One of the Cook County prosecutors who obtained Daniel Taylor’s controversial conviction for a 1992 double murder said Monday that she disagreed with the decision by State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to dismiss Taylor’s guilty verdict and release him from a state prison. The other former prosecutor took issue with claims by Taylor’s lawyers and court findings that key information had not been disclosed to the defense.
Jeanne Bischoff, who now practices criminal defense, said the long, detailed confessions from Taylor and his seven co-defendants outweighed records showing Taylor was in a police lockup when the murders occurred.
Bischoff said in a phone interview that officers working in the lockup at the Town Hall station at Addison and Halsted streets frequently let people out early.
“It happened all the time,” she said.
Thomas Needham, who later became a top lawyer in the Chicago Police Department and is now in private practice, said in a statement that claims he failed to turn over evidence were “100 percent false.” He said his practice was to “go above and beyond what the law required.”
“I would never have concealed any exculpatory evidence from the defense — not in the case against Taylor and not in any other case during my career as a prosecutor,” he said.
Needham also said the confessions in the case supported a guilty verdict. But he also noted that the justice system now better understands false confessions and that police and prosecutors are more vigilant against them.
“False confessions do happen — I’m just not convinced it happened in this case,” he said.
