Two Exonerated Illinois Prisoners Win Settlements Totaling $14.5 Million
A pair of former Illinois prisoners, each exonerated after spending 23 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit, accepted a total of $14.5 million in settlements from the City of Rockford, which voted in April 2025 to issue bonds to cover the debt.
Both Patrick Pursley, now 55, and John W. Horton, now 49, were wrongfully convicted of 1993 murders. Pursley was 23 when he was accused of fatally shooting Andy Ascher in a botched robbery attempt. Horton was 17 that same year, when he was charged with murdering Arthur Castaneda while attempting to rob a McDonald’s. Horton provided police a false confession under intense questioning, but Pursley consistently maintained his innocence.
Pursley was convicted after a state firearms expert testified that a gun recovered from his home matched the weapon used to kill Ascher “to the exclusion of all other guns.” Pursley continued to contest that testimony even after his conviction, joining a crusade that resulted in a new 2007 state law allowing comparison of ballistic evidence after conclusion of a trial. In the law’s inaugural use, two experts independently concluded that the evidence from the scene of Ascher’s death and the gun from Pursley’s home did not match. That won him release in 2017 and a new trial, at which he as acquitted in 2019.
Horton’s wrongful conviction was based on his coerced confession and the testimony of his girlfriend, despite a concurrent confession from his cousin, Clifton “Buddy” English, who provided a detailed account of Castaneda’s killing. Horton’s girlfriend later recanted her confession, too. When a motion for a new trial was then filed—by attorneys from the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago—it was denied by a state court in 2013. However, that ruling was overturned by the Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District on October 12, 2016, after it found prosecutors had impermissibly withheld exculpatory evidence from Horton’s defense attorneys, in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 US 83 (1963). He was released, and prosecutors dropped all charges against him the following year.
Both men secured a certificate of innocence from an Illinois court, a critical step toward receiving compensation for the wrong they suffered. Horton got his certificate in December 2018 with the aid of attorneys from Loevy & Loevy in Chicago; attorneys from Jenner & Block LLP, also in Chicago, helped Pursley get his in February 2021. Those same lawyers helped both men file suit in federal court for the Northern District of Illinois, accusing the City of Rockford and its police officials of their wrongful convictions and imprisonment.
Pursely settled his suit for $5 million in December 2024, and Horton settled his for $9.9 million the following month. The $13.7 million obligation that the City assumed to fund the payouts did not have to go to voters because it will be repaid over 20 years from general sales tax revenue. See: Horton v. City of Rockford, USDC (N.D. Ill.), Case No. 1:18-cv-06829; and Pursley v. City of Rockford, USDC (N.D. Ill.), Case No. 3:18-cv-50040.
With an estimated 2023 population of 146,120, the City has now agreed to saddle residents with over $100 in additional debt each to cover the cost of the settlements. The true cost to Pursley and Horton—23 years of their lives—can never be recovered, of course. None of the officials with the City or its Police Department who were named in their complaints has been disciplined. Rockford has also not created any systematic review of cases of potential wrongful conviction, though state Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced the opening of a conviction integrity review unit in his office in November 2024.
Additional sources: National Exoneration Project, Rock River Current, Rockford Register, WREX
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Related legal cases
Horton v. City of Rockford
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (N.D. Ill.), Case No. 1:18-cv-06829 |
| Level | District Court |
| Conclusion | Settlement |
Pursley v. City of Rockford
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (N.D. Ill.), Case No. 3:18-cv-50040 |
| Level | District Court |
| Conclusion | Settlement |