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- Rolando Cruz (born 1963) is an American man known for having been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, along with co-defendant Alejandro Hernandez, for the 1983 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in DuPage County, Illinois. The police had no substantive physical evidence linking the two men to the crime. Their first trial was jointly in 1987, and their statements were used against each other and a third defendant. After appeals and other court actions, during which they remained in prison on death row, each of these two men was tried twice more. Hernandez was convicted each time and sentenced the last time to life. Cruz was acquitted in 1995 at his third trial after a sheriff's lieutenant recanted previous testimony, and new DNA evidence was introduced excluding Cruz and Hernandez from that found at the crime scene. The state dismissed all charges against Hernandez that same year; he was already serving his sentence in prison. Both men were freed. In 1996 the state indicted seven DuPage County law enforcement officials for conspiracy to convict Cruz and wrongful prosecution. They were acquitted but Cruz, Hernandez and Steven Buckley (one of the three original defendants) filed a civil suit against DuPage County. In September 2000, the three men received a settlement from DuPage County for wrongful prosecution and conviction. Cruz was pardoned in 2002 by the Illinois governor after having served more than 12 years in custody on death row. Another man, Brian Dugan, already convicted of rape and murder of both a child and an adult woman in separate events, had claimed in 1985 to have committed the crime. His DNA was later found to match that from the Nicarico crime scene. Dugan was not indicted until 2005 by a DuPage County grand jury for the crimes against Nicarico, and he pleaded guilty in 2009. He was initially sentenced to death. After Illinois abolished this punishment, his sentence was commuted to life in prison with no possibility of parole. (en)
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- Rolando Cruz (born 1963) is an American man known for having been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, along with co-defendant Alejandro Hernandez, for the 1983 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in DuPage County, Illinois. The police had no substantive physical evidence linking the two men to the crime. Their first trial was jointly in 1987, and their statements were used against each other and a third defendant. (en)
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