Yesterday, EP client Patrick Taylor was exonerated after spending 16 years wrongfully imprisoned in a case marred by egregious misconduct. Mr. Taylor was convicted of a 2006 murder almost based solely on mistaken eyewitness testimony. Over the past several years, Mr. Taylor caught the State withholding exculpatory evidence. In April 2023, the misconduct unraveled when he unearthed three boxes of withheld exculpatory evidence at the Rolling Meadows Police Department. This withheld evidence includes evidence implicating the victim’s true murderers and other evidence dismantling the State’s original case at trial.
Mr. Taylor was arrested in 2007. His wrongful conviction was vacated in 2016 by the Illinois Appellate Court after the Illinois Supreme Court held in People v. Lerma that defendants in criminal cases impacted by eyewitness identification procedures have a right to introduce expert witnesses to testify to factors known to contribute to eyewitness misidentifications. Yesterday, after months of litigation, the State dismissed the charges against Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Taylor is looking forward to rebuilding his life and getting his name back. He is especially looking forward to spending time with his family and getting to know his granddaughter, who he has not yet met. He is represented by Attorneys Elliot Slosar and Fadya Salem of the Exoneration Project, Steve Greenberg of Greenberg Trial Lawyers, and Molly Campbell of Loevy and Loevy.
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