If These Men Aren’t Guilty, Why Can’t They Go Free?

[Eddie Teach]

The problem is most people don't want to examine the evidence themselves, so the public just sees that Somebody thinks the guy is innocent but the jury decided otherwise.

It might be something like that but I think few people actually think juries are infallible.

I'm not suggesting they do. But neither are the prisoners advocates. So the public is in a state of uncertainty- not howling for justice.

[The Minsky Moment]

The article is less than a model of clarity and it doesn't help we don't have the report.  However, an Illinois appeals court already rendered a ruling in Almodovar's case finding adequate basis for an actual innocence finding as well as prejudicial error, and passed the case to the next stage of post-conviction review. Don't know what happened since then (edit: but article indicates that prosecutors are fighting the appeal so I assume his case is still very live).

Not 100% sure but I think the reason the mayor's office got involved is because there was very troubling evidence of a pattern of misconduct by the investigating officer, and this was one the cases that stood out with troubling testimony about the officer manipulating witness identifications.

In answer to grumbler's query, there were two eyewitnesses offered, but there were allegations that both witnesses were manipulated.

The circling of wagons by Cook County prosecutors on this matter that goes to the credibility of their function is pretty sad to see, but even more sad is that tends to be the rule in such cases, whether Chicago, NY or anywhere else.