Exonerees and Advocates Come Together in the Nation’s Wrongful Conviction Capital

For the first time, the annual Innocence Network Conference is being hosted in Chicago — a city whose history is deeply intertwined with both the causes of wrongful conviction and the fight to end it.

Each year, the conference brings together attorneys, advocates, researchers, and exonerees working to address one of the most urgent and glaring failures of the criminal legal system: wrongful conviction. The gathering serves as a space to examine and strengthen the global innocence movement.

Illinois: The Nation’s Wrongful Conviction Capital

The statistics are both staggering and clarifying. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, Illinois has recorded 579 exonerations since 1989 — more than any other state.

Illinois’ record is not accidental. Wrongful convictions in the state have occurred at a rate almost unmatched in American legal history, fueled by decades of systemic misconduct, including police torture, suppressed evidence, coerced confessions, and the use of debunked forensic science. But the state has also produced some of the most determined innocence advocates, influential legal organizations, and landmark policy reforms in the country.

In fact, the Innocence Network has three member organizations working day in and day out in Illinois and Chicago specifically, each making irreplaceable contributions to this fight:

• The Exoneration Project
  Founded in 2007 by Loevy + Loevy, a national civil rights law firm, in partnership with the University of Chicago Law School, the Exoneration Project has exonerated more than 200 clients nationwide, with deep roots in Chicago-area cases.
• Illinois Innocence Project
  Based at the University of Illinois Springfield, the Illinois Innocence Project has helped exonerate 24 people while advancing education and legislative reform efforts statewide. The organization will be celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
• Center on Wrongful Convictions
  Housed at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, the Center on Wrongful Convictions has exonerated more than 50 people and played a defining role in landmark Illinois cases.

These organizations — alongside the Innocence Project and other advocates —  have reshaped both individual lives and the systems that impact them.

The Cases That Shaped the Movement

Several shocking cases that took place in Chicago have helped define the national innocence movement’s mission.

In 1978, Lawrence Lionberg and Carol Schmal were murdered in suburban Chicago. Paula Gray — a 17-year-old with an intellectual disability — was coerced by police into falsely confessing to the murders and testifying against four men also accused of the crime. Though she quickly recanted and said investigators fed her the details of her confession, Ms. Gray and the four men were convicted, largely based on her false confession and unreliable forensic evidence.

Nearly two decades later, DNA testing and investigative reporting identified the real perpetrators and revealed that all five were innocent. Their convictions were overturned in 1996 and Ms. Gray was officially pardoned in 2002 by Gov. George Ryan. The case exposed the dangers of coerced confessions and flawed forensic evidence, and underscored the transformative role of DNA in proving innocence.

The dangers of false confessions were also seen in another infamous case out of Chicago: The Englewood Four. In 1994, four Black teenagers, Terrill Swift , Michael Saunders, Harold Richardson, and Vincent Thames — represented post-conviction by the Center on Wrongful Convictions, the Innocence Project, the Exoneration Project, and the Valorem Law Group respectively — were arrested and convicted of the rape and murder of Nina Glover in the city’s Englewood neighborhood. Despite inconsistencies in their statements and a complete lack of physical evidence tying them to the crime, all four were convicted and sentenced to decades in prison based almost entirely on coerced confessions.

Years later, advanced DNA testing identified a different perpetrator — a man who had been previously questioned by police, but was deceased by the time DNA identified him — and excluded all four teenagers. In 2011, their convictions were vacated, but they still faced the possibility of a retrial. Finally, a year later,  all charges against them were dismissed. The case became a powerful example of how false confessions, particularly those made by youth, can lead to wrongful convictions.

In 2021, Illinois became the first state to ban deceptive practices in police interrogations of minors. Signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker, the legislation was driven in part by exoneree testimony and the work of the Innocence Project, the Illinois Innocence Project, the Office of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law.

From Harm to Reform

The legacy of police torture and violence under former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge exposed decades of coerced confessions, primarily involving Black men. Years of advocacy led to Mr. Burge’s 2010 conviction for perjury and obstruction, as well as mass exonerations and a landmark 2015 reparations ordinance — the first in the nation to address racially motivated police violence.

Wrongful convictions also forced a reckoning with the death penalty. In 2000, Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions after the number of people exonerated from death row exceeded the number executed. He later commuted all death row sentences and Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011.

The state has also established a compensation system for exonerees, though it remains widely criticized as inadequate — a reminder that the impact of wrongful conviction extends far beyond release.

A Movement Meets

Against this historic backdrop, more than 1,300 members of the innocence community will gather in Chicago from April 9–11. The conference will feature sessions on advances in forensic science, litigation strategies, policy reform, and trauma-informed support for freed and exonerated people navigating reentry.

The conference also reflects the collaborative nature of this work. Sponsors and partners play a critical role in supporting both the event and the broader movement and include:

• United Airlines supports workforce development initiatives for freed and exonerated individuals.
• Loevy + Loevy and Romanucci & Blandin sponsor key plenary sessions.
• Clio and Filevine provide essential legal technology support.
• Relativity’s Justice for Change program uses the company’s technology to support social justice initiatives. It offers nonprofits and pro bono legal providers free access to its tools, helping to free innocent individuals from prison and identify true perpetrators of decades-old crimes.
• GoFundMe helps organizations fund critical reentry and advocacy efforts.
• Ben & Jerry’s and Saddleback Leather contribute ongoing and in-kind support.

Stay tuned for our full conference coverage.