Wanye Antusas (Photo: Armando L. Sanchez/ Chicago Tribune)
After 23 years wrongfully imprisoned for two murders he did not commit on February 11, 2021, Center on Wrongful Conviction client Wayne Antusas finally had the charges against him dropped, leading to him being released into the arms of his family at Dixon Correctional Facility. The path to Wayne’s freedom was long, fraught, and full of twists over the 13 years in which Wayne was represented by the CWC prior to his release. Over those thirteen years, a unique collaboration of current and former Clinic faculty members and a small army of students represented Wayne, pushing his case forward, in fits and starts, to its anything but inevitable conclusion.
Wayne was 17 years old when three young men in the Almighty Popes gang (Billy Bigeck, Eric Anderson and Edward Morfin) approached a van with rival gang members in it on December 14th, 1995. The Almighty Popes did not have a history of gun violence but two of the young men (Bigeck and Anderson) had burglarized a police officer’s home that morning and stolen two guns. As the van drove away, 15-year-old Eric Anderson pulled out one of the stolen guns and shot at the van. Tragically, two 13-year-old girls were killed: Carrie Hovel and Helena Martin.
The police quickly uncovered who the three young men were (the driver of the van identified two of them) and learned that Eric Anderson fired the shots. While Anderson refused to make a statement to police, Bigeck and Morfin did and neither implicated Wayne or two other codefendants, Matthew Sopron and Nicholas Morfin, cousin of Edward. Eight months after the shooting, Bigeck and Morfin facing indictments for two counts of murder and threats of the death penalty engaged in plea negotiations with the State’s Attorney’s Office, and were offered a deal. If they pled guilty to one count of murder and agreed to testify against other suspects the Office would recommend a 30-year sentence.
Bigeck and Morfin then made statements that were very different from their original statements to the police. In this version, they said that Matt Sopron ordered the shooting the morning of December 14th and that Wayne Antusas, who was not present for Sopron’s “orders”, later modified the plan. The key witness against Antusas was Billy Bigeck.
In 2007, Bigeck told the Center on Wrongful Convictions, including late CWC co-director Jane Raley, that he lied because of pressure from a former Assistant State’s Attorney who prosecuted the case. However, Bigeck conditioned his telling of the truth on one condition: that he would not to testify under oath for fear of losing his plea deal, the special treatment he received in prison, and other repercussions. The CWC struggled with having knowledge of this exonerating evidence but being hamstrung by Bigeck’s unwillingness to tell the truth. And no one struggled more than Wayne.
Bigeck not only held the keys to Wayne’s freedom; his truthful testimony was critical to overturning the convictions of both Matthew Sopron and Nicholas Morfin, two of Wayne’s co-defendants. Over a decade later, Bigeck finally changed his mind. He recanted his prior false testimony under oath at codefendant Sopron’s post-conviction evidentiary hearing. He testified consistently with what he told the CWC years earlier that there was no plan and that Sopron and Wayne had no involvement in the crime. Similarly, Eric Anderson testified for the first time at the Sopron hearing that there was never a plan, as originally testified to by Bigeck and Edward Morfin, and that the shooting was his sole, spontaneous decision. In the wake of this new evidence, the State abruptly agreed to Sopron’s release in the middle of his hearing. In a press release, the State’s Attorney’s Office explained that it had moved to vacate Sopron’s conviction based on “newly discovered evidence”:
“For the first time last week, codefendants Eric Anderson and Nicholas Morfin gave compelling testimony concerning Sopron’s accountability for the murders that was corroborated by their trial attorneys. Based on the testimony and in the interest of justice, the State’s Attorney asked Judge Timothy J. Joyce to vacate Sopron’s conviction and vacate the charges.”
Sopron’s freedom and exoneration, however, did not immediately lead to freedom for Morfin and Antusas. While the evidence of their innocence was the same, it took nearly two years for the State’s Attorney’s Office to act. On the eve of Antusas’s rescheduled evidentiary hearing, the State’s Attorney’s Office agreed to reassess all the evidence against Antusas and Nicholas Morfin. On November 9, 2020, the State came to the same conclusion it did with Sopron: because Bigeck’s perjured testimony was central to their convictions and Anderson’s testimony corroborated Bigeck’s, neither Morphin nor Antusas’s convictions could stand. The State moved to vacate their convictions.
Because the State agreed that the case should be dismissed, Wayne and his attorneys were optimistic that the trial court judge would vacate Wayne’s conviction and order his release in time to spend Christmas with his family. But the judge balked and denied Wayne’s post-conviction petition – even though the same evidence had led him to vacate Sopron’s conviction years earlier.
Weeks later, codefendant Nick Morfin’s post-conviction hearing was held before a different judge. Morfin relied on the same evidence and at the end of the hearing, that judge granted Morfin relief and the State immediately moved to nolle the charges.
As 2021 began, Wayne was the only one of the three original defendants who were convicted as accomplices who was still in prison. Additionally, two of the three principals had already served their entire sentences. Yet Wayne’s best and perhaps only chance to gain his freedom now rested in his appeal of the trial court’s decision. Prior to filing his appeal, Wayne’s team sought the State’s agreement to file a joint motion to vacate the conviction and nolle the charges in the appellate court. Such a joint motion had proven successful before. But this time, the State refused.
Seemingly at an impasse, and with the prospect looming that Wayne would have to remain in prison while his appeal was resolved, Wayne’s legal team came up with a solution. Because Wayne had been only 17 at the time of the crime and had been given a mandatory life without parole sentence, years earlier Wayne had petitioned the trial court for a new sentencing hearing pursuant to Miller v. Alabama and its progeny. At that hearing, Wayne had been re-sentenced to fifty-five years in prison. His appeal of this sentence through the Office of the State Appellate Defender was pending before the appellate court while he was contemplating an appeal of the trial court’s decision not to vacate his conviction. Wayne’s lawyers suggested that the State could achieve the just outcome if the State filed a motion in Wayne’s sentencing appeal agreeing that Wayne deserved a new sentence and asking the appellate court to nolle Wayne’s charges. Furnished with case law from Wayne’s attorneys supporting this path, the State agreed.
Once the State filed the motion in the resentencing appeal agreeing to relief, on February 9, 2021, the Appellate Court entered an order vacating his sentence, entering the State’s nolle prosequi, and ordering IDOC to release Wayne immediately. Two days later, Wayne walked out of prison.
Wayne’s case was originally accepted as a Center case by the late and dearly beloved Jane Raley in 2008. Since that time, a number of CWC and Bluhm Legal Clinic faculty have worked on Wayne’s case including, CFJC legal director Ali Flaum, former CWC professor Josh Tepfer, and former Clinic colleagues Rob Owen and Maria Hawilo. CWC Interim Director Greg Swygert, former Bluhm Legal Clinic Dean Thomas Geraghty, and former CWC pro bono attorney Judy Royal represented Wayne’s final push towards exoneration. Nearly 40 CWC students have worked on Wayne’s case. Wayne received his Certificate of Innocence November 29, 2021.