Anthony Robinson spent 11 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. Too often, justice misses the mark.

Last week’s exoneration of a man who served 11 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit shows that even with a steady effort at reform, the criminal justice system can fall short on justice.

Everyone from police to prosecutors to defense lawyers to judges to lawmakers needs to keep working to make the system better.

As the Sun-Times’ Andy Grimm reported recently, Anthony Robinson was convicted of the 2013 murder of Kelvin Jemison in the Bronzeville neighborhood, even though video showed the killer running from the scene and Robinson could barely walk, having been shot multiple times in the leg and foot in late 2012. Two co-defendants allegedly with Robinson were acquitted on a directed verdict.

During post-conviction proceedings, Dr. Paul Goodman, a licensed doctor of podiatric medicine and surgery who has years of experience treating gunshot wounds, said “it would be impossible” for Robinson to have committed the crime because of extensive recent surgery on his shattered leg, according to court documents. A physical therapy report from when Robinson was released from the hospital on Dec. 5, 2012 — just four weeks before Jemison’s death — said Robinson was unable to stand without assistance.

Also, two witnesses to the shooting said Robinson did not fit the description of the shooter.

Yet Robinson was convicted by Cook County Circuit Court Judge James M. Obbish in a bench trial at which Robinson’s public defender did not investigate and introduce the medical evidence. Obbish sentenced Robinson to 55 years in prison. Robinson was released April 8 from the Stateville Correctional Center.

Even before the medical evidence emerged, questions were raised about Robinson’s conviction. No physical evidence connected him to the crime, and he did not make a confession. The video, which was captured by a motion-sensitive camera at the Chicago Housing Authority’s Washington Park homes, showed a shooter with short hair; Robinson had dreadlocks when he was arrested.

The day after the shooting, a detective tracked down Dwayne Rolle, who was with Jemison. Rolle identified Robinson as the shooter, but during the trial he testified he did so because detectives “made it seem like” the three youths were the killers — “so I went along with them.” He denied Robinson was the killer.

Robinson’s conviction and prison sentence were upheld in 2017 by a unanimous panel of Illinois’ First District Appellate Court, in an opinion essentially saying the conviction was valid even though it was based on recanted testimony undermined by the video evidence and witnesses who said Robinson was not the shooter. The Illinois Supreme Court declined to take up the case.

The administration of justice failed on many levels, until Lauren Myerscough-Mueller of the Exoneration Project pursued post-conviction relief.

In many ways, Robinson’s case paralleled that of C.J. Rice of Philadelphia, who was shot in 2011, just a year before Robinson, after a witness said she saw him sprinting away from the scene of the shooting, which took place just five days after Rice himself had been shot. Rice was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison for attempted murder. He was exonerated last month after a post-conviction process that included information from pediatrician Theodore Tapper (father of CNN’s Jake Tapper), who inspected the two dozen staples holding Rice’s torso together after he was shot. Like Robinson, Rice was in no condition to sprint from a crime scene.

It is clear now that Robinson should never have been prosecuted and convicted. As long ago as 2019, before the medical information surfaced, the nonprofit media outlet Injustice Watch raised questions about the case. To their credit, the office of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx did not oppose Robinson’s request for post-conviction relief, and Judge Obbish, a respected jurist, in effect overturned his own initial verdict, which lawyers say is unusual.

Since it was launched in 2007, the Exoneration Project has exonerated more than 200 individuals. A similar initiative, the Innocence Project, has helped free 240 people who were wrongly convicted.

It’s important to bring violent criminals to justice and make the city safer. But it’s also important to ensure innocent people are not convicted of crimes they didn’t commit.

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