Former Illinois Death-Row Prisoner Marilyn Mulero, Framed by Disgraced Chicago Detective, Exonerated After 29 Years

An Illinois woman who was sen­tenced to death with­out a tri­al as a result of a false con­fes­sion coerced by a dis­graced Chicago detec­tive has been exon­er­at­ed after 29 years. 

Marilyn Mulero (pic­tured at a news con­fer­ence fol­low­ing her exon­er­a­tion) was exon­er­at­ed on August 9, 2022 when a Cook County judge grant­ed motions filed by State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to dis­miss all charges against her and six oth­ers who were framed for mur­der by for­mer Chicago detec­tive Reynaldo Guevara. Mulero is the 190^th per­son and the third woman exon­er­at­ed in the U.S. since 1973 after being wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. 

“We no longer believe in the valid­i­ty of these con­vic­tions or the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the evi­dence of these con­vic­tions,” Foxx said.

Mulero’s exon­er­a­tion brings the total num­ber of death-row exon­er­a­tions from Cook County, Illinois to 16 — more than any oth­er U.S. coun­ty. At least 14 of those exon­er­a­tions have involved offi­cial mis­con­duct by police or pros­e­cu­tors, and eight have involved false con­fes­sions. The 22 death-row exon­er­a­tions in Illinois are sec­ond only to Florida’s 30 death-row exonerations.

Thirty-one wrong­ful con­vic­tions tied to Guevara’s mis­con­duct have now been over­turned since 2016, includ­ing that of death-row exoneree Gabriel Solache. Guevera has been accused of fram­ing defen­dants of mur­der in more than fifty cas­es, beat­ing, threat­en­ing, and coerc­ing sus­pects to obtain false con­fes­sions. According to the Illinois Innocence Project, Guevara refused to pro­vide Mulero with legal coun­sel and sub­ject­ed her to more than 20 hours of inter­ro­ga­tion involv­ing threats and manipulation.

Mulero spent 28 years in prison, five of them on death row, before being released in April 2020, when Governor J.B. Pritzker com­mut­ed her sen­tence. At a press con­fer­ence after her charges were dis­missed, Mulero said, ​“I had to be a strong indi­vid­ual because I had two tod­dlers when I was incar­cer­at­ed. I had to fight for them. I had to be strong for them.”

“There’s oth­er women out there that are incar­cer­at­ed, that are inno­cent, that I will keep fight­ing for, just like our oth­er Guevara vic­tims that are in there,” she said.

In its 2021 report, The Innocence Epidemic, DPIC explained that Cook County’s then 15 death-row exon­er­a­tions ​“are direct­ly relat­ed to endem­ic police cor­rup­tion, as the noto­ri­ous ​‘Burge Squad,’ oper­at­ing under Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge, and dis­graced Chicago detec­tive Reynaldo Guevara sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tor­tured or coerced inno­cent sus­pects into con­fess­ing to mur­ders they did not com­mit. Illinois’ high rate of wrong­ful con­vic­tions in death cas­es was a major fac­tor in the state’s 2011 repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, as state offi­cials decid­ed there was no way to cor­rect the inac­cu­ra­cy of the state’s death penalty system.”

In 1992, Mulero and two oth­er women were charged with lur­ing two gang mem­bers to a park where they were shot to death, alleged­ly in retal­i­a­tion for a pri­or gang killing. She was inter­ro­gat­ed by Guevara and for­mer Chicago Police Detective Ernest Halvorsen over the course of a 20-hour peri­od in which she was denied sleep and access to coun­sel and threat­ened with the death penal­ty and loss of her chil­dren. She even­tu­al­ly signed a state­ment pre­pared by the detec­tives con­fess­ing to one of the murders. 

After the tri­al court denied her motion to sup­press the con­fes­sion, Mulero’s court-appoint­ed lawyer advised her to plead guilty, which she did in September 1993. A jury was empan­eled for the sen­tenc­ing phase of tri­al and sen­tenced her to die. In May 1997, the Illinois Supreme Court over­turned her con­vic­tion because her tri­al pros­e­cu­tor improp­er­ly cross-exam­ined her about the sup­pres­sion motion and then argued to the jury that her answers indi­cat­ed a fail­ure to express remorse. She was resen­tenced to life with­out parole in 1998.

Represented by the California Innocence Project, the University of Illinois Springfield’s Illinois Innocence Project, and the University of Chicago Law School Exoneration Project, Mulero suc­cess­ful­ly sought clemen­cy in 2020 when Governor Pritzker reduced her sen­tence to time served.

After charges against Mulero were dropped, Illinois Innocence Project Co-Director Lauren Kaeseberg said, ​“today’s exon­er­a­tion of Marilyn and these oth­er inno­cent men is a shin­ing exam­ple of per­se­ver­ance and a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of the human spir­it. Their brav­ery in telling their sto­ries gives us all hope that good can always pre­vail over evil.”