There’s a delicate alchemy to overturning a wrongful conviction

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What does it take to get a wrongful conviction overturned? Quite a lot, according to investigative reporter Alison Flowers, who says proving innocence is much more difficult than proving guilt. She has investigated the cases of many wrongfully convicted individuals, including that of Chicagoan Robert Johnson. In our last episode, Invisible Institute reporter Erisa Apantaku explained how Johnson has spent nearly 30 years in prison for a murder almost everyone knows he did not commit. What’s clear is that a lot must go right to overturn a wrongful conviction (and even more so before the exonerated can try to earn compensation from the state). Flowers explains what a wrongfully convicted person needs — “the three-legged stool of wrongful convictions” — an advocate on the outside, an attorney in your corner and media attention.

Transcript

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0:31.3	What's up, Chicago? I'm Erin Allen, and this is Curious City.
0:35.5	Our story this week about Robert Johnson.
0:38.7	I don't know about you, but it really got my blood boiling.
0:42.1	Robert is from the South Side, and he's been in prison now for nearly 30 years.
0:47.3	He's essentially serving a life sentence for a murder that almost everybody knows he did not commit.
1:00.0	It doesn't take much at all to wrongly convict someone, especially in Cook County. This is investigative journalist Alison Flowers.
1:03.0	She co-authored an investigation in 2020 with the Invisible Institute that looked at all the things that went wrong in Robert Johnson's case.
1:11.1	The number one reason that people are wrongly convicted is false testimony.
1:16.6	Someone up there lying on the stand. That could be a jailhouse informant. That could be a
1:21.3	co-defendant in your case who got a deal on their own. Or it could be just with someone that you
1:26.5	have a beef with or someone who's just mistaken
1:28.9	and they're getting it wrong on the stand and they're testifying against you. That's really
1:32.3	the number one reason. Wow. At Robert's trial back in 1997, his co-defendants blamed him for
1:39.1	the murder of Eddie Binion. Since then, they have recanted their testimonies. The second top reason for wrongful
1:46.1	convictions in this country is official misconduct and usually police misconduct. Coercing statements,
1:54.7	suggestive photo arrays and lineups, or unfortunately here in Chicago, our vast history of police torture.
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