Gary Gauger

Last updated

Gary Gauger is a formerly imprisoned convict, who was falsely accused and convicted of the murders of his parents, Morris and Ruth Gauger, and later exonerated. Following the murder on April 8, 1993, Gauger ultimately spent nearly two years in prison and 9 months on death row before being released in March 1996. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Murder and trial

On April 9, 1993, Gary Gauger called the U.S. emergency number 9-1-1 after finding his 74-year-old father's body. Paramedics were summoned, as well as the McHenry County Sheriff's Department, who soon found the body of 70-year-old Ruth Gauger in a trailer on the property.[ dead link ] [5]

Gauger told officers he was asleep when his parents were murdered. Despite this, Gauger was interrogated for 21 hours by the police. Officers lied to Gauger and told him that they had found evidence against him. "They told me that they had found bloody clothes in my bedroom; they found a bloody knife in my pocket," he said. After showing Gauger gruesome photographs of his parents, Gauger broke down and confessed. Though Gauger had no memory of the crime, he believed what police had told him. "I thought I must have done it in a blackout," he said. Though he had given a confession, there was no physical evidence held against him in court. Gauger was found guilty of the double murder, and was sentenced to death. [6]

In 2004, two Wisconsin Outlaws Motorcycle Club members, Randall E. Miller and James W. Schneider were charged in the double-murder of Morris and Ruth Gauger. [7] [8]

Exoneration

On March 8, 1996, the Second District Illinois Appellate Court unanimously reversed and remanded the case for a new trial on the ground that Judge Henry L. Cowlin erred in failing to grant a motion to suppress Gary’s allegedly inculpatory statements. In an unpublished opinion written by Judge S. Louis Rathje, with Judges Robert D. McLaren and Fred A. Geiger concurring, the court held that the statements were the fruit of an arrest made without probable cause and therefore should not have been admitted at the trial.

Without the confession, McHenry County State’s Attorney Gary W. Pack had no choice but to drop the charges, and set Gary free. Pack continued to suggest publicly that Gary had in fact committed the crime and was freed only because the prosecution could not meet its burden of proof without the confession. He was pardoned in 2002 after two motorcycle gang members were ultimately convicted of the crime. Despite this, Pack continues to profess that Gary had committed the crime. Gauger was denied the right to receive compensation for his imprisonment, citing immunity to the police, detectives, and prosecutors. [9]

Post-prison life

Gauger gained national attention following his exoneration, and was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show ,[ episode needed ] 60 Minutes ,[ episode needed ] 20/20 ,[ episode needed ] Connie Chung Tonight ,[ episode needed ] A&E Investigative Reports ,[ episode needed ] and Court TV .[ episode needed ]

Gauger is one of six people whose stories were dramatized in the acclaimed play The Exonerated , portrayed by Penn Jillette. The play, written by Eric Jensen and Jessica Blank, details how each individual was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, in addition to their exoneration after varying years of imprisonment. The Exonerated is a film adaptation, which first aired on the CourtTV cable television station on January 27, 2005. Gauger is portrayed by Brian Dennehy in the film. At the end of the film it fades from the actor to Gauger himself who talks about his wife, his work and his freedom.

Gauger's story is also featured in 'Deadline', a 2004 documentary on the death row prisoners [10] [11]

Gauger has since published a memoir of the ordeal entitled In Spite of the System with Julie Von Bergen. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

David Milgaard was a Canadian man who was wrongfully convicted for the 1969 rape and murder of nursing student Gail Miller in Saskatoon and imprisoned for 23 years. He was eventually released and exonerated. Up until his death, he lived in Alberta and was employed as a community support worker. Milgaard was also a public speaker who advocated for the wrongfully convicted and for all prisoners' rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miscarriage of justice</span> Conviction of a person for a crime that they did not commit

A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.

Darryl Hunt was an African-American man from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who, in 1984, was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and the murder of Deborah Sykes, a young white newspaper copy editor. After being convicted in that case, Hunt was tried in 1987 for the 1983 murder of Arthur Wilson, a 57-year-old black man of Winston-Salem. Both convictions were overturned on appeal in 1989. Hunt was tried again in the Wilson case in 1990; he was acquitted by an all-white jury. He was tried again on the Sykes charges in 1991; he was convicted.

Steven Allan Avery is an American convicted murderer from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who had previously been wrongfully convicted in 1985 of sexual assault and attempted murder. After serving 18 years of a 32-year sentence, Avery was exonerated by DNA testing and released in 2003, only to be charged with murder two years later.

Anthony Porter was a Chicago resident known for having been exonerated in 1999 of the murder in 1982 of two teenagers on the South Side of the city. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1983, and served 17 years on death row. He was exonerated following introduction of new evidence by Northwestern University professors and students from the Medill School of Journalism as part of their investigation for the school's Innocence Project. Porter's appeals had been repeatedly rejected, including by the US Supreme Court, and he was once 50 hours away from execution.

A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interrogation techniques. When some degree of coercion is involved, studies have found that subjects with highly sophisticated intelligence or manipulated by their so-called "friends" are more likely to make such confessions. Young people are particularly vulnerable to confessing, especially when stressed, tired, or traumatized, and have a significantly higher rate of false confessions than adults. Hundreds of innocent people have been convicted, imprisoned, and sometimes sentenced to death after confessing to crimes they did not commit—but years later, have been exonerated. It was not until several shocking false confession cases were publicized in the late 1980s, combined with the introduction of DNA evidence, that the extent of wrongful convictions began to emerge—and how often false confessions played a role in these.

Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment. Cases of wrongful execution are cited as an argument by opponents of capital punishment, while proponents say that the argument of innocence concerns the credibility of the justice system as a whole and does not solely undermine the use of the death penalty.

<i>The Exonerated</i> American TV series or program

The Exonerated is a made-for-cable television film that dramatizes the stories of six people, some of whom, were wrongfully convicted of murder and other offenses, placed on death row, and later exonerated and freed after serving varying years in prison. It was based on a successful stage play of the same name written by Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank and first aired on the former CourtTV cable television network on January 27, 2005. It is directed by Bob Balaban and was produced by Radical Media.

This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.

Earl Washington Jr. is a former Virginia death-row inmate, who was fully exonerated of murder charges against him in 2000. He had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in 1984 for the 1982 rape and murder of Rebecca Lyn Williams in Culpeper, Virginia. Washington has an IQ estimated at 69, which classifies him as intellectually disabled. He was coerced into confessing to the crime when arrested on an unrelated charge a year later. He narrowly escaped being executed in 1985 and 1994.

This is a list of notable overturned convictions in Canada.

The innocent prisoner's dilemma, or parole deal, is a detrimental effect of a legal system in which admission of guilt can result in reduced sentences or early parole. When an innocent person is wrongly convicted of a crime, legal systems which need the individual to admit guilt — as, for example, a prerequisite step leading to parole — punish an innocent person for their integrity, and reward a person lacking in integrity. There have been cases where innocent prisoners were given the choice between freedom, in exchange for claiming guilt, and remaining imprisoned and telling the truth. Individuals have died in prison rather than admit to crimes that they did not commit.

Nathan Blenner (1965–1985) was a 20-year-old man from Queens, New York who was kidnapped in 1985 outside his home. His body was found with a single fatal bullet wound in his head. Willie Stuckey and David McCallum, both 16 at the time, were arrested and allegedly confessed to killing Blenner during an attempted car theft and later alleged to having a joyride in the victim's car.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis N. Scarcella</span> American homicide detective

Louis N. Scarcella is a retired detective from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) who earned frequent commendations during the "crack epidemic" of the 1980s and 1990s, before many convictions resulting from his investigations were overturned during his retirement. As a member of the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad, he and his longtime partner Stephen Chmil built a reputation for obtaining convictions in difficult cases. Since 2013, Scarcella has received extensive and sustained publicity for multiple allegations of investigative misconduct that resulted in false testimony against crime suspects, leading to innocent parties serving long prison terms and guilty individuals going free.

The Exonerated is a 2000 play by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen that debuted Off-Broadway in October 2000 at 45 Bleecker Theater and ran for over 600 performances. It won numerous awards including the Lucille Lortel Award for Unique Theatrical Experience, the Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play. It was adapted into a 2005 film by the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huugjilt</span> Inner Mongolian man exonerated after being wrongly executed for rape and murder

Huugjilt, also spelled Hugjiltu, was a Mongolian Chinese who was wrongfully executed on 10 June 1996 for the rape and murder of a woman. On 5 December 2006, ten years after the execution, Zhao Zhihong wrote the Petition of my Death Penalty admitting he had committed the crime. Huugjilt was posthumously exonerated and Zhao Zhihong was sentenced to death in 2015.

The rape and murder of Angie Dodge occurred in Idaho Falls, Idaho on June 13, 1996. The true perpetrator was apprehended in May 2019, nearly 23 years after the crime was committed.

Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown are two African American men who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for a murder they did not commit.

References

  1. ↑ "Gary Gauger - National Registry of Exonerations". www.law.umich.edu. Retrieved 2019-04-14.
  2. ↑ "The Exonerated: Gary Gauger". Injustice Anywhere. Archived from the original on 2019-04-14. Retrieved 2019-04-14.
  3. ↑ "Gary Gauger, Center on Wrongful Convictions: Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law". www.law.northwestern.edu. Retrieved 2019-04-14.
  4. ↑ Duchnowski, Jillian (2009-08-19). "Gauger's wife details ordeal". Northwest Herald. Archived from the original on 2019-04-14. Retrieved 2019-04-14.
  5. ↑ "Gary Gauger". The Justice Project. Web. 09 Nov. 2010.[ dead link ]
  6. ↑ "Why Innocent People Confess to Murder". ABC News. 09 Nov. 2010.
  7. ↑ "The Farmhouse Murders: Case Of Milwaukee Outlaws MC Members Killing Married Couple In Illinois Cracked 20 Years Ago". 3 June 2017. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
  8. ↑ Turner, Kristen (2004-10-27). "Two gang members charged in Gauger murders". Northwest Herald. Archived from the original on 2019-04-04. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
  9. ↑ "McHenry County to recoup $700K for exonerated death row inmate's lawsuits". Northwest Herald. 2014-10-06. Archived from the original on 2019-04-14. Retrieved 2019-04-14.
  10. ↑ "Additional Characters". Deadline. Archived from the original on 2013-04-09.
  11. ↑ Deadline (2004) at IMDb OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  12. ↑ "Gary Gauger". garygauger.com. Nov 9, 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.