The Illinois Innocence Project has come a long way since it began as the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project in 2001 at the University of Illinois Springfield. What started with a couple of professors, an investigator, a few UIS undergraduates and a handful of supporters intent on exonerating one innocent man has grown into an organization […]
Illinois Innocence Project
Posted inNews
Getting it right
Brian Banks spent five years in prison for a rape that never occurred, but he was freed with help from the California Innocence Project. Banks is shown here carrying petitions calling for the release of another prisoner in California whom some believe to be innocent. PHOTO BY BRIAN VAN DER BRUG/MCT Brian Banks had the […]
Posted inNews
Judge rejects retrial in ‘shaken baby’ case
Pamela Jacobazzi A former day care worker accused in 1995 of killing an infant by shaking him was denied a retrial last week, dealing a rare setback to the Springfield-based Illinois Innocence Project. DuPage County Circuit Judge Robert Kleeman on Sept. 20 declined to grant a retrial to Pamela Jacobazzi, 58, who has spent the […]
Posted inNews
Abused wife freed from prison after 26 years
When the Springfield-based Illinois Innocence Project hosts its annual fundraising banquet this weekend, they’ll have a fresh victory to celebrate. Peggy Jo Jackson of Shelbyville was released from prison in Lincoln last week after serving nearly 26 years for a murder her brother admitted to committing. Gov. Pat Quinn approved Jackson’s clemency petition on March […]
Posted inNews
She may be innocent
In the early morning hours of Dec. 3, 1986, Richard Harshbarger grabbed his .38 caliber revolver and a homemade bat, climbed into his Dodge Rampage truck, and departed from his home in Pana. His younger sister, Peggy Jo Jackson, lived in the southern Illinois town of Mt. Vernon with her abusive husband, William Jackson, and […]
Posted inNews
Innocent, but still guilty
Although Anthony Murray walked out of prison on Oct. 31 a free man after 14 years, gaining his freedom required admitting to a murder he says he didn’t commit. “It’s been a long road,” the 41-year-old Chicago resident said in a Marion County courtroom in Salem during a hearing the day before his release. “I’m […]
