Drop retrial for Englewood Four

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Updated: December 29, 2011 8:07AM

It’s time to give it up.

Two weeks ago, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Paul Biebel Jr. threw out the convictions of the Englewood Four, teenagers who were convicted in 1994 of a heinous crime.

In November 1994, the body of Nina Glover, 30, beaten and strangled to death, was found in a dumpster in Englewood on Chicago’s South Side. The four juveniles confessed to brutally raping and killing Glover, an alleged prostitute.

A judge convicted Terrill Swift, Harold Richardson and Michael Saunders and sentenced them to between 30 and 40 years in prison. Vincent Thames pleaded guilty and got 30 years.

Last May, their attorneys got a “hit:” The DNA in semen found inside Glover’s body matched to Johnny Douglas. He was convicted in a 1997 strangulation-murder of a prostitute. Douglas, who had a long history of violence, was killed in 2008.

On Nov. 16, Biebel ruled that the DNA evidence was compelling enough to vacate the convictions, and ordered new trials for the defendants. Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez can retry the four or decline to pursue another conviction.

Before the judge weighed in, I wrote that this tragic, complex case left me in a quandary about whether justice was done.

All four youths confessed and provided details about the crime that no one else would know, prosecutors argue. While Douglas was known to trade drugs for sex, it was possible he had sex with Glover, but she was killed later by the teenagers.

Attorneys for the accused claim the teens were vulnerable to the excruciating interrogations. They soon recanted and have proclaimed their innocence for nearly 17 years. No witnesses or physical evidence links them to the crime, they claim. Except for the DNA, which points to another killer.

The DNA was enough for Biebel. Now, it’s enough for me.

Alvarez is carefully reviewing all the facts, says spokesperson Sally Daly. “There is more to these cases than what has been reported in the media or by lawyers for the defendants,” Daly wrote me last week in an e-mail.

Daly notes that Alvarez has cooperated in this case and agreed to the DNA testing. And she has “been open and willing to vacate convictions” in two other high-profile murder cases. But not this one. Not yet.

There is a court hearing in the case today, but “no final decision will be made by Monday as we continue this process,” Daly wrote.

The alleged perpetrator is dead. There is no physical evidence. There are indications the teens were coerced. We know our system of “justice” is mired in a sordid history of wrongful prosecutions, police torture and misconduct.

We will never know the entire story. Truth, and justice, are elusive. Yet the Englewood Four case overflows with reasonable doubt. If Alvarez pursues an expensive and controversial retrial, she will likely lose.

Madame State’s Attorney, give it up.