Alstory Simon’s 1999 confession sparked a debate about capital punishment that eventually led to the end of the death penalty in Illinois. It was critical in securing the release of the man initially convicted of the murders, Anthony Porter, who came within 48 hours of being executed. Porter had spent 16 years on death row.
Simon’s release follows revelations that his own prosecution, conviction and 37-year prison sentence were deeply flawed, raising the prospect that an innocent man may have swapped seats behind bars with aman who was guilty after all. Though he effectively took Porter’s place in Cook County prison, new information has surfaced that suggests Simon’s videotaped confession to the murders of Marilyn Green and her fiancé, Jerry Hillard, was false and coerced.
In the video, Simon confessed to murdering the couple near a pool in Chicago’s South Side, saying it was an act of self-defence. But Simon’s current defence lawyer, Terry Ekl, has argued that the confession was forced out of him through threats and inducements.
The interview was conducted in 1999 by a private investigator, Paul Ciolino, who was working on behalf of a former law professor at Northwestern University, David Protress, whowith his students tried to prove Porter’s innocence and secure his release from death row. © Provided by Guardian News Anthony Porter is embraced by his mother Clara after his release from prison in February 1999. Anthony Porter is embraced by his mother Clara after his release from prison in February 1999. Photograph: Mike Fisher/AP
Remarkably, Ciolino told a grand jury in 1999 that he had deceived Simon into making the confession by playing him a recording of an actor posing as a witness and pretending to know he was the gunman. Simon’s legal team have also suggested he was offered financial rewards for agreeing to go to prison in the form of lucrative TV and book deals.
Thursday’s release leaves Cook County in disarray. Two men have now been released, 15 years apart, for the same double murder, and the likely prospect is that no one will now face justice for the killings as Porter cannot be retried under double jeopardy rules.
Porter has insisted on his innocence, accusing the effort to clear Simon’s name of being politically motivated.
The Chicago Tribune reported that outside the court, Elk said that “the system did work to free an innocent man, but he should never have been there in the first place.” Elk went on to criticize the role of Northwestern University in securing Porter’s release and Simon’s conviction as part of a mission to discredit the death penalty in Illinois.
“I think they essentially framed Al-story Simon to get Anthony Porter out of jail so they had that poster boy, and that should never occur.”
The realization that Illinois had come so close to executing Porter jolted the state into a mood of self-reflection that led to a moratorium on the death penalty in 2000, culminating in full abolition in 2011.
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