Arthur Brown, 66, was freed from jail prison after 29 years after his conviction was tossed out by a judge.
Arthur Brown, 66, was freed from prison after 29 years after his conviction was tossed out by a judge. He walked out of Cook County Jail shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday evening. Brown has spent the better part of his life adult behind bars but Tuesday night he’ll walk out of the Cook County Jail a free man. Brown was 37 in 1988 when he was charged with arson and double murder following a suspicious fire on the south side that killed two people. Brown, who did maintenance and construction work in the neighborhood, did work on the building that caught fire but maintained he was innocent and claimed he was beaten into a confession. Years later another man confessed to the arson, and Brown was granted a second trial but the jury did not believe the other man’s testimony. In October 2017, a judge tossed out that second conviction citing false arguments that were made by prosecutors. Tuesday morning the Cook County State’s Attorney said it would not retry Brown, and the charges were dropped.”It’s a perversion of the justice system. And it’s a script that unfortunately is played out all too often: a black man beaten into confessing, tossed into jail for decades, and once the system gets off the rails it’s almost impossible to get it back on the rails,” said Ron Safer, Brown’s attorney. In a statement the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said, “After the case was brought to the attention of the executive staff, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office determined there were significant evidentiary issues that raised deep concerns about the fairness of Mr. Brown’s conviction. Therefore, the State’s Attorney’s Office determined that dropping charges was in the interest of justice.”Brown has been at the Cook County Jail for about a month after serving time in Joliet and Stateville prisons.
