A wrong has been corrected……will any one have to answer for this injustice?

State’s attorney sets aside convictions in rape, murder

BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN AND STEFANO ESPOSITO

Staff Reporters

Last Modified: Sep 10, 2013 05:31PM

Carl Chatman walked out of the Dixon Correction Center Tuesday afternoon and into the arms of his tearful sisters and brother. His sister Dretha Miller threw her arms around his neck and cried, saying, “It’s over.”

Chatman’s siblings — Miller and Theresa and Willie Chatman — drove to Dixon to meet their brother after the Cook County state’s attorney’s office officially set aside his conviction for a 2002 rape at the Daley Center. State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez — citing “failures of the past” — also set aside the conviction of Lathierial Boyd, sentenced to 82 years in prison for fatally shooting one man and paralyzing another man outside Wrigley Field in 1990.

“Our work as prosecutors is about seeking justice, even if that measure of justice means that we must acknowledge failures of the past,” State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez told reporters at the criminal courthouse at 26th and California.

“Justice was certainly delayed for Mr. Boyd and for Mr. Chatman, but we are hopeful that with today’s actions, it will not be denied,” Alvarez said.