Justice was served with Dugan plea

Reading the timeline of the Jeanine Nicarico case congers up an image of our obsession with capital punishment, which does nothing but cause endless delay and pain and injustice to everyone connected to these cases.

Add to the frenzy to execute someone, anyone actually; minority status of the imagined perpetrators, prosecutors with suspect morals and limitless political ambition, a gullible and bloodthirsty public, and you have a potent brew for the 26-year saga of a horrific crime that could have been solved and justice achieved in a fraction of the time so far spent.

With no leads to the February, 1983 crime, it took DuPage law enforcement and prosecutors 13 months to concoct a preposterous case against three poor and troubled minorities, and unbelievably garnered death sentence convictions against two of them. It was not for another 10-plus years until their convictions and death sentences were mercifully rescinded by a judicial system reluctant to admit the truth and the prosecutorial wrongdoing.

The real perpetrator, Brian Dugan, was initially implicated in the Nicarico killing nearly 10 years earlier as the wheels of injustice sought to snuff out the life of two innocent men. Dugan was already implicated in two similar crimes and sought to plead guilty to the Nicarico murder if he would be spared the death sentence. Although there is much more to this endless saga of monumental judicial wrongdoing, suffice to say that the current county prosecutor is still seeking the death penalty, even though justice has been served by Dugan's guilty plea and his current life sentence for the two similar killings.

Walt Zlotow

Glen Ellyn