Illinois Innocence Project, UIS grad help exonerate man wrongfully imprisoned for 35 years

A man imprisoned for 35 years for a homicide in Chicago he didn't commit was released from Robinson Correctional Center Tuesday with the help of the Springfield-based Illinois Innocence Project and a University of Illinois Springfield graduate.

Brian Beals was convicted in 1988 death of Demetrius Campbell, a 6-year-old boy, in the Englewood neighborhood on the city's south side. He spent the next 35 years at Robinson Correctional Center proclaiming his innocence before the IIP took up his case with the help of Laura Nirider, a Chicago-based attorney specializing in wrongful conviction cases.

The two provided evidence to a Cook County judge that Beals wasn't the perpetrator of Campbell's death, but the target of attacks by a local drug supplier. At least five witnesses confirmed to the IIP and Nirider that Beals was indeed the target, with photographic evidence showing five bullet holes in his car, aiding in his claims of innocence.

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The judge agreed with the team and filed an order Tuesday overturning the conviction and making Beals a free man. He walked out of RCC and was greeted by his sister Pattilyn and his niece, Tamiko. Beals is the 24th client to be exonerated with the help of IIP – which is based at UIS – since beginning operations in 2001.

IIP's legal team, led by co-director Lauren Kaeseberg, had the assistance of 2022 UIS graduate Taryn Servaes, working as a paralegal alongside Nirider, Lynn Bagley, and Valerie Alexander. Servaes said that she assisted in witness interviews and investigating the circumstances behind Beals' wrongful conviction.

She said that Beals was an "incredible person," having fought for a large portion of his life to assert his innocence. Both share a background as a collegiate athlete – Beals was a football player for Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, while Servaes was an All-American in track and field for UIS – and she felt it worthwhile to fight for his freedom.

"It's always so worthwhile to be fighting for someone who deserves it so much," Servaes said. "I was an athlete all four years (at UIS) and those are supposed to be some of the best years of your life with all these really incredible experiences representing your school. Brian was the best of us, he was representing the school playing football.

I just identified with his case in a really strong way where I think about my own experiences as a college athlete and he was not only robbed of his livelihood but was robbed of those formative years of experiences as an athlete that he had earned."

Kaeseberg said that IIP had found mountains of evidence that confirmed Beals' innocence through an investigation with Nirider "years in the making". A lengthy petition was filed in Cook County last week which laid out IIP and Nirider's case for Beals to be released.

"I don't think we could quantify the amount of hours of work on this case," Kaeseberg said. "It's in the hundreds, thousands. It's been a real uphill climb but clearly worth it because it resulted in him walking free for the first time in 35 years."

The re-examination of Beals' case showed flaws in how it had been adjudicated in 1988, with the jury relying on the testimony of Demetrius' mother Valerie Campbell to convict him. Valerie told jurors that Beals shot her and her son, but no lineups or photographs were shown to further assist her in making that calculation on the witness stand.

Kaeseberg said this kind of eyewitness misidentification is a common cause of wrongful convictions, giving two possible explanations for why this happened: she simply got it wrong due to immense trauma following the incident or corrupt Chicago law enforcement got into her mind a story that simply wasn't true.

"There is a perception that when an individual witnesses something, there is an imprint in their brain like a movie playing back," Kaeseberg said. "That is not the case – the human mind is very suggestible ."

They reached out to a leading expert in eyewitness identification who provided the court with her opinion regarding the many ways that Valerie got it wrong on the stand 35 years ago, such as faulty memory or corruption.

That corruption was led by Chicago Police Detective Thomas Ptak, who had eight prior convictions overturned. Beals' was the ninth. Kaeseberg noted that Ptak tended to frame people and coerce witnesses to get what he wanted.

"Brian is the ninth person known to be innocent that Ptak put evidence on, framed and coerced witnesses to implicate him in this horrible crime," Kaeseberg said. "Once a corrupt police officer with an established pattern of misconduct gets someone in their crosshairs, it's impossible for them to escape because that police officer holds all the power (and) all the cards.

They are orchestrating the case against someone and when they get up in front of a jury, a jury is going to put a lot more stock into what that police officer has to say than what an accused criminal defendant says."

Kaeseberg said the combination of expert testimony, witness interviews, and the enhanced photographs of Beals' car, "showed the picture of the truth, which is that Brian was the intended target of the bullets that day and that this innocent child was caught in the crossfire."

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Kaeseberg praised Servaes' contributions calling her a "jack-of-all-trades" who could do just about anything she was asked.

"Taryn's role in this has been critical," Kaeseberg said. "Whatever needs to be done in that moment, Taryn has done it, whether it's locating reports, getting copies, meeting us at the courthouse, going to talk to witnesses, talking to the family and coordinating pickups of things. This would not have happened as quickly without her dedication to this case and her incredible work ethic."

Beals returns home a free man, but the human cost of his 35 years in prison remains and the Campbell family never got justice for their young son.

"The person who killed him was never brought to trial, never convicted and an innocent man went to prison for 35 years," Kaeseberg said. "This police officer knew what he was doing and he not only failed Brian Beals and his family, but the Campbell family and people of the city of Chicago as well."

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Illinois Innocence Project helps exonerate man imprisoned 35 years