After nearly 30 years behind bars, Chicago man Robert Johnson is slated to be released from prison after evidence determined he was wrongfully convicted. NBC Chicago’s Christian Farr reports.
A Chicago man has been ordered released and his murder conviction has been vacated nearly 30 years after he was originally sentenced.
The conviction of Robert Johnson, who was 16 when he was arrested in connection to the 1996 murder of Eddie Binion, was vacated this week by Cook County Circuit Judge Joanne Rosado
Johnson had been convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery and home invasion in the case, but has professed his innocence ever since.
According to the Exoneration Project, one of the key witnesses in the case was a co-defendant of Johnson’s. He received a plea deal in exchange for testimony against Johnson, but has since recanted it, alleging that police forced him to falsely implicate the teen.
“That witness was the subject of our evidentiary hearing, and he fully recanted his testimony,” Exoneration Project attorney Megan Richardson said. “Mr. Johnson was not there. He had no involvement whatsoever with this crime.”
Defense attorneys had further argued that there were no eyewitnesses, and there was no physical evidence in the crime.
Rosado had vacated Johnson’s conviction Wednesday, and ordered him released from custody Thursday pending a decision by state prosecutors on whether they will attempt to retry him in the murder.
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According to an extensively reported story by WBEZ Chicago, Binion’s sister Evelyn told police that a man named Tramaine Taylor had bragged about killing her brother, but police had told her that she was wrong when she identified Taylor, not Johnson, as the killer.
Taylor died in 2018, according to officials.
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According to the WBEZ story, Detective James O’Brien, who had taken Johnson into police custody at his grandmother’s house without her consent, had been a trainee of former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge. Burge was accused of leading a group of officers that tortured and physically abused more than 100 individuals in an effort to elicit false confessions and testimony. Burge died in 2018.
Now, Johnson will be released from custody, and attorneys and loved ones are celebrating.
“He lost nearly 29 years of his life to an incarceration for a crime he did not commit, he had absolutely nothing to do with, and I think he’s still processing, quite frankly, what it’s going to be like to finally be released,” Richardson said.
“We are just ecstatic,” Cynthia Booker, Johnson’s aunt, added. “Robert has gone through a lot. His family had been supportive to him. We loved him dearly, and finally, a wrong is being righted.”
