Savory's Case

    Johnnie Lee Savory was 14 years old when James Robinson and his sister Connie Cooper were murdered in January 1977, over 20 years ago. At the time, Savory confessed to the murders after two days of questioning by the Chicago police. Nothing else tied Savory to the crime -- no fingerprints, no blood, no witnesses. He wrote in a letter recently:
    "I am searching for a way into the national media, so I can apply the right amount of pressure on the true criminals -- those who sit in the seats of authority and abuse their elected power for personal gain. I know that my story will shock the conscience of the country. I have the evidence to prove my innocence." Johnnie Lee Savory III
    What follows are excerpts from newspaper articles about his case; Cell Door readers can decide for themselves if this 22 year old case should continue to receive media coverage.

SCHOOL BOY: Johnnie Lee Savory, seen here about the age when he was convicted of murder, still maintains he is innocent of the crime.

Peoria Times-Observer, Wednesday April 21, 1999

Not all the rotten stuff in Denmark

"All the cops are criminals and all the sinners saints."
    - Sympathy for the Devil, by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

By DeWAYNE BARTELS

    When one looks at the Johnnie Lee Savory case, it is shocking to consider how many trees died to provide all the paper it takes to chronicle the winding road that leads from a murder scene to prison.
    A copy of all the legal briefs, transcripts, police reports, psychiatric conclusions, lie-detector - tests and appeals filed over 22 years would stand at least four feet high if stacked.
    Many of those pages are now yellowed with age. Wading through it all is a Herculean task.
    It's much easier to deal with a brief review of Savory's case on the Internet at http://friends.peoria.lib.il.us/community/freejohnny.html.
    Regardless of where anyone willing to take the time to look finds this material, one thing remains constant: the reader is left wanting the facts that conclusively prove Savory is guilty of murder.
    The reader - like the old woman in the Wendy's commercial - is left asking, "Where's the beef?"

Bad beef
    In Savory's first prosecution for the murders of James "Scopie" Robinson, 14, and his sister, Connie Cooper, 19, in January 1977, the beef was Savory's confession.
    It had been offered after hours of questioning over two days by the Peoria police.
    The confession had to suffice as the state's beef because there was nothing else to tie Savory to the crime: no fingerprints, no blood, no witnesses.
    It was enough, however, to earn the state a conviction and hand Savory a 50-to-100 year prison sentence.
    Savory's confession had been offered. Yet, the confession the state placed so much weight upon was tainted from the moment it was taken by hints of police coercion, more than one attorney has noted. It was, in fact, headed to the appellate courts for review the moment it came up in court.
..............

    Looking at the confession and the circumstances surrounding it in total, the justices noted that many hours of questioning preceded the confession. They then said, "We also observe that thereafter the defendant did not reaffirm his culpatory statements but in fact recanted them shortly after they were made.
    "Without deciding the length of questioning would of itself justify suppression of the statements as not voluntary, we do believe the cumulative effect of all the circumstances does compel the conclusion the prosecution did not sustain its burden of establishing the voluntariness of the statements."
    The Peoria County State's Attorney's office appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court. The court denied the state's appeal.
    The state's attorney then turned to the U.S. Supreme Court. That court denied the appeal also.
    With the confession the prosecutors lamented publicly in the press that they would not be retrying Savory. Without the confession, they said, there was no case.
    "We cannot re-try him without his statement, so that's it. He won't be retried," said prosecutor Michael Mihm.
State's Attorney John Barry concurred. "Without (the confession) there is no substantial evidence to tie Savory to the crime or the scene of the crime. I don't know how it would be possible to try him without it."
    So why is Savory still in prison?
..........
    So what happened to allow them to go to trial a second time?
    A helpful family fell into the laps of prosecutors by the name of Ivy.
    Tina and Frank Ivy suddenly appeared on the scene with testimony for the second trial that was very helpful to the state. For the second trial, the one without the confession, the Ivys testified Savory was at their home talking about the murders before they were public knowledge.
    That was enough to close the noose around Savory's neck a second time.
    Savory's attorney Jack Vieley told the jury in the second trial that the Ivys were not reliable.
    "The state's witnesses, I submit, were not believable," Vieley argued. "I think they did not tell you the complete truth. And I think you can find from the evidence - and this is especially true of the case of the Ivys - that when they were interviewed originally, they could not remember anything about this.
    "But after three or four sessions with (Peoria police) Officer (Charles) Cannon, they were able to come in and testify as rehearsed."
    Vieley's argument fell on deaf ears with the jury. Vieley was correct when he said the Ivys had nothing helpful for the first trial. Perhaps they were not sought out as witnesses because of their criminal backgrounds and the fact that Tina Ivy was, by her own admission, a former cocaine and heroin addict.
    In any event, the two were not suitable for use in the first trial.
    Joe Gibson, one of the prosecutors in Savory's first trial, testified at his second trial about the reasons for that:
    Vieley: Now, Mr. Gibson, were any of the Ivy family members called as witnesses for the first Savory trial?
    Gibson: No.
    Vieley: Why is that, sir?
    Gibson: The opinion at the time was that they could not recall sufficiently when certain statements were made by Mr. Savory as to the condition of the bodies ... and my recollection is that our opinion was that the testimony was too shaky with regard to when that happened ... and we feared that that would take away from the quality of the rest of the testimony in the case. "
    Could something have happened to change the Ivys' minds about what they remembered in time for the second trial?
    Well, yes. it appears there was something happening that may have jogged their memories in a way helpful to the state at a time prosecutors were desperate for help.
    Let's hear what the Ivy's said about this.
    In a statement to an investigator for Savory, Frankie Ivy spoke of feeling coerced to give the Peoria police what they were looking for.
    In the affidavit given to defense attorneys in 1983 after Savory's second conviction, Ivy said he had told police Savory had spent the night at his house the evening after the murders occurred.
    Frankie Ivy said Savory spoke about what he had heard in the street. In 1981, Ivy said a Peoria police officer had questioned him and he gave the officer a statement.
    He also said in his affidavit that, "I have to say that I felt like I was being push(ed) by Officer Cannon. He kept saying `Tell them what you told me.' I was confused at that time."
    Frankie Ivy was alleging coercion by the police, not the first time that allegation had raised its head in Savory's case.
    Then, Tina Ivy had a change of heart as well. She did not offer in her statement any hint of coercion, but did make it clear she was mistaken in her courtroom testimony.
    "I realize that in making this statement, my accounting of events and conversations or lack of conversations involving myself and Johnny Savory goes against the testimony I gave at the second trial of Johnny Savory in late April of 1981 ... But I would like to say that when I testified at the trial I was not deliberately lying," Ivy said in her statement.
    "Instead, I am now convinced that my testimony at Johnny Savory's second trial was, in a large part, based upon rumors that I had heard from people in my community rather than words which I testified I had heard come from the mouth of Johnny Savory."
    That statement leads to yet another question: Are we to believe what the Ivys said at trial or what they said in their statements recanting their trial testimony?

    Today, 22 years after the crime Savory sits in the Danville Correctional Center waiting for April 27, the day of his next parole hearing.

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