Juan A. Rivera Jr. (born October 31, 1972) is an American man who was wrongfully convicted three times for the 1992 rape and murder of 11-year-old Holly Staker in Waukegan, Illinois. He was convicted twice on the basis of a confession that he said was coerced. No physical evidence linked him to the crime scene. In 2015 he received a $20 million settlement from Lake County, Illinois for wrongful conviction, formerly the largest settlement of its kind in United States history.
DNA testing done in 2004 on semen taken from the crime scene ruled out Rivera as the source. However, the prosecution argued that Staker had been sexually active and the semen sample came from her previous consensual sex with another man. Rivera was convicted a third time. His conviction was overturned by the appellate court. Because the court ruled that there had been insufficient evidence adduced at trial to sustain a conviction, the Double Jeopardy Clause barred prosecutors from retrying Rivera. He was released from prison after serving 20 years.
After his release, Rivera's attorneys asked the courts to order genetic testing on Rivera's shoes. The prosecution had tried to enter these into evidence in 1993. The shoes had Staker's blood on them, but the prosecution withdrew the evidence prior to Rivera's first trial when they learned that the shoes had not been available for sale anywhere in the United States until after the murder.
DNA testing conducted on the shoes in 2014 indicated that the blood belonged to Staker, but it also contained another genetic sample. The DNA in this matched the semen sample from Staker. Rivera's defense team insists that this is proof not only that the blood was planted, but that the real killer's DNA was inadvertently planted as well. The DNA has yet to be matched to an individual, but it has been linked to DNA from the scene of a home invasion and murder in 2000 in Chicago by three men. Only one man of the three has been identified; he was convicted of that crime and is in prison. He claims to have been wrongfully convicted.
Following his exoneration, Rivera sued the city of Waukegan and Lake County; he was awarded $20 million, at its time, the largest wrongful conviction settlement in United States history. This amount included $2 million from John E. Reid & Associates. Rivera was given two polygraph examinations by a Reid employee. He was reported as exhibiting general deception during the examination and subsequently admitted that he did lie to the test question about his alibi, but continued to deny any involvement in the death of Holly Staker. Over the next several days he was interrogated by law enforcement.
Murder of Holly Staker
On August 17, 1992, police received a call from a woman in Waukegan, Illinois, who reported that the babysitter for her two children, 11-year-old Holly Staker, was missing and the back door to the apartment had been kicked in. Staker's partially clothed body was found on the floor of the children's bedroom. She had been raped, stabbed 27 times, and strangled. Vaginal and anal swabs tested positive for semen.
Evidence technicians took fingerprints and blood samples found in the bedroom and near the kitchen sink, where it appeared someone had washed blood off their hands.
Investigation
On September 29, 1992, police received a tip from a prison inmate that another inmate, Puerto Rican-born Juan Rivera, believed he knew who killed Staker. According to the informant, Rivera told him he was at a party that night near the crime scene and saw a man acting suspiciously.
Rivera was described by the police as friendly and cooperative when he was interviewed and agreed to provide samples of his blood and hair. He told police he was at a party near the crime scene, when another man, whom he identified as Robert Hurley, left the party more than once before later returning sweaty, out of breath, and with a fresh scratch. Further investigation revealed there was no party at the residence on August 17, leading to greater suspicion of Rivera.