Arrested for Murder at 13, Exonerated at 30
A young man was arrested for murder at 13 years old and convicted at 14. For this crime he was given a 50 year prison sentence. Now, though, more than 16 years later, his conviction has been vacated.


July 03, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Arrested for Murder at 13, Exonerated at 30

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Thaddeus Jimenez was arrested for murder when he was 13 years old. At 14, he was sentenced as an adult to spend 50 years in prison for the crime.

Now 30 years old, Jimenez was recently released from prison after two key witnesses recanted their testimony and Cook County Criminal Court Judge Joseph Claps vacated Jimenez's conviction in the street gang murder.

Juan Carlos Torres, 30, of Hammond, Ind., has been charged with the murder of 19-year-old Eric Morro in 1993; the murder for which Jimenez was wrongfully convicted.

At the time of the arrest there was evidence withheld from Jimenez's trials pointing to Torres as the shooter.

Police were given a secretly taped confession from the father of a boy charged in the crime as a juvenile. Torres was reportedly heard on the tape saying "I had to shoot him" and "after I shot him, I ran." He also was heard on the tape saying he was relieved that police had already "pinned the blame" on Jimenez.

The tape was ruled inadmissible as hearsay in both of Jimenez's trials for the killing. There was no physical evidence linking Jimenez to the crime, though at age 13 he was a gang member with a lengthy criminal record.

A 12-year-old who was arrested with Jimenez and tried as a juvenile testified at both trials that the shooter was Torres, not Jimenez.

Jimenez was convicted of murder in his first trial in October of 1994. That conviction was later overturned because of errors in jury selection. In a second trial, held in 1997, the tape recording was again excluded and Jimenez was again convicted. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

In July of 2006 and May of 2007, the two key eyewitnesses recanted their testimony.

In September of 2007, Jimenez's attorneys took the witness recantations to the Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, who launched a reinvestigation of the crime after a judge had rejected a motion for a new trial. The investigation eventually culminated in Jimenez's release after more than 16 years from Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg.

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