The death of a police officer evokes strong feelings among members of the law enforcement community, judges included. Any tendency to bend the rules of evidence in favor of conviction, however, can and must be resisted. –Illinois Supreme Court justice William Clark, dissenting from the court’s 1988 affirmation of Manuel Salazar’s conviction and sentence
The Illinois appellate defender’s office is now making a final attempt to persuade the state supreme court to reverse Salazar’s conviction, largely on the grounds that his trial lawyer was ineffective. It has been joined in this effort by a coalition of lawyers and community groups in the United States and Mexico. Amnesty International is mounting a major campaign to publicize the case in all its complexity. “This one cuts across the systemic problems in society,” says Ashanti Chimurenga, national coordinator of death-penalty investigations for the organization. “It touches on racial discrimination, inadequate legal representation, police misconduct, and U.S. arrogance toward other nations.” The public campaign, she says, will concentrate on western European nations, especially France, Germany, and England, as well as Mexico, because Amnesty believes the case illustrates U.S. disregard for international treaties. Ricardo Villalobos, president of the Coalition for Justice, a Chicago Latino advocacy organization, has been working on the Salazar case for more than a year. He contends it represents in one compact package “all the indignities Latinos are subject to in criminal prosecutions.” Reverend Ben Chavis, of the “Wilmington 10” conspiracy case and now executive director of the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ, says the church will make the Salazar issue a national priority in 1993.
No sooner did Ponce pull around than the doors of the Buick flew open and two passengers took off running in different directions. Murrin leapt out of his car and began chasing one of the passengers through an open field and down an unpaved alley. He drew his revolver, running at top speed behind 18-year-old Manuel Salazar, who was clutching a red gym bag. The race took the two through bushes and brambles and over backyard fences. When Salazar came to a high chain-link fence he threw his bag over and attempted to climb the fence. But it buckled under his weight and he fell to the ground. Murrin was quickly on him.
The hunt for Murrin’s killer was given wide media coverage in the Joliet area for many months. A reward of $5,000 was offered. Rumors abounded: Salazar was reported hiding in Joliet, informants claimed he was in Chicago, someone reported seeing him in Milwaukee. Then on May 19, 1985, nine months after the incident, a young man identified as Manuel “Junior” Salazar was arrested in a raid at the home of relatives near Monterrey, in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon. According to the Joliet police, U.S. DEA agents learned of his whereabouts through an informant and relayed the information to Mexican police. Both Mexican and American law-enforcement agents were apparently involved in his seizure, and at least one of the Mexicans was paid a reward. News reports of the raid suggested that some of the relatives Salazar was staying with were involved in drug trafficking, but no charges were filed against them.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Salazar had been assigned a lawyer when he arrived in Texas, but his principal defense in the trial was handled by Michael Ettinger, a private attorney from the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn. It has never been made clear whether Salazar’s family contacted Ettinger or he contacted them. In a deposition Ettinger said he thought Salazar’s relatives initially contacted him, though when asked during the postconviction hearing whether he remembered calling Salazar’s relatives and telling them he would be willing to help on the case, he replied, “Could be.” In any event, he was quickly hired.
During pretrial motions in the following months Ettinger argued that the trial should not take place in Joliet because of the publicity attending the case in the area. It was decided to move the proceedings to Bloomington, some 100 miles south of Joliet. The judge assigned was Patrick M. Burns from Kankakee, and the trial began in mid-November 1985 before an all-white jury.
But Palacios’s testimony began to unravel during his cross-examination. Ettinger said, “[Salazar] didn’t tell you that the gun was in the officer’s holster, did he?”
