Skip Ribbon Commands
Skip to main content

Darrell Cameron

Other Chicago Exonerations With Mistaken Identifications
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/PublishingImages/Cook_County_seal.jpg
On consecutive days in 1991, four small businesses on the south side of Chicago were robbed by an African American man who in each instance gave the victim a hand-written note demanding money. Although the victims described the robber as standing five-seven to five-eleven and weighing about 160 pounds, on March 19, 1991, the police picked up Darrell Cameron, who was six-six and weighed nearly 250 pounds.
 
Despite Cameron’s dissimilarity to the man the victims had described, all of them identified him in police lineups. Cameron was charged with all four crimes, but prosecutors decided to try him initially for just one. A jury found him guilty in that case, based solely on the victim’s identification. While sentencing was pending, a man named Charles Bell was convicted of a series of strikingly similar robberies in the same area of the city. In a prison interview with Cameron’s lawyer, Tommy Brewer, Bell admitted that he had committed all of the robberies with which Cameron had been charged.
 
After a state police handwriting analyst determined that Bell had written the notes used in the robberies, the trial judge vacated Cameron’s conviction and entered a judgment of acquittal, over the objection of prosecutors. Through discovery in the still-pending cases against Cameron, Brewer learned that Bell had admitted all of the crimes to an assistant state’s attorney months earlier. Although the prosecution had a legal obligation to disclose that information prior to trial, it had been withheld.
 
Undaunted by the belated disclosure of the exculpatory evidence, prosecutors advanced a new theory — that the two men had committed the crimes together — and brought Cameron to trial in one of the remaining cases. Cameron waived a jury and was acquitted by a judge, who chastised the prosecutors for persisting against a man whose innocence seemed beyond doubt. The unapologetic prosecutors then dropped the two remaining charges against Cameron.
 
— Rob Warden

Report an error or add more information about this case.

Posting Date:  Before June 2012
State:Illinois
County:Cook
Most Serious Crime:Robbery
Additional Convictions:
Reported Crime Date:1991
Convicted:1991
Exonerated:1992
Sentence:Not sentenced
Race/Ethnicity:Black
Sex:Male
Age at the date of reported crime:19
Contributing Factors:Mistaken Witness ID, Official Misconduct
Did DNA evidence contribute to the exoneration?:No