MEDIA CONTACT: Pat Vaughan Tremmel at (847) 491-4892 or p-tremmel@northwestern.edu

October 8, 2002

Marshall, Scheck Seek Pardon for Dotson

Lawrence C. Marshall (photo by Jennifer Linzer)

CHICAGO --- Professor Lawrence C. Marshall, attorney for Gary Dotson and legal director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, testified with the Center’s Rob Warden and Barry Scheck on behalf of Dotson at a Monday (Oct. 7) hearing related to his petition for a gubernatorial pardon based on actual innocence.

The testimony by Dotson and on his behalf took place at a hearing by the Illinois Prisoner Review Board in Springfield.

The hearing preceded a series of clemency hearings the week of Oct. 14 for about 160 Death Row inmates before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. The Center on Wrongful Convictions has been the driving force in Gov. George Ryan’s moratorium on executions in Illinois and his decision to consider commutation of the sentences of some or all Death Row inmates to life in prison.

"The fact is that we have a governor right now who understands the issues, who has become educated in the subject of wrongful conviction unlike any other governor," said Marshall in a Chicago Tribune story (Oct. 8) with quotes from his testimony. "We thought it was important that this governor have the opportunity to have this case in front of him."

One of the most notorious criminal cases in recent Illinois history, the Dotson case is recognized as the first post-conviction DNA exoneration in the United States.

"Barry Scheck, the attorney who gained fame representing O. J. Simpson and who specializes in using DNA evidence to exonerate wrongly convicted people, called Dotson’s case symbolic of problems in the justice system," said Christopher Wills in an Associated Press story about the hearing (Oct. 7).

Scheck is the director of the Innocence Project of the Cardozo University Law School; Warden, who investigated this case extensively in the 1980s, is the executive director of Northwestern’s Center on Wrongful Convictions.

In Dotson's petition for clemency, Marshall writes:

"Despite the procedural and other safeguards in our criminal justice system, the record in Illinois makes clear that our system is not infallible. It has been demonstrated that innocent persons have been, are and will continue to be incarcerated and wrongly convicted in Illinois.

"Although our legal system is not perfect, a pardon here for Mr. Dotson can, in some small measure, begin to redress the enormous and unjustified suffering that Mr. Dotson and his family endured as a result of his erroneous conviction and the more than six years he spent in prison.

Moreover, a pardon here will reaffirm that the State of Illinois is committed to punishing the truly guilty, while protecting the innocent and vindicating the unfortunate victims of our system, such as Mr. Dotson."

The following is Marshall’s summary of the case:

"Mr. Dotson’s ordeal began on July 15, 1977, when he was arrested based on the accusation of a 16-year-old girl, Cathleen Webb. She said that Mr. Dotson had kidnapped and raped her. Mr. Dotson was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and kidnapping in 1979, based on Ms. Webb’s testimony, which was corroborated by semen stains on her underwear and by some cuts on her body.

"The trial court sentenced Mr. Dotson to 25 to 50 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. The Illinois Appellate Court upheld the conviction and sentence in a 1981 decision. In 1985, Ms. Cathleen Crowell Webb (after marriage her name was changed to Cathleen Crowell Webb) came forward to admit that she had fabricated the rape story.

"Ms. Crowell Webb explained that she had not been raped, but instead had engaged in consensual sex with her boyfriend and panicked, thinking she might have become pregnant. That would have infuriated her foster parents, so she concocted the rape story to cover for herself in the event she did became pregnant.

"Ms. Crowell Webb admitted that she had torn her own clothing and had used a bottle to cut her own abdomen in an effort to make her claim of rape appear more credible.

"Mr. Dotson sought post-judgment relief based on Ms. Crowell Webb’s recantation, but the trial court found her recantation to be unbelievable and refused to free Mr. Dotson. The Illinois Appellate Court later affirmed this ruling.

"In the meantime, Mr. Dotson sought a pardon from then-Gov. James Thompson, who personally presided over Mr. Dotson’s televised clemency hearing May 10 through May 12, 1985. Gov. Thompson decided to deny Mr. Dotson an outright pardon to commute Mr. Dotson’s sentence so that he would be released on parole immediately.

"Under the conditions of parole, any violation by Mr. Dotson would result in revocation of parole and reinstatement of his original 25-to-50-year sentence. Mr. Dotson was released on parole May 12, 1985. Several months later, Mr. Dotson was arrested after his then-wife told the police that he slapped her. As a result of this arrest, Mr. Dotson’s full remaining sentence was reinstated.

"Gov. Thompson allowed Mr. Dotson to be released on parole once again in December, 1987, but Mr. Dotson’s sentence for the rape of Ms. Crowell was again reinstated after Mr. Dotson was arrested for a fight in a restaurant.

"In 1988, Mr. Dotson sought out DNA testing in order to establish that he was not the person who had sexual contact with Ms. Crowell. Gov. Thompson agreed to allow the testing to proceed. On Aug. 15, 1989, the DNA results were announced. Mr. Dotson was absolutely excluded as the person whose semen was found on the underpants. By contrast, the DNA of Mrs. Crowell Webb’s boyfriend matched the profile of the DNA found in the semen on the underpants. Based on these results, Mr. Dotson again sought judicial relief from his conviction.

"On Aug. 14, 1989, Judge Richard Fitzgerald granted Mr. Dotson’s motion for a new trial based on the DNA evidence, stating "It is my belief that had this evidence been available at the original trial, the outcome would have been different." The State's Attorney’s Office immediately dropped all charges against Mr. Dotson."