Teshome Campbell doesn’t hold any grudges. Not against the public defender who failed to call crucial witnesses on his behalf. Not against the many judges who dismissed his claims of injustice. Not even against the people who lied about him in court and caused him to spend 18 years behind bars for a crime he always insisted he didn’t commit.
“I told myself three things: I’m not going to try to make up for lost time, I’m not going to keep up with the Joneses and the Kardashians, and nobody owes me anything,” Campbell said. “I came out of there with no grudges. I forgave everybody everything – even the guys who lied on me, people who done me wrong. I don’t blame them for nothing.”
Campbell is the latest person freed from prison by the Illinois Innocence Project at the University of Illinois Springfield. In all, the group has earned freedom for nine people since its inception in 2001. The Illinois Innocence Project celebrates its 15th anniversary this month as part of a nationwide network of such groups focused on overturning the wrongful convictions of people falsely imprisoned.
The story was reported by the Illinois Times on April 21, 2016.
Read the full article online.
