Crusader Staff Report
Investigative Discovery on the Discovery Channel is currently producing a story on Roosevelt Myles for its show “Reasonable Doubt.” Myles is a wrongfully-convicted Chicago man whom the Crusader reported about in a string of articles in its print edition.
Investigative Discovery confirmed the taping to the Chicago Crusader.
Myles was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 after several false testimonies of eyewitnesses that prosecutors used in the case. Myles said retired Chicago officer Anthony Wojcik, who had 41 complaints on his record, tried to force him to confess to killing a teenager on the city’s West Side in 1992.
In 2000, an appeals court granted Myles an evidentiary hearing, but after a string of at least five public defenders, Myles never got the hearing after waiting more than 18 years. The state’s main eyewitness, Octavia Morris, last summer, signed a second affidavit saying Myles did not commit the murder. Morris said she lied after Officer Wojcik visited her house many times after the killing.
In light of the development, Myles asked Judge Dennis Porter to grant him the evidentiary hearing the state granted him in 2000. But in February Porter denied Myles’ request.
Myles claimed he was innocent, but Porter ruled that his attorneys failed to present any new evidence or material that would “change the result of the trial.” And contrary to Myles’ claims that a Brady violation occurred, Porter said Detective Wojcik’s “alleged misdeeds have no relevance to establishing a pattern and practice of forcing a witness to testify falsely in the case.”
Porter also dismissed Myles’ claims that he received ineffective counsel after his attorney failed to put his alibi and the mother of Morris on the witness stand. In citing the case Strickland v. Washington, Porter ruled that “Effective assistance of counsel means competent, not perfect, representation,” Porter concluded.
But Myles’ attorneys believe Porter violated the order of an appeals court by making a decision on Myles’ post-conviction case without examining the facts in an evidentiary hearing. She told the Crusader at the Cook County Leighton Criminal Courts building that she will immediately file an appeal.
Myles’ attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, filed a motion to the state’s appellate court to appeal the decision.
As Myles waits for that decision, Investigative Discovery is interviewing several people and witnesses who are involved in Myles case. The new season of “Reasonable Doubt” will begin airing in January. No exact air date for Myles’ story is available.
CORRECTION: This story incorrectly reported that Investigative Discovery was an online news magazine. It is not.
