The Illinois Attorney General’s office will not appeal a fed­er­al judge’s rul­ing find­ing that it was ​“rea­son­ably prob­a­ble” that Gordon Steidl would have been acquit­ted had the jury heard all of the evi­dence in his cap­i­tal mur­der case. The court grant­ed Steidl a new tri­al to prove his long-pro­claimed inno­cence. Steidl was giv­en the death penal­ty for the 1986 mur­ders of a new­ly­wed cou­ple, but his sen­tence was reduced to life in prison with­out parole in 1999 fol­low­ing an Illinois State Police inquiry into the case. The inquiry con­clud­ed that the ini­tial police inves­ti­ga­tion into the dou­ble mur­der had been botched, lead­ing to the con­vic­tion of the wrong men, Steidl and his co-defen­dant Herbert Whitlock. Since Steidl’s tri­al, the state’s key wit­ness in the case has recant­ed, and the evi­dence cor­rob­o­rat­ing her tes­ti­mo­ny has been dis­cred­it­ed. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has also con­clud­ed her own rein­ves­ti­ga­tion of the case, includ­ing DNA analy­sis of evi­dence, and she found that noth­ing linked Steidl or Whitlock to the mur­ders. The state will decide on April 2 whether to retry the case. If Steidl is not retried, he could be set free, mak­ing him the 18th per­son in Illinois to be exon­er­at­ed from death row. His co-defen­dant remains in prison serv­ing a sen­tence of life with­out parole, but will like­ly seek relief in the courts if the state decides not to retry Steidl. (Chicago Tribune, March 26, 2004) See Innocence.

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