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After 16 years, 2 months, and 27 days in custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections for a murder he did not commit, Thaddens Jimenez was released. He was released at age 30, convicted at 14--making him Illinois's youngest person at the time of his arrest ever to be fully exonerated.
A February 1993 gang shooting in Chicago resulted in the death of 18-year-old Eric Morro. Morro was walking with his friend, 14-year-old Larry Trueffel, when the two got into an altercation with two other teens. Morro was shot in the chest and died at the scene. Initially, no eyewitnesses identified Jimenez's presence at the scene, much less his guilt. Later that night, one of...
