Exonerated Illinois inmate charged with theft

A former death row inmate whose wrongful conviction was the spark that helped end the death penalty in Illinois faces charges again for allegedly stealing deodorant from a Chicago pharmacy.

Anthony Porter, 56, was charged with felony retail theft, and a judge on Saturday ordered him held on $10,000 bond, the Chicago Tribune reported (http://trib.in/qvb2mF ). Cook County prosecutors allege Porter stole several sticks of deodorant from a Walgreens just blocks from his home.

A phone message that The Associated Press left for Porter’s attorney Sunday wasn’t immediately returned.

Porter has also faced domestic battery charges since being released from death row.

He served nearly 17 years in prison for the 1982 double murder of a Chicago couple and was about 48 hours from execution when his attorneys won a stay of execution by raising concerns about his mental competence at trial.

Porter was released from prison in 1999 after Northwestern University journalism professor David Protess and his students obtained a statement from another man who said he committed the killings. Their work led to the formation of the Medill Innocence Project, which has helped contribute to the exoneration of almost a dozen wrongfully convicted men. Protess retired earlier this year from the university amid controversy over the project’s techniques in another case.

Former Gov. George Ryan had said Porter’s wrongful conviction was one of the reasons he focused on Illinois’ capital justice system. He declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois and in 2003 cleared death row by commuting to life in prison the death sentences of more than 150 inmates.

Gov. Pat Quinn abolished the death penalty in Illinois earlier this year and subsequently commuted the sentences of more than a dozen men on death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Porter received more than $145,000 in restitution from Illinois in 2000. But five years later, a jury rejected his claim for $24 million in a lawsuit alleging Chicago police conspired to wrongfully charge him in the slayings.

As a prosecutor described Porter’s criminal history Saturday, Porter urged his attorney to clarify that he had been exonerated of the double homicide, the Tribune reported.

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Information from: Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com