Updated: September 24, 2012 6:25AM

It took a little less than a hundred days for Gordon “Randy” Steidl to go from being a free man in his hometown of Paris, Ill., to becoming a co-defendant in a double homicide, to spending the next 12 years of his life inside a maximum security prison cell on death row.

Steidl, now 58, was convicted in 1987 for the brutal stabbing deaths of Karen and Dyke Rhoads, of Paris.

“I went from the streets to trial to death row in 97 days, with no physical or forensic evidence tying me to this crime,” he said. “Ninety-seven days — it’s unheard of.”

Steidl’s conviction was based largely on the testimony of two witnesses who said they saw him and codefendant Herbert R. Whitlock commit the murders — testimony that was shown to have not been credible years later when both witnesses recanted their stories.

Eventually, after serving 17 years for a crime he did not commit, Steidl was released after prosecutors decided to drop the charges.

“I wasn’t exonerated because of the system, I was exonerated in spite of it,” he said.

The quest to regain freedom lost has been a long and difficult one for Steidl, but for him and a majority of others like him who were wrongfully convicted, the real challenges are found only after they have made it back onto the streets.

A payday that often never comes

In 2004, Steidl became the 18th person on death row to be exonerated in Illinois since 1977.

Across the U.S., there have been 258 post-conviction exonerations — 29 in Illinois — due to DNA evidence, according to the New York-based Innocence Project, an advocacy group founded in 1992 that works to free wrongfully convicted prisoners whose innocence can be proven through the use of DNA evidence.

High-profile cases such as that of Rolando Cruz of Aurora, whose conviction in 1985 for the kidnapping, rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico was overturned after serving 10 years on death row, helped raise awareness of the occurrence of innocent people being sent to prison for crimes they did not commit.

But publicity surrounding cases like Cruz’s had a secondary effect; namely, an impression that such incidents, when identified, were inevitably rectified, and that the victims often received large monetary awards from the state as a form of acknowledgement of its error and the damage it inflicted upon their lives.

Cruz eventually received more than $3 million to settle a lawsuit he filed against DuPage County based on evidence of prosecutorial misconduct.

But the reality for the vast majority of cases is quite different, according to Robert Warden, executive director of Northwestern University Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, who said only a handful of those wrongfully convicted ever see similar types of monetary awards.

“You see a lot of publicity around these huge federal jury awards and settlements,” he said. “But I think what people don’t realize is that relatively few people ever get those.”

Warden said even to be eligible to receive the kind of money seen in cases like Cruz’s, it must be proven that investigators acted in “bad faith” — namely, conspiring to convict in spite of having knowledge the person actually was innocent.

“It’s a very high standard. It’s very hard to meet,” he said. “Because in the vast majority of these cases, the police had good reason to suspect you, so they had every right to look at you, but nobody actually did anything that you can prove was intentional and in bad faith, and consequentially, the suit is thrown out at a very early stage.”

A 2009 Innocence Project report stated only 28 percent of those who have been exonerated received compensation through civil lawsuits.

For most exonerees, the only kind of compensation they can expect comes by way of state law, which usually provides an amount for each year they spent in prison.

But amounts differ from state to state, with all falling way short of the millions awarded in high-profile lawsuits. Meanwhile, in nearly half of the U.S., state laws that compensate the wrongfully convicted do not even exist.

Little offered in way of support

Upon his release from prison, Steidl — who is currently unemployed and living in downstate Charleston, Ill. — said he was at first ill-prepared for a life on the outside.

“They let me out with the shirt on my back,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for support of family, I’d be under a bridge or in a homeless shelter.”

Similar stories are typical, according to Professor Laura Caldwell, a noted author, and founder and director of Loyola University Chicago Law School’s Life After Innocence Project, a support group designed to help the wrongfully convicted with their re-entry back into society.

Started in 2009, Life After Innocence is one of the few organizations in the country that provides an array of social services, such as legal and financial advice, as well as help in finding medical care, job searches and housing.

In Caldwell’s latest book, “Long Way Home,” she chronicled the tale of the Project’s first client, Jovan Mosley, of Chicago, who at age 19 spent six years in Cook County Jail awaiting trial for the beating death of Howard Thomas in 1999 — a case where it was alleged police coerced him into making a confession.

After Mosley was acquitted in 2005, Caldwell worked with him to readjust to a world she said he barely recognized.

“At 2 in the morning in November, they let him out the doors at 26th” and California, she said, referring to the location of Cook County Jail on Chicago’s southwest side. “His family had sold and given away all of his stuff, and so he had no home. He didn’t even know how to use a cell phone.”

For years, services such as access to temporary housing, medical care, and job skills training and placement have been a standard component in many state re-entry programs, designed to provide a smooth transition for offenders after they are released.

But as Caldwell pointed out, in many cases, exonerees are not eligible for many of the same re-entry programs offered to ex-offenders.

“Unfortunately, they really fall between the cracks,” she said. “It’s just like a timing issue that we’re just finding out now.” Exonerees “literally get less than an admitted sex offender, or an admitted murderer — they get markedly less,” Caldwell said.

She said increasing awareness of the occurrence of wrongful convictions over the past 10 years has helped bring to light the need to do more for those who have been affected.

“It’s so surreal for these guys, but the majority of them have been in prison during the technology boom,” she said. “And so not only have they not been out and dealing with life and people, they’ve never even used a computer.”

Challenges in seeking state compensation

Aside from a lack of re-entry support, the compensation amounts promised to exonerees in many states have been criticized by some for being inadequate in addressing the damages incurred as a result of years of false imprisonment.

Illinois is one of 27 states that offer compensation for exonerees, and is one of 10 that provide support services in the form of help with job search and placement.

But compensation is not without its limits. In Illinois, an exoneree can collect a lump payment of $85,350 for serving up to five years in prison, $170,000 for those who served between five and 14 years, and $199,150 for more than 14 years of time served.

At its maximum, the amount the state provides averages out to about a little more than $10,000 a year for someone who has served 19 years, with no compensation for time served beyond that point. Awards received are subject to federal taxes, according to Caldwell.

By comparison, the U.S. government’s standard for paying those who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned within federal institutions is up to $50,000 for every year served, and as much as $100,000 for every year served on death row, with no maximum on the total amount that can be collected.

Another problem often cited with state exoneration compensation laws lies with the challenges involved in obtaining the award.

According to the Innocence Project report, it takes, on average, close to three years for an exoneree to receive compensation, and that’s usually only after a review of a case in court to prove an overturned conviction was based on a person’s actually being innocence, and not due to some technicality.

And many states statutes automatically exclude compensation for those who have falsely confessed, or pled guilty to the crimes it is later proved they are innocent of committing.

In Illinois, those seeking state compensation must either obtain a pardon from the governor or get a certificate of innocence, which lawmakers established in 2008 in response to a backlog of clemency petitions — estimated at more than 2,000 — under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

So far, 12 certificate petitions have been filed to the state, with 11 already granted and one still pending, according to the Illinois Court of Claims.

Moving forward

These days, Steidl retells his experience with the justice system to audiences throughout the country as an advocate for repeal of the death penalty.

“For those of you that believe that the death penalty is appropriate in certain circumstances, have you ever stopped and thought about how you would raise an innocent person from the grave?” he asked a group of attendees at a recent Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty discussion held in Schaumburg back in mid-September.

“That’s the sad irony about capital punishment — you make a mistake, it’s irreversible.” He has never received compensation for his time on death row, and has been in the middle of a lawsuit seeking damages for the past five years. A request for a pardon from the governor is still pending, according to Steidl, such as it has been for the past nine years.

“It’s like they don’t want to help you, because if they do, they think they’re liable” for compensation, he said.

Caldwell said efforts to provide more support to the wrongfully convicted has begun to garner more interest from a number of state lawmakers.

She remained hopeful a number of proposed amendments to the current compensation laws will be introduced in the Illinois General Assembly sometime next year.

Changes being sought not only would increase the amount of money given to exonerees, but also would include other means of support, such as paid education or vocational training, health services and payment of any child support that accrued during their imprisonment.

“My hope is that I won’t even have to have an After Innocence Project in 10 years,” she said.

Area cases of the wrongfully convicted

Gary Gauger

Gauger was convicted and sentenced to death in 1994 for the murder of his parents, Morris and Ruth Gauger, at their McHenry County farm in April 1993. In 1996, his conviction was reversed due to a judge’s error, and in 1997, a federal grand jury indicted two members of a motorcycle gang from Wisconsin for the murders, both of whom subsequently were convicted. In 2002, Gauger received an official pardon of innocence from Gov. George H. Ryan.

Lavelle L. Davis

Davis was convicted in 1997 of the shooting death of Patrick Ferguson in Elgin in 1993. Evidence that led to Davis’ conviction was based largely on a lip print recovered from the scene that a forensic examiner claimed linked him to the crime. After serving 12 years in prison, Davis was granted a hearing in Kane County in 2006, where it was determined lip prints were not — and had never been — an accepted means of identification. Prosecutors dropped charges against Davis in April 2009, with his conviction eventually expunged in December of that year.

From the Storyteller

This story was one of the longest-researched, but most enjoyable subjects I have ever covered. Enjoyable not in the subject matter, but in the opportunity it presented me to meet with some of the most incredible individuals I have ever come across.

I want to thank everyone who helped bring this issue to light for this piece, including Robert Warden with the Center on Wrongful Convictions, The Innocence Project, the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and Laura Caldwell with the Life After Innocence Project. A special thank you must be given to Gordon “Randy” Steidl, Jovan Mosley, Marvin Reeves and Antoine Day for speaking about their experiences, and the positive outlooks on life and the future they exhibit around those they meet.

— Steven Ross Johnson, staff writer

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