CHICAGO--Monday, May 24--Michael Evans and Paul Terry, whose innocence of murder was established last year by DNA testing, filed wrongful conviction lawsuits today in federal court. The suits, which name the City of Chicago and more than a dozen current and former police officials from the notorious Area 2 police station as defendants, seek legal redress for the nearly-three decades they each spent in prison after allegedly being framed by the Chicago Police for a crime they did not commit. The lawsuits also allege long standing policies and practices of Area 2 Detectives to keep secret “street files” and to physically coerce suspects and witnesses during interrogations, as well as long-standing conspiracy to cover up police misconduct which led to these wrongful convictions.

Evans and Terry were criminally charged with the January 14, 1976 rape and murder of nine-year-old Lisa Cabassa as she was walking home alone in her neighborhood on Chicago’s southeast side. Evans and Terry were both convicted of the crime in April 1977, and each was sentenced to 200 to 400 years of imprisonment. The lawsuits filed today allege that the high-profile nature of that crime put pressure on the Chicago Police Department to close the case, and that after weeks without investigative success, Defendants arbitrarily seized upon Mr. Evans and Mr. Terry as the culprits even though there was no evidence connecting them to the crime.

At the time, Mr. Evans and Mr. Terry were high school students, living at home with their families, and who had no previous convictions or significant brushes with the law.

To attempt to pin the crime on Mr. Evans and Mr. Terry, the suits allege, various Chicago Police Detectives and supervisory personnel coerced witnesses to falsely implicate Mr. Evans and Mr. Terry, fabricated and altered key evidence, manipulated false identifications, and threatened and used physical violence during interrogations. In this way, the Defendant officers were able to manufacture a false case against the two young men even in the absence of any physical evidence connecting them to the crime. The suits further allege that the reports and notes which could have helped establish Mr. Evans’ and Mr. Terry’s innocence were destroyed and otherwise withheld from their defense teams in secret street files.

After Mr. Evans and Mr. Terry served more than 25 years in prison, DNA testing conclusively ruled out Evans and Terry as the rapists who had committed the crime. Based on the DNA test results, Evans and Terry filed petitions for relief from their convictions; the State did not oppose these petitions, and their convictions were vacated on May 23, 2003.

In explaining his decision to forego any additional prosecution, Cook County State’s Attorney Richard A. Devine wrote a letter to the Chicago Tribune dated September 4, 2003, stating in part:

I want to make it very clear than anytime anyone spends a day, a week or a year in jail for a crime he or she did not commit, it is indeed, regrettable.

In the case of Evans and Terry, wrongly incarcerated for 27 years, that feeling of regret is both present and strong.

Mr. Evans is represented in his lawsuit by attorneys Karen Daniel of Northwestern Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, Locke Bowman, Legal Director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Chicago Law School, and Jon Loevy of the law firm Loevy & Loevy in Chicago. They can be contacted at (312) 243-5900.

Mr. Terry is represented in his lawsuit by attorneys Flint Taylor and Jan Susler of the People’s Law Office, and Jeff Urdangen of Northwestern Law School. They can be contacted at (773) 235-0070.