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Guilty Until Proven Innocent February 27, 2004 by David Anderson
With all the traveling he does these days, Gary Gauger still hesitates once in a while before entering a transit bus or commuter train. The gut reaction he gets is not a result, he says, of motion sickness, claustrophobia or any other reaction that others might have in such an everyday situation. It's only the smell that bothers him. The odor that sometimes invades his nostrils when he steps inside reminds him a little too much for comfort of the institutional disinfectant used in the many corridors and cell blocks of Illinois's notorious Stateville maximum security penitentary. Gauger served time at Stateville and other prisons as well, part of the time as a prisoner on that state's Death Row, locked up and facing a death sentence because he was accused and wrongfully convicted of the murder in 1993 of his mother and father. "Once in a while, something like that will put me right back in the place," he said by phone recently from the rural home in Northern Illinois where he farms. "It's like a closet so full, you can't quite get it closed." It's been seven years now since he walked out of prison a free man, his conviction set aside and his innocence upheld in 1996 as a result of legal investigations, by now known to many, initiated by students and faculty at Northwestern University. Gauger is one of many former death row prisoners exonerated by the Northwestern project. Since his release he says he's been able to clear his mind of much of the experience, putting the past behind him and getting on with his life. In 2002, he received a full pardon from Governor George Ryan. But other things have stayed with him. Like memories of his prison cell mates, some undeniably guilty, others insane, with as little reason to be in prison as himself. Most, whether guilty or innocent, reflected the "raging desperation" of young lives wasted, ruined by urban gangs, drugs and violence so much a part of the inner city that they had known on the outside. "It brings tragedy all around," he says. "There's a lot of that." He also remembers how the county sheriff avoided his own steady gaze in court, averting his eyes from Gauger's at a post trial hearing. The prosecutor so much as admitted he had little evidence except for the forced confession Gauger had given authorities soon after his arrest. "The whole case against me was fabricated by the police and prosecutors, with the help of the local newspaper," he continues, his voice filled more with annoyance than with bitterness over his ordeal. "I was very naive then about the whole system." Gauger has since used the same plainspoken eloquence often in relating his story, joining with other Illinois exonerated and death penalty opponents at events around the country. He shared his experience and insights at a Legislative Lobby Day forum in St. Paul organized by Minnesotans Against the Death Penalty on February 10. The group represents a coalition of organizations opposed to Governor Tim Pawlenty's efforts to restore capital punishment as an option for state and federal prosecutors in murder and abduction cases. Gauger's views are matched almost word for word by Bud Welch. Welch, who lost a daughter in the 1996 Oklahoma City bombing, has appeared with Gauger and other opponents many times and also spoke at the forum. His perspective comes not from that of the accused, but from the other side of the issue: that of the victims of violent crime and their families. "There are 112 people walking around free because of it," he says, describing Ryan's death penalty moratorium, a result of exonerations due to DNA trial evidence. "And people who are pro say it's because the system ultimately worked. Well, it didn't work." Like Gauger and others who share his view, he sees the hypocrisy of police and prosecutors upholding state-sanctioned capital punishment, a flawed system that reflects class and racial divisions in society. "We only kill the poor ones," he continues, his Oklahoma twang rising with emotion. Since it formed last summer in order to set a routine legislative agenda focused on the death penalty question for the coming session, MNADP has stepped up efforts in the face of Pawlenty's statements calling for a restoration. The group has produced a fury of activity in answer to each of Pawlenty's position statements or press conferences. "The first person that [Pawlenty's proposal] would get would be someone universally bad," says attorney Keith Ellison, who represents a North Minneapolis legislative district in the Minnesota House. "After that, the next one would no doubt be a case of bad eyewitness testimony, incompetent policing or hysteria," he adds, avoiding any mention of the recent Dru Sjodin abduction that has fueled the controversy. Ellison, who signed on early to MNADP's work and has emerged as its principal spokesman, blanches at any suggestion that Pawlenty's move caught the opposition group offguard. "It's a call to organize, to get the word out to the public," he maintains. "We can't afford to sleep on the issue." For his part, Welch tries to sum up what most opponents accept and many observers now see as conventional wisdom. "Your young governor is trying to make a name for himself, and he doesn't care how. Pawlenty is proving that the death penalty is all about politics." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This announcement was printed from Pulse of the Twin Cities http://pulsetc.com |
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