By Steve Schmadeke
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — A convicted Chicago murderer pleaded guilty Wednesday and received a second life sentence for strangling his sleeping Will County cellmate in 2009, a slaying that highlighted flaws in how the state housed nonviolent prisoners.
Richard Conner, 40, is among the state’s most dangerous inmates, and he was placed in a cell with Jameson Leezer, 37, a petty criminal near the end of his five-year sentence for car theft, at Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, even though prison records labeled Leezer as “vulnerable.”
“It just seems crazy he was ever put in a cell with this guy,” Assistant State’s Attorney Steve Platek said after Wednesday’s sentencing.
After the Tribune reported on the case in 2009, the state changed its procedures for double-celling inmates, requiring correctional staff to investigate a prisoner’s history of violence in an attempt to prevent similar deaths.
Full Story: Inmate sentenced in killing that changed how prison system houses nonviolent offenders