Officials: DNA that cleared one man implicates another in ’81 rape

DNA tests that exonerated Jerry Miller for a 1981 kidnapping and rape have implicated another man in the crime, prosecutors disclosed Monday.

That other man, Robert Weeks, has spent much of the past quarter-century behind bars, has since been convicted of another rape, is accused of two additional rapes and is in prison currently for assaulting police officers, according to prosecutors and Illinois Department of Corrections records.

Weeks, who turns 45 on Wednesday, will not be charged with the rape for which Miller was wrongfully convicted because the statute of limitations for that offense has expired, first Assistant State's Atty. Robert Milan said.

The disclosure that Weeks was an exact match for the DNA that cleared Miller, 48, came shortly after Miller was officially exonerated in Cook County Criminal Court.

To vigorous applause and whoops of joy from family members and friends, a grinning Miller emerged from the courtroom of Judge Diane Gordon Cannon after the judge, at the request of prosecutors and defense lawyers, dismissed Miller's 1982 rape conviction, citing DNA tests that show he was not guilty. Miller is the 27th DNA exoneration in Illinois and the 200th in the nation.

Minutes later, at a news conference, Milan said, "On behalf of the state's attorney's office. . . . I would like to express my deepest regrets to Mr. Miller."

Despite spending 25 years in prison for the crime, Miller said he bore no ill will and thanked God for his exoneration.

"I'm going to do what I want to do and go where I want to go," Miller declared.

He was referring to the removal of an electronic monitoring device on his ankle, required because he had been paroled last year as a convicted sex offender. He also has been required to carry a global positioning system at all times.

"I want to get a life, start a life, have a life," Miller said. "I never should have been convicted. . . . But it's all right now."

Miller was joined by attorneys from the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic in New York. Miller wrote to the project while in prison, seeking its help in obtaining DNA testing of evidence in the case.

Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who co-founded the project, hailed Miller's exoneration as the 200th wrongful conviction in the nation to be proven by DNA evidence. They used the moment to call for continued funding of public defenders and prosecutors as well as continuing progress in instituting criminal-justice reforms to try to eliminate convictions of the innocent.

Scheck noted that in Illinois, legislation has been approved for investigating murder cases, such as requiring videotaping of interrogations. "Isn't it time to make sure they apply to all kinds of cases?" he said.

Numerous states have considered and, in some instances, passed legislation to extend the statute of limitations so that defendants linked by DNA, such as Weeks, may be prosecuted. In some states, including Illinois, prosecutors have obtained indictments that carry only the DNA profiles as a way of keeping cases alive until a suspect can be matched.

The rape for which Miller was convicted—a crime that prosecutors say was committed by Weeks—occurred Sept. 16, 1981. Miller was arrested within 72 hours and charged with the crime.

About seven months later, on April 4, 1982, Weeks attacked a woman walking in the 1200 block of North Bosworth Avenue, dragged her into a gangway and raped her, Assistant State's Atty. Mark Ertler said. Five days after that, Weeks attacked another woman in the 1700 block of North Hermitage Avenue, biting and punching her, but he fled when her screams drew the attention of people nearby, Ertler said.

Weeks, formerly of the 11000 block of South Wentworth Avenue, was arrested shortly after the second attack, pleaded guilty to both and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Paroled in 1991, Weeks was sentenced in 1996 to 3 years in prison for burglary.

He was paroled in 1998 but was sent back to prison in 1999 for violating the state's sex offender registration law, according to state prison records. Weeks was released in 1999 but went back to prison in 2001 after he was convicted of assaulting police officers at the Wentworth Area station.

A spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office said Weeks was at the station when he "became unruly" and punched and kicked several officers. Convicted of aggravated battery to police officers, he was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

Weeks was paroled in March 2004. Two months later, he was arrested and charged with exposing himself at O'Hare International Airport and biting and punching officers during the arrest, the spokeswoman said. He was sentenced to another 4 years in prison.

Currently being held in disciplinary segregation at Pontiac Correctional Center, Weeks was charged last fall with two other rapes after he was linked by DNA, the spokeswoman said. He is awaiting trial on those charges.

Weeks is accused of attacking a woman in the 1800 block of West Evergreen Avenue as she was coming home from a restaurant Dec. 22, 2000; and of raping a woman Feb. 7, 2001, as she walked home from work in the 1100 block of North Milwaukee Avenue, the spokeswoman said.

Miller was first arrested in the 1981 rape after two witnesses helped police prepare a composite sketch. An officer who had interviewed Miller on the street just days before the attack thought Miller matched the composite and brought him to a police station where the witnesses identified him, according to court records.

Neufeld noted that the composite drawing showed a man with a few days' growth of facial hair on his chin, but that Miller had a fully grown goatee, a discrepancy that didn't stop a wrongful conviction.

"Too many of our wrongful conviction cases involve composite sketches," Neufeld declared.

Assistant Public Defender William Wolf, who represented Miller along with attorney Colin Starger, also called for full funding for prosecutors and public defenders, saying that wrongful convictions occur partly because of overburdened lawyers.

"An overworked prosecutor is going to make mistakes," Wolf said.