It was 20 years ago that police stopped Keith Cooper as he walked to his nearby apartment in Elkhart, Ind., after buying groceries for his children’s breakfast.
That morning’s arrest set off a tragic series of events that would rip apart his young family and take two decades to correct. On Friday, one day after Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb officially pardoned him for a violent 1996 armed robbery that he did not commit, Cooper said he was grateful to the new governor for doing something that his predecessor, Vice President Mike Pence, long had refused.
"I’m very thankful that (Holcomb) has the heart to do what Pence couldn’t do," said Cooper, 49. "He abandoned me, but thanks to Eric Holcomb, I got my name back. I’m Keith Cooper. Not the Keith Cooper with the (inmate identification number). I know that number better than my own (Social) Security number."
The Country Club Hills man spent nearly a decade of a 40-year prison sentence behind bars before he was released in April 2006. He has been trying to get the armed robbery conviction wiped off his record ever since. Nearly three years ago, after the victims who had identified him as the shooter recanted and DNA evidence pointed to another man, the Indiana Parole Board unanimously recommended Cooper be pardoned. His request, though, sat unsigned on Pence’s desk.
The gubernatorial pardon is believed to be the first in Indiana history based on a claim of actual innocence, his attorney Elliot Slosar said. Cooper said he’s hopeful other wrongfully convicted men and women in the state will find hope in his journey. He became overwhelmed with emotion at times during a Friday news conference.
An Illinois man’s request for an Indiana gubernatorial pardon in a 1996 near-fatal shooting in a robbery was granted on Feb. 10, 2017.
"It was a hard journey for us all, being that I missed out on my kids growing up," he said.
Cooper’s story had many collateral victims. His mother, Barbara Moorehead, 68, lost her Englewood home in a foreclosure after taking out a second mortgage to help post her son’s bail and hire an attorney. His daughter, Lakeisha Cooper, 27, said she felt "robbed," growing up without a father and having at times to live in homeless shelters as her mother struggled financially. His wife, Nicole, said her husband still wakes up in the middle of the night with nightmares of his incarceration.
And his first wife, Sheryl Crigler, with whom he has three children and remains friends, also stood by his side Friday. She struggled while recalling the homeless shelters and motels she and her children lived in while she tried to make ends meet. When her husband went to prison, their children were ages 8, 6 and 2.
Ironically, the former couple moved to the small town of Elkhart to escape Chicago’s violence and for better jobs. Months after the move, Cooper said, he was walking home from the grocery store when he was stopped and arrested for an attempted purse snatching.
While in police custody, Elkhart police questioned him about an Oct. 29, 1996, robbery in an apartment in the same complex where he lived. On that date, a teenager said he was watching a movie with friends in his mother’s apartment when two armed men forced their way inside and demanded dope and cash. The teen was shot in the stomach. The shooter fled, leaving behind his hat.
Cooper denied any involvement. But the same day he was acquitted of the attempted purse snatching, prosecutors charged him with attempted murder and robbery. Six months later, after a one-day trial, a judge acquitted Cooper of attempted murder but found him guilty of the robbery based on eyewitness identification.
Pence’s successor pardons wrongly convicted Chicago-area man after years in Indiana prison Christy Gutowski
The new governor of Indiana on Thursday pardoned a wrongfully convicted Chicago-area man who spent nearly a decade in prison for an armed robbery and shooting, marking what experts say is the first time in that state’s history a gubernatorial pardon was granted based on actual innocence.
Indiana…
The new governor of Indiana on Thursday pardoned a wrongfully convicted Chicago-area man who spent nearly a decade in prison for an armed robbery and shooting, marking what experts say is the first time in that state’s history a gubernatorial pardon was granted based on actual innocence.
Indiana…
(Christy Gutowski)
The case began to unravel in late 2005, when the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned a co-defendant’s conviction and ordered a new trial. Prosecutors later dropped charges against the man, who later was awarded a $5 million federal civil rights settlement.
Cooper was given the choice of a new trial before the judge who had convicted him or to be released as a convicted felon. He chose to play it safe and to go home and be a father. After his release, Cooper said, he put his legal ordeal behind him until 2008 when Slosar, then a recent college graduate working on the co-defendant’s lawsuit, put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Slosar then was interning with the Exoneration Project, a joint venture between the Chicago law firm Loevy & Loevy and the University of Chicago Law School. Now a wrongful-conviction attorney, Slosar said Cooper was wrongfully imprisoned based on flawed police work, tainted witness identifications, an unreliable jailhouse snitch and a trial attorney who mishandled key DNA evidence.
The Tribune was the first to profile the confounding case in March 2015. The newspaper’s review of more than 2,000 pages of trial transcripts, police reports, witness interviews and depositions gathered by Slosar showed many inaccuracies. For example, at Cooper’s trial, his lawyer agreed to a stipulation that test results of DNA from inside the sweatband of the shooter’s hat showed he could not be excluded as a suspect. But the Indiana state police lab report stated just the opposite — that Cooper "can be eliminated as a possible contributor."
Video: ‘I want my name back’
Keith Cooper speaks during a Feb. 3, 2014, Indiana Parole Board hearing. (Courtesy of Eliot Slosar of Loevy & Loevy)
Keith Cooper speaks during a Feb. 3, 2014, Indiana Parole Board hearing. (Courtesy of Eliot Slosar of Loevy & Loevy)
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Years later, with advances in testing and the nationwide offender database, the DNA evidence was linked to a man serving an up to 60-year prison term in Michigan for his role in an unrelated 2002 murder.
Slosar called Pence’s inaction "a disgrace."
Cooper argues Pence owes him an apology. In response to a request for comment, the vice president’s spokesman in an email to the Tribune did not address the Cooper pardon but said Pence "is proud of his record" as Indiana’s governor.
Slosar had filed a petition for a new trial last fall at Pence’s request, and the petition still was pending when Holcomb granted the pardon. Prosecutors in Elkhart County were fighting the petition. Curtis Hill, recently elected Indiana attorney general, at the time was the county’s lead prosecutor. He issued a statement after the pardon that said, in part, "We trust he reviewed the evidence and the record carefully in this case before reaching his decision.
Holcomb cited the state parole board’s support for the pardon, along with the backing of the prosecutor and witnesses in the case.
"I want to shake his hand," Cooper said of Holcomb. "I want to give him a hug. And I want to tell him he gave me my life back.
"Justice has prevailed. We won."
cmgutowski@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @christygutowsk1
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