Alton Logan Free After 26 Years in Prison

By TChris, Section Innocence Cases
Posted on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 04:49:44 PM EST
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Alton Logan's mother and grandmother both died during his 26 years in prison. He had the chance to visit their graves this weekend, after his release from a sentence for a murder that was likely committed by someone else.

Two attorneys for a convicted cop killer had known for 26 years of Logan's innocence but had kept silent because of the attorney-client privilege. Their client, Andrew Wilson, had confessed to them that he shotgunned a security guard to death in January 1982, but he insisted they only reveal his admission after his death. Wilson, who was serving a life sentence for the murders of two Chicago police officers, died in prison of natural causes Nov. 19.

On Friday, a judge listened to the testimony of a former employee of the McDonald's where the security guard was killed. The employee identified a picture of Wilson as the killer. A witness who tutored Wilson in prison testified that Wilson once told him about shooting a gun in a McDonald's. Prosecutors insist that Logan is guilty, but Judge James Schreier ruled that the new evidence made it reasonably probable that Logan would be acquitted if he were tried again. He freed Logan on $1,000 bail.

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Alton Logan Free After 26 Years in Prison | 24 comments (24 topical)

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Tears always come to my eyes. (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by BarnBabe on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 05:30:29 PM EST

When I hear about people who lost most of their lives being wrongly imprisoned, and people knew about it too, I feel so much compassion for them. I truly believe, and I am not a lawyer and do not have the full grasp on the situation, that if I knew someone was falsely incarcerated for life, I would have to give up my career and find a way for someone to reopen the investigation. I know it would make a lot of trouble for me, but to have a person's life stolen away is like accessory to murder. Maybe that is why I am an accountant. In all fairness to attorneys, I understand the client privilege is the only way sometimes to work a defense and get a client to open up to you. Maybe if the tutor had said something it might have gotten the ball rolling and a picture could have been included in a photo grouping. Again, I have no clue except for Law & Order and do not know the rules well but think about 26 years. For some here, their entire lifetime, for others, more than half their lives. Very sad. Best wishes for the rest of his life.

How and why? (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by ghost2 on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 05:38:58 PM EST

Why can't the lawyers come forward or have a mechanism for helping an innocent when they know evidence to the contrary?

They made him pay bail? They put (5.00 / 2) (#3)
by tigercourse on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 05:41:17 PM EST

him away for 26 years and then made him pay bail?

Really! (none / 0) (#5)
by ghost2 on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 06:04:10 PM EST

Justice at work.


Thank you for (none / 0) (#7)
by mg7505 on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 07:03:20 PM EST

calling them out. I can't wait to hear their justification: "but my hands were tied" ... THEIR hands were tied?


Yes (none / 0) (#12)
by digdugboy on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 10:34:33 PM EST

The attorney/client privilege serves a crucial purpose for people in the criminal and civil justice system -- preventing the state from being able to compel an attorney to testify about a client's confidential disclosures. Can you imagine how hamstrung a client would be if his or her attorney said "you can tell me anything you want but you have to keep in mind that I can't keep it a secret if I am subpoenaed."


: For the lawyer (none / 0) (#18)
by NMvoiceofreason on Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 07:49:54 AM EST

Our government was paid for by the blood of patriots so that is could be "established so that government of the people, for the lawyer, by the lawyer shall not perish from this earth". Real simple: the lawyers must pay. Twenty six years in SuperMax, each.
The lawyers act as if their actions have no consequences. "No blood, no foul". So how many pedophiles are out there raping and killing children because lawyers are keeping their secrets safe?

I was wondering when you'd cover this (5.00 / 1) (#6)
by dianem on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 06:15:16 PM EST

I am really curious about what a group of lawyers has to say about this. As a non-lawyer, I'm not sure what to think. I understand that there are ethical standards that must be followed. But ... it's hard to accept that it can be right to allow an innocent man to sit in jail for this long. It's not just two lawyers who did this. They consulted with others, other lawyers, the state bar. How can this work? How can any system work when the justice is less important than ethics? A man essentially spent his entire adult life in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Two decent men knew about this, but didn't do anything to change it because of their obligation to the man who committed the crime. Couldn't there have been a better option? Is there any way to provide a better option?

Whose fault? (none / 0) (#4)
by diogenes on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 05:53:04 PM EST

Andrew Wilson is the one who made this innocent man go to prison by standing by and watching it happen and then refusing to reveal anything until his own death. The jury in this case made their best call based on what they saw. If people think as I do that judges would be more educable and thus better judges of the merits of eyewitness evidence, etc than are juries, then educate the judges and have defendents waive their right to a jury trial.

Attorney-client privilege (none / 0) (#8)
by mythago on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 08:55:57 PM EST

dianem and BarnBabe - speaking as a lawyer, the system would NOT work if individual lawyers could ignore the attorney-client privilege whenever they thought it was "right" or "in the interests of justice" to do so. It's not just about giving up your job as a lawyer. Being an attorney means you are an officer of the court and you have sworn ethical duties to your client.

Imagine what would happen to the criminal justice system if defense lawyers were free to blab whatever they knew anytime they felt it was "just" to do so.

Sometimes the ethical obligation means awful things happen. That doesn't mean that it's a bad rule, or that the lawyers are happy with the result.

As I understand it, though... (none / 0) (#14)
by dianem on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 10:45:10 PM EST

...the case that they were defending the guilty man from had nothing to do with the murder that was supposedly committed by the innocent man. He just bragged in passing that he had done it. Wouldn't that mean that attorney client privilege could be waived? Are people able to just confess generically to their attorneys and the attorneys are unable to reveal anything they said? I know that there is an exception in case they feel that the confessor is likely to hurt somebody. It seems that there could be some kind of exception in cases where an innocent man is being convicted.


'nothing to do with' (none / 0) (#15)
by mythago on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 10:55:35 PM EST

There is an exception in many states to prevent actual, immediate grave bodily harm or death. So in my state, if a client says "I'm going to go in that room right now and kill one of those other lawyers," I can call 911.

But if you open up that exception to any kind of harm, then you don't have a privilege at all. What if you tell your lawyer that you smoked pot last night and she decides this means you need rehab immediately, so she calls the cops? After all, she thinks she's protecting you from harm...

at any rate, here it wasn't unrelated at all. Having committed another murder might have subjected this killer to perjury (if he lied about what other things he'd done), or a longer sentence, or even a death sentence for the crimes he WAS convicted of.


: Couldn't they get him immunity? (none / 0) (#17)
by dianem on Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 12:09:46 AM EST

It's not like he would be tried for the crime, anyway. Another man being convicted is a pretty good defense. Then, if he couldn't be convicted, not even of perjury, they would be free to work for the release of the innocent man. I guess I just have a hard time believing that having an innocent man spend most of his life in prison can be good, no matter what the consequences.

The justification defense (none / 0) (#19)
by NMvoiceofreason on Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 07:55:18 AM EST

for the lawyers is that the other crime could be brought up at sentencing (Peter Pan's testimony heard three children removed can be brought up at sentencing), and therefore could have had a real effect on their client.


I'm no lawyer (none / 0) (#9)
by jimakaPPJ on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 09:09:28 PM EST

I did. And it looks to me like we would have more justice and less "system."

A lot more and a lot less.

Suppose you were accused of a crime (none / 0) (#11)
by digdugboy on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 10:28:08 PM EST

and you sought the advice of a lawyer. In order to get sound advice you must tell the lawyer all the facts. You do so.

Should the state be able to subpoena the lawyer and force her to testify about everything you told her?


The State (none / 0) (#20)
by NMvoiceofreason on Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 08:02:32 AM EST

can record everything you said to your lawyer, take them to Gitmo, then Egypt, then Bulgaria, torture them, extract everything you ever told them, and everything the State ever wanted you to tell them, then take both of you, lock you up forever without a trial, and if they do try you, they can use made up "Feith" intelligence at your trial to prove to the judges that you were part of Al-Qaeda in 1991, which you can never see to refute because you don't have the clearance, for which you will be executed if you dont confess, or if you do.

We had a contract. It's called the Constitution. But it is unenforceable because lawyers are too busy protecting secrets. Remember the Magna Carta? Habeas Corpus? Gone. Bill of Rights? Shredded.

So yes, the State can make your lawyer say whatever they want, and they can do the same to you. Now quit making trouble, sit down, and be quiet.


Huh?? (none / 0) (#21)
by jimakaPPJ on Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 09:21:37 AM EST

If you committed the crime and confessed to the lawyer then justice would demand that the lawyer tell the truth.

That would sure simplify things, wouldn't it?


: You confuse ethics (none / 0) (#25)
by NMvoiceofreason on Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 08:31:30 PM EST

with duty. Sworn oaths to uphold the Constitution... yada..yada...yada.
Nice misdirection though.

How so? (none / 0) (#10)
by mythago on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 09:36:55 PM EST

Seriously. Do you think that people would trust their lawyers if the rule were "what you tell your attorney is confidential only if they feel like it"? Do you think that somebody can be assured of a fair trial knowing that their lawyer may be working for the other side?

: Were they defending Wilson for that shooting? (none / 0) (#13)
by xanamanax on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 10:44:49 PM EST

If so, then I could understand. If it was something unrelated, then I don't think I would agree.

There's blame to go around (none / 0) (#22)
by txpublicdefender on Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 10:48:20 AM EST

If you read up on the background of the case, you will see that the police and prosecutors are very much to blame here because they had strong evidence implicating the true participant, and not only did they not use it to drop charges against this poor man, but they did everything they could to exclude it from his trial.

After the defendant in this case had been arrested and charged along with one of the actual perpetrators, the real co-perpetrator was arrested after a shootout with police. He was found to be in possession of a weapon that was taken off the security guard in this homicide. He was also known to be the common partner in crime of the other charged individual. The problem for cops and prosecutors was that they had already had one or more of the witnesses from the crime pick out the innocent guy, and they knew that would make any case against this guy difficult. So, they continued to prosecute the wrong man and argued strenuously against the defense being able to introduce any evidence about the other guy at all at his trial.

They were certainly not bound by any ethical obligations to do that. In fact, an argument could be made that the prosecutors' ethical duty to seek justice required them not to prosecute the guy.

The two defense attorneys had no choice. The constitutional right to counsel is meaningless if your communications with your attorney are not confidential. They could have, and did, tried to convince their client to let them reveal the information, but it was not their choice to reveal it if this guy refused to let them.

Logan sounds like a hell of a guy. (none / 0) (#23)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 01:24:59 PM EST

But on March 17, 1982, Kunz, Coventry and Miller [Logan and Miller's attorneys] signed the notarized affidavit: "I have obtained information through privileged sources that a man named Alton Logan ... who was charged with the fatal shooting of Lloyd Wickliffe ... is in fact not responsible for that shooting ... "
Knowing the affidavit had to be secret, Wilson's lawyers looked for ways to help Logan without hurting their client. They consulted with legal scholars, ethics commissions, the bar association.
Kunz said he mentioned the case dozens of times over the years to lawyers, never divulging names but explaining that he knew a guy serving a life sentence for a crime committed by one of his clients.
There's nothing you can do, he was told.
Coventry had another idea. He figured Wilson probably would be executed for the police killings, so he visited him in prison and posed a question: Can I reveal what you told me, the lawyer asked, after your death?
"I managed to say it without being obnoxious," Coventry said. "He wasn't stupid. He understood exactly what I was asking. He knew he was going to get the death penalty, and he agreed."
Coventry said he asked Wilson the same question years later -- and got the same answer.
But ultimately, Wilson was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
[...]
The lawyers had a plan if it came to that: They would appeal to the governor to stop the execution [if Logan was sentenced to death]. But with a life sentence, they remained silent.
[...]
[Logan] insists he's not angry with Edgar Hope -- the man who first said he was innocent -- or even Andrew Wilson.
He said he once approached Wilson in prison and asked him to "come clean. Tell the truth." Wilson just smiled and kept walking.
Nor is Logan angry with the lawyers who kept the secret. But he wonders if there wasn't some way they could have done more.
"What I can't understand is you know the truth, you held the truth and you know the consequences of that not coming forward?" he said of the lawyers. "Is (a) job more important than an individual's life?"
[...]
Logan prefers not to look too far ahead or think too far back. He refuses to dwell on missed opportunities -- marriage, children, job. "You cannot live with the situation I'm in and say, 'What if?"'

: Sorry, (none / 0) (#24)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 01:26:34 PM EST

But on March 17, 1982, Kunz, Coventry and Miller [Logan and Wilson's attorneys] signed the notarized affidavit: