In what became known as the Ford Heights Four case, Verneal Jimerson and Dennis Williams were sentenced to death for a 1978 double murder they did not commit. Two other innocent men, Willie Rainge and Kenneth Adams, also were convicted in the case and sentenced to prison for terms of life and 75 years, respectively.

In 1983, Rob Warden exposed serious problems with the case, but it took another 14 years to exonerate the innocent men. The exoneration came about as a result of monumental efforts by a legal team that included Mark Ter Molen, of Mayer, Brown & Platt, and Lawrence C. Marshall, of the Center on Wrongful Convictions. A student investigative team headed by Northwestern University journalism Professor David Protess also was instrumental in the ultimate exoneration of the Ford Heights Four and the convictions of the actual killers.

The miscarriage of justice resulted from coercion of one witness for the prosecution, perjury by another who had a financial incentive to lie, false forensic testimony, and police and prosecutorial misconduct. The story of the Ford Heights Four is told in a book Rob Warden co-authored with Northwestern Professor David Protess — A Promise of Justice, Hyperion (1998). So egregious was the official misconduct that in 1999 Cook County settled lawsuits filed by the Ford Heights Four for $36 million — the largest civil rights payment in U.S. history.

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Donna K. Brown