Today, Sara Paretsky opened up an interesting discussion on the blog, The Outfit: A Collective of Chicago Crime Writers.
 
Last month, the Chicago Tribune reported on a case of mistaken identity that robbed one man of more than a quarter of a century. Back in 1982, a pair of robbers entered a South Side McDonalds and killed security guard Lloyd Wickliffe.
 
One of the men, Edgar Hope, was arrested and sentenced to death. Alton Logan was also arrested, sentenced to life in prison. Too bad he was innocent.
 
Witnesses identified Logan as Hope’s accessory, but in reality the second man was Andrew Wilson. Hope even told his attorney that it was so.
 
Wilson was no stranger to the dark side at this point; he was already in trouble with the law, arrested for the murder of two Chicago cops. Now it seemed that he had killed Wickliffe too.
 
After Hope’s attorney told Wilson’s lawyers– Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunz– of this new development, the lawyers asked Wilson if he was in fact Wickliffe’s killer. He responded, “That was me.”
 
The truth was out, but Coventry and Kunz couldn’t tell it. They were bound to secrecy by attorney-client privilege. Only when Wilson died did the truth come to light.
 
On her blog, Paretsky asks, “What possible steps can Coventry and Kunz take now to make Logan’s life–let’s not say whole–it can never be that–but less pain-filled and diminished than it is now?”
 
I don’t know Sara. Perhaps they could dedicate themselves to the Innocence Project at my alma mater? This is a project that works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted. Visit their Web site if you want to get involved.
 
Other than that I have no answers. The legal system basically painted Coventry and Kunz into a corner, and unfortunately they can’t take back the past; they can only think about what they’ve done.

Sing the blues with Johnny. Here’s Folsom Prison Blues, by Johnny Cash.