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May 19, 1999, Wednesday

National Desk

       

12th Death Row Inmate in Illinois Is Cleared

By DIRK JOHNSON

 

For the 12th time in the last 12 years, an Illinois inmate on death row has been spared by evidence showing a wrongful murder conviction.

Prosecutors in Cook County on Monday dropped rape and murder charges against the inmate, Ronald Jones, after DNA tests revealed that he could not have been the source of semen in the victim's body.

It was the fourth time this year that a death row inmate in Illinois had been exonerated.

Mr. Jones, 49, was in custody today pending extradition to Tennessee because he faced an outstanding warrant there for escaping from a work-release sentence in 1980.

When Mr. Jones was convicted of rape and murder in Chicago in 1989, a prosecutor described him as a ''cold brutal rapist'' who ''should never see the light of day again.''

Prosecutors announced on Monday that they had dropped the charges after interviewing more than 100 witnesses.

The conviction was thrown out two years ago after the DNA results. But Mr. Jones waited an additional 22 months in Cook County jail while prosecutors debated whether to bring a second trial.

Mr. Jones said at his trial that he had confessed to the rape and murder of a Chicago woman only because police had beaten him.

''I just couldn't take it no more,'' he had testified.

Last year, Anthony Porter came within two days of being executed in Illinois before being exonerated of murder charges.

Lawmakers in Illinois are considering a special fund that prosecutors and defense lawyers could use to pay for additional experts and investigators in capital cases.

These cases have given ammunition to opponents of the death penalty, and to groups like the American Bar Association, calling for a moratorium on executions.

In Nebraska, the Legislature appears likely to impose a two-year moratorium on the death penalty, while its application is being studied for its fairness.

Around the country, more than 60 criminal convictions have been overturned after DNA results showed wrongful convictions.

According to a confession written by Mr. Jones, the victim had agreed to have sex with him for $5 and then pulled a knife when he refused to pay. She was killed in the ensuing struggle, the confession stated.

Even after DNA results showed Mr. Jones did not rape the woman, investigators initially worked on a theory that he was acting with an accomplice.

The victim, a 28-year-old mother of three children, was beaten and stabbed in a motel room on Chicago's South Side in March 1985. Mr. Jones was arrested seven months later.

In the Tennessee case, Mr. Jones had received a five-year sentence for robbery and was on a 12 hour pass in Memphis when he failed to return for an 8 P.M. curfew.