Chicago man released from prison after serving 11 years for a murder he did not commit

Anthony Robinson started a very unlucky streak for a few weeks in 2013, and it wound up lasting more than a decade.

In late 2012, Robinson was shot multiple times in the leg and foot, and endured multiple painful surgeries and a long recovery that left him unable to walk without crutches. In January 2013, just weeks after his surgery and still needed crutches to walk, he was identified by police as a gunman who sprinted after Kelvin Jemison in front of the Washington Park Homes and gunned Jemison down.

Robinson, 31, was set to be released Monday from Stateville Correctional Center, after serving 11 years for the slaying.

At trial, a friend who had been walking with Jemison when he was shot recanted his identification of Robinson as the shooter, and two other witnesses said that Robinson, who had shoulder-length dreadlocks, did not look like the short-haired man whom they saw open fire. No physical evidence linked Robinson to the shooting, and he had maintained his innocence from the moment he was arrested. He was found guilty in a bench trial and sentenced to 55 years in prison.

But X-rays helped prove Robinson’s innocence. Based on a report from an orthopedic surgeon, which included images of pins and screws implanted in his foot and ankle, an appeals court sent Robinson’s case back to the judge who convicted him.

Prosecutors moved to vacate Robinson’s conviction, and on Monday, Judge James Obbish ordered his release.

Just weeks before Jemison was killed, Robinson had been shot, shattering bones in his feet and legs and requiring surgeries that left him unable to walk without crutches. At trial, surveillance video evidence of the shooting showed the gunman chasing Jemison and his friend down a sidewalk while shooting, then sprinting back to a getaway car.

Evidence of Robinson’s injuries was not introduced at his trial because his lawyer at the time apparently believed that it was enough that three eyewitnesses, including the friend who had been walking with Jemison when the fatal chase began, said that Robinson was not the killer.

Jemison’s friend testified at trial that detectives had “made it seem” like Robinson was the shooter, so the friend had identified Robinson.

“He told me that while he was going through the trial and his time in prison, he kept thinking that his whole life had been like this, a very tough life,” attorney Lauren Myerscough-Mueller said Monday evening as she waited for Robinson to be release.d

“But what kept him going was knowing that he was going to come out from under it, because bad things had happened to him, and he always had come through it.”

Robinson will seek a certificate of innocence, formal recognition from a court that he did not commit the crime, Myerscough-Mueller said.