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Innocent Man Released from Prison After 26 Years, Two Lawyers Kept His Innocence Secret

Posted by The Innocence Project, The Innocence Blog at 5:37 AM on April 22, 2008.


Attorneys waited for their client's death before admitting he was the real killer in the murder that sent Alton Logan to prison for half his life.
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Alton Logan served 26 years in Illinois prison for murder before he was released on Friday based on new evidence of his innocence. While DNA evidence is not involved, Logan joins a vast group of people released from prison years after an apparent wrongful conviction. His family members collected $1,000 for bond in the courthouse lobby on Friday and he is now awaiting a decision from the Illinois Attorney General on whether to retry him.

Logan was convicted of a 1982 murder in a McDonald's restaurant and sentenced to life in prison, narrowly avoiding the death penalty. His release was sparked by an affidavit provided by two Illinois attorneys, revealing that their client in another murder case, Andrew Wilson, had confessed to them that he committed the McDonald's murder alone. The confession came before Logan was sentenced in the case. The attorneys had Wilson sign an affidavit admitting his guilt, but kept it locked away because they weren't allowed to break attorney-client privilege. Wilson told them they could release the affidavit if he died, and he passed away last year in prison.

CBS News' "60 Minutes" reported on the case last month, including interviews with Logan and Wilson's two lawyers, one of whom says in the interview that he thought about Logan's case almost every day for 26 years, but he felt obligated to maintain his attorney-client privilege with Wilson.

"There might be other attorneys who have similar secrets that they're keeping," attorney Jamie Kunz said. "What makes this case so different is that (we) came forward… and (talked) to Wilson before his death, and get his permission: 'If you die, can we talk?' Without that, we wouldn't be here today."

But Logan says in a prison interview that he can't understand why the two attorneys didn't release the information sooner. He also says the system is built to convict people and often misses the truth.

"They are quick to convict, but they are slow to correct their mistakes," Logan said.

The "60 Minutes" segment is a must-see for anyone interested in the issue of wrongful convictions. Watch it here.


Return to Rights and Liberties  » Post Tools: email EMAIL print PRINT 12 COMMENTS PERMALINK
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Wheels Of Justice
[Report this comment]
Posted by: dustinblythe on Apr 22, 2008 6:22 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Sometimes they turn slowly and sometimes people get run over. I watched this story on 60 Minutes and I am so glad that Alton is finally free. While I can admire the attorneys' dedication to their client and the attorney-client privilege on one level, a greater part of me is disturbed by the fact that they knowingly let a man spend 26 years in prison for a crime they knew he did not commit. As I remember from their interview they had good reason for not coming forward, possibly because it would have harmed their client, but when you think of what Alton had to go through during those horrific years in prison it is hard to sympathize with the attorneys. Especially when you think of what may have happened if Alton had been put on death row. Would they have seen him executed before they spoke out?

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Tragic
[Report this comment]
Posted by: drmflorida on Apr 22, 2008 6:22 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is horrible, how can this man be repaid for what he has been through? I certainly hope the authorities try very hard.

This is why its not enough to treat someone as innocent until found guilty in a court of law. These courts are proven time and time again to be capable of egregious errors. We must treat prisoners as if they might still be innocent.

This means protecting them from rape and violence, providing for a sustained relationship with their family, and allowing for their personal development. Incarceration should not be inhumane.

Good luck convincing "values voters" of this.

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THIS STORY WAS A HEARTBREAKER
[Report this comment]
Posted by: VZEQICVA on Apr 22, 2008 7:11 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I know there's no such thing as a perfect system but we put too many of the wrong people in jail. And they're all poor. As long as someone ends up in the slammer, it's 'case closed'. It doesn't have to be the RIGHT person. If this were about manufacturing they would need more quality control. That's what we need in our courts. And that starts with the local police. Too many sloppy operations. ANNA

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The Law colludes with criminals
[Report this comment]
Posted by: luzmejor on Apr 22, 2008 10:58 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Attorney-client privilege cannot lawfully extend to cover the legal responsibility to report a crime.

The only persons exempt from immediately revealing knowledge of a crime should be reporters, who are gathering evidence of the crimes of public servants who otherwise would remain in power, readily able to commit more crimes. This just happens to be a key element in the freedom of the press to expose crimes that then should be prosecuted by the courts.

There is no reason for extending this privilege of secrecy (and conspiracy,) even to priests. Some people say they would never know about the crimes if the perpetrators knew they could not confess without facing punishment for their crimes.

I'm sorry, but that is fine with me. Criminals are not entitled to share the heavy burdens of a guilty conscience with anyone else merely so they themselves can remain unmolested by the law.

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Morally unconscionable...
[Report this comment]
Posted by: ceraiteri on Apr 22, 2008 5:40 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
describes these two lawyers, and don't fool yourself, these guys would have let Logan go to the chair. They can cite the attorney/client privilege all they want, but at the end of the day, they chose to do what they did - condemn an
innocent man to a fate worse than death. Every dollar they earned thereafter was earned on the back of Logan. The only way they can begin to atone for what they've done is to give Logan a big percentage of their income from that day to this.

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Why is he still in jail ???
[Report this comment]
Posted by: sallas on Apr 23, 2008 4:44 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Why is he still in jail, the doors should be open for him to walk straight out of there. What a disgusting system. All this says to me is that anyone can be locked up for any crime regardless of knowledge of innocence.
Makes me scared to leave my own home.
WOW I'm flabbergasted.

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HOW MANY ATTORNIES DON'T EVEN BOTHER WITH THE
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Raymond Emerson on Apr 23, 2008 10:41 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
affadavit and just try to forget everything. As thorny an ethical problem as this is they eventually did do something. I'm going to guess that those that do nothing and try to forget are those that end up as drunks.

Yes, you are right. Why is it that when there is undeniable evidence of a person's innocence the persons in power drag their feet? It is a significant indicator of the degree to which we have sunk into a police state.

Dostoyevsky opined that the state of a civilization could be measured by the condition of its prisons.

As a boy I was taught that it was better that many of the guilty go free than to have one innocent man imprisoned. I still believe it. Where are all of the rest of you? Back me up.

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Another Good Reason to Not Have the Death Penalty
[Report this comment]
Posted by: bloggeddowninMKE on Apr 24, 2008 5:42 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The author of the article stated that he barely escaped the death penalty, which Illinois still has on the books today. I wonder, had he been sentenced to death would the attorneys have spoken up? I don't know how you get back 26 years of someone's life, but had he been executed and then the real killer's confession came out, how do you get a life back?

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Why?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Stash on Apr 24, 2008 7:08 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Because anyone can "confess" to anything. If every convicted criminal were released hours after a confession by someone else, the prison doors would be a great energy source as they'd be spinning constantly.

There must be a process to vet any confession and then a judge must set aside a previous conviction.

That said, this has been a very tragic situation for this gentleman and his family.

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