2 Illinois Police Officials Ordered to Pay $600,000 Over Quashed Re-Examin

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http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB4B25N48E.html

Two Illinois Police Officials Ordered to Pay $600,000 Over Quashed Re-Examination of 1986 Stabbings

URBANA, Ill. (AP) - A federal jury ordered two state police supervisors to pay more than $600,000 to a former lieutenant who said he was moved to a desk job because he pursued evidence linking a political contributor to a double murder.

In issuing the verdict, the jury rejected a defense argument that Lt. Michale Callahan lost his investigations post in 2003 to deal with a feud that had developed with his immediate supervisor, defendant Capt. Steven Fermon, who also was transferred. snip

Two men had been convicted, but Callahan said he determined that the original probe had been botched. He said he was suddenly ordered to stop investigating in 2001 after learning that evidence pointing to a local businessman who had contributed thousands of dollars to then-Gov. George Ryan's campaign fund had not been fully explored. That man was never charged. snip

"As a police agency, we're not supposed to leave innocent people in prison," Callahan said after the verdict. "Politics should never, ever control the justice system."

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[patdem]

1. What was the original sentence? DEATH? Is that why Ryan put a

moritorium on the death penalty before he bailed? Very interesting, but it does not say what the original sentence was?

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2. One was sentenced to death. The other to life. Both were innocent

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/depts/clinic/wrongful/exonerations/IL_Steidl.htm

Randy Steidl (white shirt) leaves Danville Correctional Center, escorted by, from left, attorney
Michael Metnick, his wife Patty, and mother Roberta Steidl. (Photo: Loren Santow)

Gordon (Randy) Steidl was released from the Illinois Correctional Center at Danville on May 28, 2004, making him the eighteenth person to be exonerated and released after having been sentenced to death in Illinois since 1977.

His release, ordered earlier the same day by the Edgar County Circuit Court, was based on new evidence that he and co-defendant Herbert Whitlock were innocent of the murder of newlyweds Karen and Dyke Rhoads, whose bodies were discovered on July 6, 1986, in their burning home in Paris, Illinois.

Both convictions rested principally on the testimony of two alcoholics, Deborah Reinbolt and Darrell Harrington, who claimed to have been present when Steidl and Whitlock repeatedly stabbed the victims and set their home afire. Reinbolt was charged with concealing the homicidal deaths and, pursuant to a plea agreement, pleaded guilty. She was sentenced to two years in prison.

The evidence against Steidl also included the testimony of a jailhouse informant, Ferlin Wells, who claimed to have heard Steidl say that, if he had known Harrington would come forward, “he would have definitely taken care of him.”

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