Five Teens Exonerated of 1991 Rape

CHICAGO --- Cook County prosecutors today moved to vacate the convictions of three of five teenagers convicted two decades ago of a rape murder. Two whose convictions have not yet been vacated already were free, after serving their sentences. Prosecutors indicated they soon will move to vacate those convictions as well, according to Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law’s Bluhm Legal Clinic.

Those whose convictions were vacated are Robert Taylor, represented by the Center on Wrongful Convictions attorneys Joshua Tepfer and Laura Nirider; James Harden, represented by Peter Neufeld and Craig Cooley of the New York Innocence Project; and Jonathan Barr, represented by Tara Thompson of the University of Chicago Exoneration Project. All three were serving life without parole.

Taylor is expected to be released from Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, and Harden and Barr from Menard Correctional Center in southern Illinois.

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