Lock-upOn dutyMinorThreats/intimidationDestroy/conceal/fabricate evidenceForced confessionFalse arrest or reportOther charges filed
Plaintiff:
Michael Saunders
Incident date:
03/09/1994
Allegations:
Several months after a woman was found dead in a dumpster in 1994, officers approached an 18-year-old and his friend to inquire about the murder. The officers arrested the man and threatened him until he made false statements. Two days later, the officers arrested Saunders, who was 15 at the time, and took him to the police station. Four other minors were also arrested and detained, even though they weren't involved in nor had any knowledge of the murder. The officers denied Saunders' request for a lawyer and his mother, and told him if he didn't confess, they would take him to the railroad tracks and shoot him. Saunders agreed to cooperate with the officers, and signed a false handwritten statement without reading it. What followed was a series of falsified confessions that were discarded and rewritten by the officers, which the teenagers all signed. Saunders was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated sexual assault. Meanwhile, other individuals were being interrogated and coerced to implicate themselves in the murder. Because the young men agreed to implicate themselves, all were charged with first-degree murder and aggravated sexual assault. The teens became known as the "Englewood Four." The officers recited the details of the woman's murder to Saunders and the other minors so their confessions would be correct. However, the men's statements were inconsistent with the ones the officers had created. Prior to their trials, reports from forensic labs revealed the semen found on the woman could not have originated from Saunders or the other teenagers. Despite the scientific evidence, the officers continued to stand by the false statements and failed to investigate other leads. Saunders was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Saunders filed a motion for post-conviction DNA testing with two of the other men who had been wrongly implicated in the crime. Saunders and three other men then successfully filed a joint petition to vacate their convictions, and Saunders was released after spending 15 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.