Devine's top deputy, First Assistant State's Atty. David Erickson, said Thursday that the office will retry the case against Blue. O'Connor previously had been chastised for his conduct in another capital case. That opinion was issued in December 1996, five months before O'Connor and McKay prosecuted Blue. The Supreme Court ruling vacating Blue's conviction pushes the number of Illinois capital cases reversed for a new trial or sentencing hearing to 131, slightly more than half of the 261 death-penalty cases that have completed at least one round of appeals since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977, according to a Tribune analysis.
Cases involving the murder of a police officer tend to be pressure cookers, where emotions run high.
Since 1977, a police officer has been a victim in 15 cases where the death penalty has been rendered. Those cases include several where the Illinois Supreme Court later concluded that police and prosecutors engaged in overzealous tactics to convict and condemn the defendant. Andrew Wilson's original conviction for the murders of two Chicago police officers was overturned based upon evidence that police tortured a confession from him. Wilson was convicted again, but spared the death penalty. While winning a conviction against Edgar Hope Jr. for the murder of a Chicago police officer, Cook County prosecutors engaged in racial discrimination during jury selection, the Supreme Court ruled.