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USA - Illinois. Robert Melock, sentenced to death in 1989, obtains a “certificate of innocence” from the court
August 19, 2025: August 19, 2025 - Illinois. Robert Melock, sentenced to death in 1989, obtains a “certificate of innocence” from the court
After spending more than three decades behind bars for a crime he did not commit, Robert Melock was issued a Certificate of Innocence (COI), with a court formally clearing his name and ordering his record expunged. On April 21, 2025, the Circuit Court of the 19th Judicial Circuit issued Mr. Melock the certificate following his December 2023 release from prison after 34 years of incarceration. His case is emblematic of the many problems known to result in wrongful death sentences: a coerced false confession, junk science, false witness testimony, suppressed evidence, and police misconduct.
Mr. Melock is the 201st person to be added to the Death Penalty Information Center’s Innocence Database, which documents people who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death and legally exonerated. He is also the 23rd person from Illinois to be exonerated; the state abolished the death penalty in 2011 in part because of the state’s troubled history of wrongful convictions. The same reason was also cited by Governor George Ryan when he commuted the death sentences of 167 people in 2003.
Mr. Melock was arrested for the 1989 murder and sexual assault of his 72-year-old paternal grandmother, Augustine Melock in Waukegan, Illinois. Police focused on Mr. Melock, then 22, who was on parole for theft and living with his maternal grandmother nearby. Just days after Ms. Melock’s body had been found, Waukegan Police detectives Lou Tessman and Donald Meadie brought Mr. Melock in for questioning. After three hours of interrogation, their supervisor reported that the officers “felt that Melock was being honest and straightforward” and “didn’t appear to be lying about anything.” But the detectives brought Mr. Melock to John E. Reid & Associates, a private, for-profit polygraph business, where he underwent several hours of additional questioning. Polygraph examiner Michael Masokas falsely told Mr. Melock he had failed the polygraph test. However, during later court testimony, Mr. Masokas acknowledged the polygraph “had in fact returned no result,” but asserted that he believed the absence of response meant the individual was lying. After the polygraph, Detective Tessman obtained a seven-page confession from Mr. Melock, and later testified that he wrote the statement using Mr. Melock’s exact words.
Mr. Melock was charged with capital murder and convicted and sentenced to death in November 1989. The Illinois Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1992, holding that Mr. Melock should have been allowed to present evidence about the circumstances of his polygraph examination and the methods used to obtain his confession. The Court acknowledged that while the polygraph result may have indicated deception or interference, that was not what Mr. Masokas told Mr. Melock. “[Mr.] Masokas’ accusation concerning defendant’s culpability, coupled with his false statement concerning the nonexistent results, clearly suggested to defendant that he had lied.” The Court also noted that Mr. Masokas’ own deception “largely contributed to [Mr. Melock’s] decision to inculpate himself” and that these statements were “deceptively designed” to elicit a confession. At his second trial in 1993, Mr. Melock was again convicted but sentenced to 85 years in prison. His conviction was upheld on appeal and subsequent appeals were unsuccessful.
In 2023, Mr. Melock’s case was reviewed by the Lake County State Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit. During this review, his defense team gained access to the prosecution file and discovered new evidence that had not been previously disclosed. A prisoner log showed that Susan Holloway, a jailhouse informant who testified at trial that she heard Mr. Melock confess, was not actually incarcerated at the same time as Mr. Melock. The records indicated a different incarcerated woman was present during the relevant time period, and she had earlier denied hearing a confession from Mr. Melock. Additional evidence emerged regarding Detective Tessman’s involvement in other wrongful convictions. The detective had been connected to fabricating false confessions in the cases of Juan Rivera, who was exonerated in 2011, and Herman Williams, who was exonerated in 2022.
In December 2023, Mr. Melock’s conviction was vacated, charges were dismissed, and he was released after serving 34 years in prison. The Certificate of Innocence issued in April 2025 goes beyond the dismissal of charges, formally declaring Mr. Melock innocent and expunging his record. “With this certificate, the court is officially recognizing that Bob is innocent of this horrible crime,” said one of his attorneys, Fatima Ladha, from civil rights law firm Loevy + Loevy. “He never should have been charged in the first place, and now the court has righted that wrong.”
David Brodsky served as counsel for Mr. Melock during both trials. After being appointed to the bench and later retiring, Judge Brodsky rejoined the defense team for Mr. Melock and helped secure his exoneration. “Robert Melock can never get back the 35 years that were so callously taken from him,” said Judge Brodsky. “However, the fact that he has now been declared innocent by the same system that once sentenced him to death is a major step forward. For those of us who have always known that Robert is innocent, this has been a long time coming.”
In December 2024, Loevy + Loevy filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Melock against the City of Waukegan, nine former police officers, and John E. Reid & Associates. The lawsuit alleges violations of Mr. Melock’s constitutional rights in connection with the investigation and interrogation that led to his wrongful conviction. This is not the first lawsuit some of these individuals have faced. In 2015, Juan Rivera won a $20 million settlement after being wrongfully convicted in another case involving some of the same Waukegan officers and John Reid & Associates.
Mr. Melock, now 58, has been adjusting to life outside of prison. “The hardest part of my time in prison was being away from my family,” he said. “I am now working on building my life and rekindling my family relationships.” Mr. Melock also said the Certificate of Innocence granted to him is more important than the outcome of the lawsuit. “A court of law has declared me innocent, and that was what I wanted all along,” he said. With a Certificate of Innocence, Mr. Melock is now able to seek compensation from the state of Illinois for his wrongful conviction and imprisonment.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/former-illinois-death-sentenced-prisoner-robert-melocks-charges-dismissed-court-acknowledges-innocence (Source: DPIC, 19/08/2025)
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