[BRC-NEWS] Teen spends 2 years in jail despite alibi Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - BRC NEWS, J Flenner http://www.dailysouthtown.com/southtown/dsnews/223nd3.htm Daily Southtown Saturday, May 22, 1999 Teen spends 2 years in jail despite alibi CHICAGO (AP)--A Chicago teen who could prove that he was in class when a teacher was shot and killed more than a mile away sat in jail for two years as his airtight alibi went unchecked for many months. "Everyone would like to have seen it go faster, including me," assistant public defender Jack Carey said Friday. Don Olmetti, 19, was released Thursday in one of two fresh cases sure to fuel a long-simmering controversy over Chicago police methods in murder investigations. Critics say beatings have been used to get confessions by a police department overeager to clear homicide cases. In the second case, Lanard Guilder was freed of charges in an unrelated 1997 murder on Thursday. Prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence that he had anything to do with the killing. Guilder claims his confession was coerced by a police beating. Charges against Ronald Jones in a 1985 murder-rape were dropped Monday. Jones, the 12th death row inmate to be freed since capital punishment was reinstated in Illinois, was cleared by DNA evidence. Anthony Porter was released earlier this year after years on death row in a 17-year-old double murder. He came within days of being executed. Many of those convicted say their confessions arose from beatings at the hands of police. Police have denied beating Guilder or Olmetti. But the allegations won't go away. "There's no doubt this is going on; it's terrible stuff," said Jay Miller, an American Civil Liberties Union official. Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine and Chicago Police Supt. Terry Hillard recently announced that murder suspects will be allowed to make videotaped statements after they are questioned. Youngsters will be allowed to have their parents with them during questioning. Devine is reviewing about 90 Chicago death-row cases s some of them resulting from investigations by former homicide Cmdr. Jon Burge, who was dismissed by police following allegations that he tortured suspects. "We're going to take this on a case-by-case basis," Devine spokesman Bob Benjamin said. Olmetti, slightly built and with a mild learning disability, declined to discuss his case as he left the Cook County Jail with his parents. "I want to go back to school and get my life back together," he said. But assistant public defender Carey said the teen reported being hit by police during the 18-hour interrogation that produced his confession. Carey, a 10-year veteran of the public defender's homicide unit, said such claims don't help much. "That goes nowhere in this building unless you come in with X-rays and bleeding from the eyeballs," Carey said. Based on an anonymous telephoned tip with no details, Olmetti was arrested in April 1997 for shooting 43-year-old teacher Sonia Hernandez. Carey acknowledges that justice moved slowly. He is one of 25 trial attorneys in the homicide unit and currently is defending 25 cases, including a dozen in which prosecutors are asking for the death penalty. He shares one investigator with five other attorneys who have similar caseloads. Following the arrest, police considered Olmetti's alibi that he was sitting in his second-period high-school class but dismissed it because he had confessed. Carey said that he spent months trying to discredit that confession with telephone and school records. In the fall of 1997, Carey said, he videotaped the 1.4-mile path Olmetti would have had to travel to get to the scene of the shooting after leaving school. But a camera glitch ruined the videotape and Carey wasn't able to redo the job for almost a year while Olmetti still sat in jail. Carey's efforts were interrupted by trials and the demands of other cases. He said he believed that he was proceeding professionally and logically. "Remember, I make one mistake and he goes away for 20 to life," he said. He said school attendance records plus verification of the time of the shooting through telephone records combined with the videotape finally resulted in clear evidence that Olmetti was innocent. Prosecutors agreed. The murder charge was dropped, but Olmetti must still return to court June 17 on weapons charges. "If you're looking at it from my point of view, what I did worked," Carey said. "The kid sat in jail for too long, but he never had to go to trial. And when you go to trial, bad things can happen to you." (c) 1999 Associated Press--All rights reserved. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - General News/Alerts/Announcements Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-05.30.99-11:12:22-11796