In Chicago, imprisoned man's freedom hinges on recanted testimony and retired Cook County judge's conscience
When the wrongfully convicted leave prison, we witness their gratitude and their relatives' tears of joy.
But what most of us don't see is their rugged road to freedom.
Katie Arsberry hopes to be on the same journey.
Rodney Anderson — her nephew and adopted son — was convicted on June 14, 2002, of first-degree murder in the 2000 Thanksgiving Day shooting death of Adale Taylor in Englewood.
Arsberry, an ordained minister, has fought to prove Anderson's innocence since the then-25-year-old was handed a 60-year sentence on July 14, 2003. Anderson is at Stateville Correctional Center.
"Rodney and I had this understanding — don't lie to me," she said. "Don't make me look stupid in public trying to defend you. He emphatically told me that he did not do this. I knew he was telling the truth.”
Anderson had been arrested for several drug offenses and affiliated with a gang in the past, his lawyers said.
"In Englewood, you are going to be a Gangster Disciple or a Black Disciple to survive," she told me.
According to the initial narrative witnesses gave police, Anderson was playing cards with Gerrod Smith and his brother Andre Smith, both BDs, when another gang member showed up. The group allegedly went outside to confront the victim over a cellphone before Taylor was fatally shot.
"It made you scratch your head," Arsberry said. "Rodney was a GD, and Gerrod and his brother Andre were BDs. But they said Rodney was there playing cards. That didn't make any sense. They were rivals."
Witnesses said Anderson was playing cards at the home of a rival gang member's aunt before the events that led to the shooting, but the aunt testified that Anderson was never at her house and that she didn't know him.
Two others testified that Anderson was with his girlfriend at her mother's house at the time of the shooting.
Anderson says opposing gang members framed him because they wanted him off the street.
"I was aware that police could put guns on you or drugs on you, but I wasn't aware that a person would sit up here and lie and say you did a murder knowing you didn't do anything," Anderson said in a phone interview.
Three people who testified at Anderson's jury trial said they saw Anderson shoot Taylor.
One of those witnesses is among the people who have since recanted what they told police.
"I was forced to give them a name because [the police] were threatening to pin the murder on me, and they suggested that the killer was a rival gang member named 'Chill Rod' (Rodney Anderson)," according to a signed affidavit.
In 2018, Anderson filed his first application to have his conviction reviewed by the Cook County state's attorney's conviction integrity unit. Mark L. Rotert, then director of the unit, acknowledged receipt of the request but decided not take up the case.
But Arsberry refused to give up hope. Last year, she persuaded Winston & Strawn, one of the city's biggest law firms, to take up Anderson's cause. The firm filed another request for review by the conviction integrity unit.
Anderson's case is now under review, a state's attorney's spokesman says, declining to say any more.
"Mr. Anderson was convicted based solely on the testimony of eyewitnesses," said Ken Berry, Winston & Strawn's pro bono administrator.
Berry said in the application, "No physical evidence was presented at trial, and eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable."
"Since Mr. Anderson's conviction, several witnesses have produced affidavits insisting that Mr. Anderson was not the individual who shot Mr. Taylor," according to the letter requesting the review.
"We are looking for the state's attorney's office to do the right thing," Berry told me.
Anderson's freedom also could rest with an unlikely ally — retired Cook County Circuit Judge Ann Finley Collins. Before Collins became a judge, she was an assistant Cook County public defender assigned to the homicide task force. In this case, Collins represented a central figure: Gerrod Smith, known as "Big Pig." He was arrested with his brother Andre Smith, known as "Black," and Anderson in connection with Taylor's death.
When Gerrod was arrested, he identified someone else as the shooter and told the police where the shooter lived and how he knew the person, Collins said.
"An Area 1 detective who was involved in the case approached me when I was still a public defender and told me Gerrod came into Area 1 voluntarily and said [Anderson] is not the right person, and he told me who the person was," Collins said.
Anderson went to trial first and was found guilty.
Collins noted that Gerrod Smith testified for Anderson at the sentencing and said, "Rodney didn't do it."
"I was still representing my client, and I couldn't take up Rodney's case at that time," Collins said.
Both Smiths were found not guilty.
Finally, in 2004, Andre Smith signed an affidavit saying detectives "forced" him to say Anderson was the shooter. In 2006, his brother signed an affidavit recanting his statements incriminating Anderson.
The Smith brothers died months apart in 2008. Gerrod was killed in a car accident, and three months later, Andre was shot in his head.
"Not long after [Gerrod's death], I became a judge, and at that time, it became more complicated to testify," Collins said. "And then I retired."
No longer on the bench, Collins said she now feels free to talk.
"I'm not a judge anymore," she said. "I'm not a licensed attorney. I voluntarily gave up my license. I practiced law for 25 years and was a judge for 12. I want to do this before I drop off the planet.
"It has bothered me. I really felt the wrong person was convicted, and the right person is still out there."
Anderson is praying that others will break their silence.
"I just want to be able to clear my name, not only just so people know I didn't do no murder but also to help people who went through the same thing that I went through," he said. "And to also let [Adale's] family know I never killed their son. Nobody wants to talk because the real killer is still out there."
Adale's family couldn't be reached for comment.
"The police report named who the killer was," Anderson said. "They couldn't find him, then somehow forced the investigation on me."
Collins said she knows better than anyone what Arsberry is up against.
"It's hard to undo a wrongful conviction," the retired judge said. "Rodney had an alibi. It was he was at Thanksgiving dinner with his girlfriend's family. Who will believe that when all these other people said he did it?"
Eyewitness error is the most significant cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, according to the organization the Innocence Project, which says at least 540 people have been exonerated in Illinois.
"It is not like he was some person who had never been arrested," Collins said. "Rodney was a GD. It was just one more gang member. Nobody is going to go to bat for him."