Appellate court ruling opens door on voluntary guilty pleas, innocence

Criminal Procedure

By Timothy P. O’Neill

Timothy P. O’Neill was the Edward T. and Noble W. Lee Chair in Constitutional Law for 2014-15 at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago. Readers are invited to visit his Web log and archives at jmls.edu/oneill.

Posted November 5, 2018 10:27 AM

The National Registry of Exonerations recently released a report on false convictions in the United States since 1989. The numbers are jaw-dropping. The 2,265 exonerees in its database served a combined 20,080 years behind bars.Faced with these staggering numbers, courts have become increasingly involved with convicted defendants’ claims of actual innocence.A recent case from the 1st District Illinois Appellate Court presented an actual innocence claim in what the court characterized as a “unique situation …

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