FREE JUAN RIVERA-Rob Warden

at her job at a nearby tavern. The mother, John Engelbret, contacted Holly's mother and the two of them went to the apartment, where they found the two and a half year old girl unharmed, but Holly was dead. In the bedroom, she had been stabbed twenty seven times and brutally raped. In the days after the crime, Juan Rivera was jailed on an unrelated burglary charge. Another inmate told authorities that

Rivera told them he knew who had killed Holly. Police focused on Rivera, then just a few days short of his twentieth birthday. Ultimately, Rivera signed two confessions to the crimes. He later testified at a pre trial hearings that he was coerced into confessing and had nothing to do with the rape and murder. Engelbrett, whose children Holly was babysitting, had initially told police, told police after Rivera was arrested that he had approached her outside her apartment on the

night of the crime and asked what's happening. She later recanted that identification, however, and said she believed Rivera was not Holly's killer. In nineteen ninety three, Rivera was sentenced to life in prison. That sentence and the conviction were set aside in nineteen ninety six by Illinois appellate court, which ruled the judge in the case had made errors.

In two thousand and five, new DNA testing excluded Ron Rivera as a killer rapist, prompting a third trial, with Juan his family, defense attorneys and supporters believing in his innocence, confident that one would finally be released. On May eighth, two thousand and nine, Juan was convicted of Holly Staker's rape and murdered yet again, even though DNA excluded him.

Prosecutor site Juan's confession as proof of his guilt. Free Juan Rivera joining me is my special guest journalist and executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions, the north Western Center on Wrongful Convictions. Welcome to the program, Rob Warden.

men that were sentenced to death. In the seventies, you worked as an investigative reporter and foreign correspondent editor at Chicago Daily News. And you worked as a political issues consultant executive officer at the Cook County State's Attorney's Office. So you have a lot of experience journalistically, you have some experience politically, and so you don't come this like I had mentioned and when I spoke to from any kind of naivety whatsoever. How did you get involved with

this organization? When did you become involved with this organization? Rob?

they didn't commit. And although thirty might seem like a fairly small number in the scheme of things, once the media got to in view these people and see that these were genuine wrongful convictions, it sort of changed the dynamic. And then that is the you know, we grew out of that, okay.

just really you know, incredible. Now, you know, of all of the issues that lead to erroneous convictions, the one that is most difficult for most of us to comprehend is the false confession.

got involved in the case. And because the victim was an eleven year old girl, she'd been raped and murdered, and there was DNA evidence in the case, we got the DNA evidence tested and Juan Rivera was eliminated as the source of the DNA evidence in this case. Furthermore, you know, one had been on electronic home monitoring at the time the crime occurred, he had been involved in a murder, in a burglary, he had broken into a car to steal a stereo, and consequently, you know, he

couldn't possibly have committed the crime. Those are the are the issues that that basically got us involved. Now, once we got to DNA and then you know, Juan got a new trial. We were shocked that the state's attorney in Lake County, Illinois decided that he was going to retry the case and we went to trial with it. And because of a number of pre trial rulings that were adverse to our position and we think absolutely unreasonable

and illegal. Uh, they were able to persuade a jury for the third time time that Juan Rivera had committed this crime. The this is not just a matter of prosecutorial overreaching. It's a matter of absolute, incredible, you know, judicial error. One could not possibly have committed this crime because of the electronic home monitoring device. He was two miles away at the time the crime occurred. And yet the judge allowed the prosecution to tell the jury that

sometimes the electronic home monitoring equipment had malfunctioned. Now, there was absolutely no issue in this case. There was no indication in this case that the electronic home monitoring equipment that one had had malfunction. In fact, it you know, there are tests that occur routinely, and a few hours before the crime and a few hours after the crime, his equipment was functioning properly. And yet the judge allowed

the prosecution to suggest that. And then when we could show that the DNA didn't match, that he could not possibly have been responsible for this, the judge allowed the prosecution to, you know, suggest two things were just absolutely preposterous. First, that the DNA sample could have been contaminated. Now that it was absolutely impossible, because the DNA in this case came from sperm heads, and you can't change the DNA

of a sperm head no matter what. It's impossible. The only way you could do it would be to have inserted a sperm from someone else into the sample that was tested. That's ridiculous. The other explanations prosecute that the judge allowed the prosecution to advance was that this eleven year old victim might have been sexually active, and therefore the DNA that was recovered from from inside her body might have occurred from a consensual sexual encounter that was

unrelated to the crime itself. That was another preposterous suggestion, and yet the judge allowed them to do it. And what we have in Lake County, Illinois, and this is a county just north of Cook it's between you know, Chicago and the and the Wisconsin line is just, you know, really a conspiracy on behalf of you know, what's called the you know, the Lake County Major Crimes task Force. The state's attorney there, a man named Mike Waller, and and of course in the court, I mean it's all

three of them. It is a criminal conspiracy. And I don't make those kinds of allegations lightly, but it's just it's simply outrageous and there ought to be a federal investigation on all levels in Lake County, Illinois. It's simply unconscionable what's been going on there.

interested in. Just to start, when you talked about how the judge allowed the prosecution to introduce the theory, because I've certainly there was there no evidence that there was any consensual sexual relationship that the eleven year old had, right, there was no evidence of that, but there was it was made the theory that she could have had consensual relationship and there could have been another DNA semen sample there.

Why on TV you would see that there would be a clear separation when they did the testing between the two DNA samples. Why was there how was this theory supposed to work. His DNA was still not Juan Rivera's DNA was not found that in her body. I don't understand how that DNA could have been interfered with from another possible semen donor what can you explain it to us?

he or she did not commit. And in this case, the confession followed, you know, twenty seven hours of interrogation. I mean, that was the marathon session. But Juan had been in custody for several days. He had been questioned repeatedly, he had been lied to, he had been told that he had failed a polygraph test. And it's point, I mean, you know, he just basically gave up. Now you know, he signed ultimately two confessions. The first confession made no sense at all. There was no there were no facts

in the confession that related to the crime. And when the prosecution, when the prosecutor, this is Mike Waller, the state's attorney of Lake County, Illinois, saw this first confession. He told the police, this is no good.

that they did not know until he revealed them. It was an absolute lie. There is absolutely no question that there was no fact in this confession that was not known to the police. And when I say, you know that, and I'm telling you, the judge in this case was just absolutely corrupt. He allowed, he refused to allow the defense, uh to introduce evidence that the police had all of this evidence. He let them get away with that lie.

He covered it up. And it is an absolute disgrace to the to the to the system of criminal justice that we have in the United States. Uh, it's it's just amazing. I can't tell you how bad it is. Lake County, Illinois is an absolute cesspool. Now judicial corruption.

second trial, the third trial. What was the motivation in the very first place? Was what was the political climate at the time when Juan Rivera was arrested. But more importantly, we haven't fully explained whatsoever the conditions on which Juan Rivera did confess, how he came to the police's attention. He didn't get arrested by virtue of an investigation by

the police, right, it became more of other circumstances. So please explain those circumstances, the jail house informat that came forward. Was there any reward for his involvement, Was there any incentive that he potentially could have had, any reason why he would have said this if it were not true? Tell us a little bit about that.

Juan Rivera was not initially a suspect. He was not a suspect until a person with whom you know I said earlier, that he had committed a burglary of an automobile. He was ultimately put into prison for that crime. And he's in prison for this burglary of an automobile when someone, when a man who was in prison with him, comes forward and tells the prosecution and the police that Juan Rivera knew something about the murder of this victim. Her name Holly Staker. She was you know, as I said earlier,

eleven years old. Well, Juan Rivera didn't really know anything at all about this murder, but he had apparently, you know, talked about the crime in prison. And so because of this tip from somebody who was in prison, the police came to went down to prison and interrogated him, and of course he denied any knowledge, and they brought him back out of the state prison to talk to him again and again and again, and that's where this incredible

interrogation took place. In which he wound up admitting that he had committed the crime. You know, now, as I said earlier, the idea of a false confashion is pretty hard for most people to understand. But you know, we have seen it with such frequency in the American criminal justice system that we know that confessions are are really unreliable.

Particularly you know, a confession like this Juan Rivera had been observed and this is according to a nurse in the in the jail at the time this occurred, that after he confessed, he was beating his head against the wall of the cell in which he had been held. He you know, didn't know, you know, what he was doing. I mean, this is just, you know, an amazing series

of facts. And then we have, of course, you know, the overwhelming evidence that he didn't do the crime, the DNA that excludes him as the source of seamen recovered from the child's body, and the fact that he was on electronic home monitoring two miles away when the crime occurred. And yet based on this confession, a jury was willing to convict him. It's just, you know, totally ludicrous set of facts that led to what we believe, unquestionably is of a wrongful conviction.

fall statements at trial later on the stand. So let's you talk about false confessions, and we have to take your word for it that false confessions occur, and that they're very common and can occur. But for those that are still skeptical, Y know, what I'm saying. Sure, what I'm saying is that what I'm saying is that this particular case provides us with a really good example of how false confessions. So why don't you tell us how

you believe that false confession came. Now you talked about him not knowing any of the facts of the case, but the police claim that he knew certain things that only the killer would know. Now you talk about there was a first confession, there was a second fession. Please explain this whole thing, because there was no what they did have recording equipment at that time or did have

the capability to record the confession, yet they didn't. How did they answer to those claims as well that if they wanted to add some credibility, they could have recorded it.

And yet you know, we had newspaper reports. These are reports published in the newspaper that contained almost all of the facts that were in his confession. Was one exception, and one exception was that there had been a mop handle, a purple mop handle, that had been used to break into the back door of the apartment. Now, the police claimed that they didn't know about that mop handle until Wan Rivera revealed it in his confession, But in fact, uh, you know, Jan had been taken, had been brought to

the City of Chicago. Uh, he had been he had he had been subjected to a polograph examination, and the polygraph examiner had written a report on saying that the police had told him, revealing that the police had told him about this mop handle, this purple mop handle. So the police, you know, when the officers, when they got on the stand, and the principal officer who perjured himself and I don't use that word lightly, his name was Lou Tessaman, got on the stand and claimed that he

didn't know about that until Juan Rivera revealed it. Well, you know, I can't prove what Lou Testament knew or didn't know, but I do know that there's no question that the police in Lake County had told the polygraph examinor prior to that time about this mob pandle. So I can only conclude that Lou Testament got on the stand in this case and lied. It was a bold face lie, and I think it was very persuasive to

the jury. Now, you know, it might not have been nearly as persuasive if the judge had been a fair person and had allowed the defense to challenge this point out that indeed the police knew about this, but the judge didn't. The judge refuse to allow that evidence into the trial. And that's what I meant when I say it is a criminal conspiracy that exists in Lake County, Illinois, and it involves the state's attorney, it involves the Major

Crimes Task Force, and it involves the Circuit Court. It is an absolute outrageous situation that really should be investigated by the federal government or an outside authority, but it's apparently not going to happen.

didn't just set out to convict an innocent person. They the machine was not designed to railroad an innocent person in the prison. That was the effect. But they believed that they had the right guy. And then when the evidence that that that came forward that I think is this positive that they convicted the wrong guy. You know, as this became apparent, they simply didn't consider it. And so they just sort of, you know, stuck by this original theory because they would have had to have admitted

that they were wrong. And of course, you know, and you know I when I say there's a conspiracy, this is a pattern in Lake County, Illinois. There are other cases that are are almost as egregious as as one Rivera's case that have occurred in this one small county. And I can tell you about those if you were interested.

the third trial. So let's talk about the third trial, because this is the trial that's really a travesty of justice. If you've got DNA evidence, you've got the law team that you're working with at Northwestern here, all of these experience and passionate and totally convinced people that this person's innocent. Otherwise you wouldn't be involved whatsoever. And tell us about now, what I'm particularly interested in is the pre trial rulings.

We have something called a VOIDIR here, which is equivalent of pre trial rulings where a lot of this stuff that you said that the prosecution was allowed to enter into evidence. Tell us about the pre trial rulings that that you think were already set to sabotage this trial. What was done in the pre trial, specifically the issues that you thought were very detrimental to the trial once it did get underway, you know.

we think so obviously was unreliable, was admitted into evidence. Now, in addition to that, the you know, the judge allowed you know, the state or the police to testify in this case that that confession contained facts that would be known only to the killer. It was just so absurd given the fact that as we could show that most of these facts had been reported in newspapers, you know,

the judge dismissed the newspaper accounts. It's just hearsay that you can't allow newspaper accounts, you know, into one in the evidence. I mean, this is really, you know, almost ludicrous for ruling, for a judge to rule like that. And then you know, as I mentioned earlier, there's this this single fact about the mop handle that was used to break in and the police claimed that they hadn't known about that until one Rivera revealed it in the confession.

That was a patently false assertion, which we can approve, which we can prove by the polygraphic examiner. Now the judge refused to allow that evidence u to be presented to the jury. I think that this was you know, just a totally disingenuous. A judge who would make a ruling like that under these circumstances has no business whatever, you know, being on the bench, and this judge simply ought to be you know, drummed out of service immediately.

But you know, the whole court in Lake County, Illinois, as far as we're concerned, is it is just a corrupt There are a number of other judges who have made equally absurd evidentiary rulings prior to trial in cases that have led to convictions that that certainly have no veracity. It is a tragedy and a scandal, and yet you know, there's really no one to investigate it.

source of seamen recovered from the child's body. Now they even though the appellate court had previously said that this evidence was inadmissible, when documents were admitted into evidence, the judge allowed testimony to the effect that it was that

there had been failures in the system. Now it's important to know here that the way electronic home monitoring works, it works, you know, by a telephone, and if you stray more than one hundred and fifty feet from the source from the telephone to which this is to which the device is connected, it will notify the police that you've gone beyond that. Now, furthermore, the system calls in and every three or four hours to confirm that it's working.

And the system was working very shortly before the murder of Holly Staker and very shortly after the murder of Holly Staker. So the only way that Juan Rivera could have possibly committed this crime was to somehow have slipped out of the bracelet, run a couple of miles, committed the murder, run back and put the bracelet back on. It's almost ludicrous. But the way the evidence was allowed to be presented to the jury, it appeared that that

was a plausible explanation. And you know the prosecutor in this case, you know his name is Michael Murmel. He is the head of the Felony Trial Division of the Lake County, Illinois State's Attorney's Office. I mean, he clearly, I mean he must have known better and what he and yet what he did and what he told the

jury was so incredibly misleading that it's just amazing. And the fact that the judge allowed this evidence to go to the jury explains to my mind how we could have a confession that and have a conviction that was based on the confession that quite obviously was false.

some point she recanted her testimony. And when I first spoke to her, she said that she got a rough ride from the criminal the judicial system because she did recant her identification. But she firmly believed before this third trial that he was innocent of the crime itself. So to explain that this must have been a complication as well when you have a witness say that she did see him, he did speak to her and tell us what he was supposed to have said to her, and that explanation for us about.

you know, that's one thing. So witnesses, uh, you know, as we know, you know, make mistakes about identification, but there may be there's probably more to it in this case, that she was coerced basically into claiming that she had seen one room Vera on the street at the time of the crime, when he couldn't have been on the street because in fact, you know, he was on electronic

home monitoring two miles away from the crime. Now, don Engelbrecht, I think ultimately realized that she'd been coerced, you know, by the police into making a false statement, and that's of course why she came to you and called this to your attention, that that the police misconduct in this case was you know, simply egregious. Not only did they coerce a false confession from Juan Rivera, but they also

you know, coerced a false identification from don Ingelbrecht. Now, of course there were no eyewitnesses, you know, to the to the crime itself. She simply claimed to have seen Juan Rivera on the street and spoken spoken to him in the neighborhood around the time the crime occurred. And it's quite clear that that you know, you know, she was wrong or was coerced by police and just saying that.

absolute scandal and it is a conspiracy. I can't and you know I stand by that, and you know I wouldn't be I wouldn't be making I don't make these allegations lightly. You know, we can prove it, and I would welcome Uh If if what I'm saying here is false, let them sue us, Let them sue me. I will stand behind these allegations and prove them until until the cows come home, as we sometimes say in the United States.

valid that there could be a false confession. He has an IQ of about seventy nine for most people. That's kind of if they know it's borderline retarded, what's classified. I think they're very close to it. Now what and you just talked about a little bit about the psychotic episode he had right after the questioning, but the twenty six hours talk about this, You didn't mention the John Reid Society or of John Reid a building that he

went to for questioning. Tell us a little bit more about how you think a false confession can happen, the whole process, the twenty six hours, the he just wants to cooperate. Tell us how a false confession in this particular case really came about. Give us all the details.

we really don't know what happened. What we do know is that, you know, in the United States, I'm not sure how it works in Canada, the police can lie to you. And they told Juan Rivera that he failed the polygraph. Whether he did or did not is, you know, pretty much beside the point. Because polygraphs are junk science, they don't work. They there's absolutely they shouldn't be allowed.

But the police are allowed to use them as investigative tools. Uh, these are not they're not the results are not admissible in the court, but they can tell you og you failed the polygraph and therefore you must be guilty. Now that is we're speculating here because, as I said, you know, the interrogation was not recorded, so we don't know exactly what was said. What we do know is that polygraphs are absolutely unreliable and that the police are allowed in

the United States to lie to you. And they told Juan Rivera that he had failed the polygraph. Now, if the polygraph examiner told the police that, and that may just have intensified their you know, their interrogation and may have convinced them all the more that they were right

and that Juan Rivera had committed this crime. But this is entirely special because we don't know because they didn't the John Reid associates didn't record it, or or or somehow they have deep sixed the recording if they did record it.

horrible crime has been committed. You want to cooperate with the police, and you didn't do it, and therefore you're you're very willing to, you know, waive your Miranda rights.

is tell the truth. And you know, the questioning begins with, you know, a period of rapport building. They may ask you about, you know, sports scores. You know, hey, what do you think of those Chicago cubs this year? Aren't they great? And so this is going on for a while until at some point it becomes accusatory. And at the point it becomes accusatory is where they start, you know,

really laying it on you. And you may resist and resist and resist for hour upon hour, as Juan Rivera did, and then ultimately at some point you just came in and say, okay, I did it. And that's what we believe happened in this case, that he was simply, after twenty six hours of interrogation beating his head on his cell wall, obviously suffering from an extreme psychotic episode, that he falsely confessed. And yet that confession is the entire predicate of his wrongful conviction.

prior to this. And he became a suspect only because someone who was incarcerated with him came forward and said that he knew something about this crime. Now, you know, he may indeed have of statement, made statements indicating that he knew something about the crime. I mean, that's that's entirely possible. And and and when he talked to when he discussed the crime with police, he in fact made some false statements about knowledge of the crime. But you know,

this is not a particularly unusual thing. You know, once the questioning becomes you know, accusatory. I mean, he's already boasted in and while he was incarcerated that he knew something about the crime, the police came to him and he pretended to know something about it when in fact, you know, he didn't. So in some sense, you know, I think it would be fair to say that he

talked himself into this situation. But you've got to remember, you know, you're talking about a man who had tested seventy eight on an IQ test and who had no council present. It's, you know, a really pretty incredible situation.

with a for a rid of habeas corpus. And I am confident that at some level justice will be done here and we will and Juan Rivera will be exonerated of the crime that he did not commit and you know, brought home to his family. It's a really tragic case.

two thousand. Yeah, and so you say sometime possibly in the future, and then you really are confident that because this DNA is so strong, and because you think the errors are so blatant, the free trial errors and the airrors at trial, did you think you really have something where do you think in not to say that there's any you know, there's any bucket at the end of the rainbow here, but do you think maybe there's a reason for this case going for the possibly looking at a more federal review.

But we're hoping that there's somebody there that there will be uh, you know, three judges on the Illinois pelt Court, who will see what an egregious situation this is and reverse the case outright without a possibility of retrial.

one of the northernmost counties of Illinois. But in fact, you know, that's where this case arose, and it's something just out of the you know, out of the Deep South that is almost unimaginable to think that it could have occurred, uh uh in the northern county in the state of Illinois.

you in your organize station. So you're saying, despite, despite the is there a real risk that if these people are looked at federally that there may be an investigation into their their actions? You know right now that this are still scrambling to cover that up potentially.

fight that forever because you know, what's happened here. I mean, what the police did, this coerced confession lying in court is you know, it is simply so a read just that it's really rather uh, you know, it could be a you know, a very serious problem for Lake County, Illinois, and they will want to do what they can to to avoid those damages and to mitigate the situation.