William Dukes Jr.
Cook County sheriff’s office
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office won’t takes sides in a man’s request to obtain a certificate of innocence in the 1993 killings of a Cicero woman and her granddaughter — while he awaits trial in the 2022 rape of a woman on the North Side.
“At this time, the state is not going to be intervening on this matter,” Assistant State’s Attorney Angela Tisdale said in court Friday about the request by William Dukes Jr., for which a hearing is scheduled May 31.
A certificate of innocence could allow Dukes, who spent more than 15 years in custody, to get almost $200,000 from the state under a law that compensates wrongfully convicted people.
It also could bolster his chances of success in his wrongful-conviction lawsuit against Cicero, whose police department conducted the original investigation, and Chicago police, whose cold-case detectives arrested Dukes in 2004.
A certificate of innocence is supposed to be awarded only in cases of factual innocence — with the charges vacated because no crime occurred, not because of legal technicalities.
“The Cook County state’s attorney’s office reviews certificates of innocence [requests] on a case-by-case basis to determine if further intervention is appropriate based on the facts, evidence and the law,” said Tandra Simonton, a Foxx spokeswoman. “Today, we informed the court that we are not intervening and take no position on the COI filed in this case.”
Dukes, 56, is accused of sexually assaulting a woman and threatening to kill her with a box cutter he pressed against her neck on Nov. 11, 2022, in West Rogers Park, according to the police. The woman was temporarily living with Dukes, though they weren’t in an intimate relationship, police said. The partially naked woman ran out of the house after Dukes fell asleep, according to Chicago police officers, who said they found him in the house — asleep, naked on a couch, with a box cutter on the floor.
As he awaits trial in that case, Dukes is seeking a certificate of innocence in the 1993 strangling deaths of Marilyn Williams and her 8-year-old granddaughter Bridget Cannady, who was sexually assaulted. He was arrested in 2004 after authorities said pubic hair found on a comforter in Williams’ apartment matched his DNA.
The man police said was his accomplice, Marko Tomazovich, testified against him.
Dukes was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison, but his conviction was overturned in 2014, when an appeals court ruled that the judge in his cased erred by letting jurors hear incriminating statements Dukes made during a plea negotiation.
In 2019, Dukes was retried, and Judge Pamela Leeming acquitted him.
Dukes and prosecutors had agreed that the judge couldn’t consider his statement to police that he’d admit killing Williams and her granddaughter if prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.
Leeming said she didn’t find what she thought was the key evidence in the case — Tomazovich’s testimony — credible. Prosecutors had agreed to let Tomazovich plead guilty to home invasion and not murder.
Williams ran a business selling leather jackets that were shipped to her apartment. She owned the building, and Tomazovich and Dukes were renters.
Tomazovich told investigators the men asked Williams for $20 and that she gave them $5. Dukes started arguing with her, which ended with the killings, according to Tomazovich’s testimony.