Why does it take so long to free an innocent person from prison?

it's curious city where we take your questions about Chicago and the region and investigate report explore from WB easy what's up Chicago I'm Erin Allen this week we're partnering with the Invisible Institute a journalism nonprofit on the south side that focuses on holding public institutions accountable our colleagues over there have been following the case of Robert Johnson I love my cousin he was always silly always made us laugh this is Jennifer Johnson Robert's cousin she thinks of him as a sweet good-hearted person so as Eryssa Apentaku reports Jennifer was shocked when her cousin was convicted of a murder he did not commit at just 16 years old and was sentenced to 80 years he really is in prison for something he did not do and it's heartbreaking my colleagues and I at the Invisible Institute published an investigation into Robert's case in 2020 we found a few things that had never been made public two of Robert's co-defendants took back their statements implicating him another suspect confessed before he died and the detectives in Robert's case have a huge history of abuse even with mountains of exonerating evidence that came to light five years ago he's still in prison it raises the question why is it so hard to reverse a wrongful conviction to answer that question we need to look at the murder Robert was convicted of in April 1996 four men entered the home of Eddie Binion and one of the intruders shot him fatally Robert was living in the neighborhood with his grandma at the time police came to question him then they took him away without her permission during an interrogation lasting hours Robert asserted his innocence but they charged him anyway at Robert's trial there was no physical evidence no confession and no eyewitnesses identifying him there was only the word of his teenage co-defendant who took a plea deal after being beaten up by police as he would later testify that was all the jury needed to convict Robert I was real afraid I couldn't wrap my mind around it in a phone call Robert told me how it felt to enter Stateville prison at 17 years old and it was something that almost drove me crazy every time I hear a phone ring I used to think like maybe that's them to tell them that they got the wrong guy maybe that's them to say yeah we made a mistake let them go but that call never came one of the reasons it's so hard to overturn a conviction the legal system is almost impossible to navigate for anyone let alone a teenager like many people Robert had to start the process of proving his innocence on his own filing motions himself but for a layperson it's hard to know what to write in an affidavit or how to format an appeal another reason it's so hard to overturn a conviction is that usually there's opposition from the victim's family but that wasn't the case for Robert the victim's sister pointed police to a man who had been bragging about shooting her brother but police insisted it was Robert which leads to another reason innocence is so hard to prove detective O'Brien pulled defendants fingers back you're hearing Robert's current attorney she's reading some of the many examples of abuse by the detectives in Robert's case this kind of police misconduct evidence is vital but it takes time for the patterns to come to light detective James O'Brien was the officer who snatched Robert out of his grandma's house he was a trainee of the infamous John Burge and he has been named in scores of physical abuse torture and coercion allegations this has cost the city millions of dollars in lawsuits last year Robert finally got an opportunity to present his innocence in front of a judge that's when two of his co-defendants testified that detectives beat and choked them in order to cause false confessions that implicated Robert the actual killer they say was Tremaine Taylor and they didn't point the finger at him at the time because he was dangerous that's another reason it's so hard people fear retaliation from the real perpetrator but in a sad way Robert got lucky in 2018 Tremaine was shot and killed that allowed people to finally come forward with the truth including two of Tremaine's friends I asked Robert's cousin Jennifer why she thought it took so long for Robert to even have the opportunity to get his conviction overturned because I mean they would have to admit like everything we did in this case was just wrong you dragged the kid out of the house with no paperwork no anything he was child that was illegal there's a reason they don't want to admit they're wrong they could be sued and since the year 2000 the city of Chicago has had to pay over 750 million dollars in police brutality and wrongful conviction payouts when Robert was finally granted an opportunity to prove that his conviction should be overturned the state offered him a deal he could finally go home all he had to do was say that he did it Robert told them no I'm not pleading guilty for something I didn't do on February 19th Robert Johnson could finally walk free Robert's grandma is 92 years old now and what he wants most is to see her again as a free man that will probably be the best day of my life to walk into my grandmother's house again and know that I'm dead I can hug her and just tell her grandma I need it that's all she wants to thanks to E-Rissa Apentaku of the Invisible Institute for reporting this week's story E-Rissa and the team have been digging deep into Robert's case as well as other wrongful conviction cases and the glacial pace at which people are exonerated is infuriating to say the least next episode we talked to Allison Flowers a journalist and author who has been investigating wrongful conviction cases for years now she's gonna break down what's needed to prove innocence and she'll get into the fact that even once you've done that there's still the uphill battle of reentry compensation and true vindication that's coming up next time on curious city I'm Erin Allen thank you for listening