to point to one thing that actually forged my what I hope will be and what has been so far a lifetime commitment to fighting against racism and the legal system, and fighting against police brutality, and torture and all the kinds of things that I’ve been involved in, that would be it.

Read More