Juan Rivera (wrongful conviction)

rdf:langString Juan Rivera (wrongful conviction)

rdf:langString Juan Rivera

rdf:langString Juan Rivera

rdf:langString Juan A. Rivera Jr.

rdf:langString Juan Rivera

rdf:langString Being wrongfully convicted three times for the murder of Holly Staker and receiving the largest wrongful conviction settlement in US history

rdf:langString Juan A. Rivera Jr. (born October 31, 1972) is an American man who was wrongfully convicted three times for the 1992 rape and murder of 11-year-old Holly Staker in Waukegan, Illinois. He was convicted twice on the basis of a confession that he said was coerced. No physical evidence linked him to the crime scene. In 2015 he received a $20 million settlement from Lake County, Illinois for wrongful conviction, formerly the largest settlement of its kind in United States history. DNA testing done in 2004 on semen taken from the crime scene ruled out Rivera as the source. However, the prosecution argued that Staker had been sexually active and the semen sample came from her previous consensual sex with another man. Rivera was convicted a third time. His conviction was overturned by the appellate court. Because the court ruled that there had been insufficient evidence adduced at trial to sustain a conviction, the Double Jeopardy Clause barred prosecutors from retrying Rivera. He was released from prison after serving 20 years. After his release, Rivera's attorneys asked the courts to order genetic testing on Rivera's shoes. The prosecution had tried to enter these into evidence in 1993. The shoes had Staker's blood on them, but the prosecution withdrew the evidence prior to Rivera's first trial when they learned that the shoes had not been available for sale anywhere in the United States until after the murder. DNA testing conducted on the shoes in 2014 indicated that the blood belonged to Staker, but it also contained another genetic sample. The DNA in this matched the semen sample from Staker. Rivera's defense team insists that this is proof not only that the blood was planted, but that the real killer's DNA was inadvertently planted as well. The DNA has yet to be matched to an individual, but it has been linked to DNA from the scene of a home invasion and murder in 2000 in Chicago by three men. Only one man of the three has been identified; he was convicted of that crime and is in prison. He claims to have been wrongfully convicted. Following his exoneration, Rivera sued the city of Waukegan and Lake County; he was awarded $20 million, at its time, the largest wrongful conviction settlement in United States history. This amount included $2 million from John E. Reid & Associates. Rivera was given two polygraph examinations by a Reid employee. He was reported as exhibiting general deception during the examination and subsequently admitted that he did lie to the test question about his alibi, but continued to deny any involvement in the death of Holly Staker. Over the next several days he was interrogated by law enforcement.

rdf:langString Juan A. Rivera Jr.