Anthony Porter, whose exit from Death Row last month focused national attention on capital punishment, has returned to jail.
Porter turned himself in to authorities Tuesday afternoon after arrest warrants were issued for two counts of domestic battery relating to a fight Sunday in the South Side home of one of his daughters, said Marcy O’Boyle, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. Porter allegedly struck his daughter, Evelyn Porter, and her mother, Carlia Perkins.
Cook County Circuit Judge Gregory O’Brien ordered Porter held in Cook County Jail in lieu of $40,000 bond on the misdemeanor charges. Handcuffed and chained to half a dozen other detainees, Porter left Criminal Court on Tuesday afternoon and was directed by sheriff’s deputies onto a white bus bound for the jail. He stared at the ground, saying nothing.
After years of attending court hearings and visiting him in prison, Evelyn Porter, 26, on Tuesday angrily denounced what she said were the actions of her father, who was freed from prison when another man stepped forward and implicated himself in the 1982 double-murder for which Anthony Porter had been convicted.
“I want people to know what kind of man my papa is,” Evelyn Porter said. “It hurt me because he’s my father. I have no love for him anymore. I can’t forgive him. I’m going to stay out of his life.”
Police said they responded to a call from the South Side home on Sunday, but Anthony Porter already had left.
Evelyn Porter said she has scratches on her back and bruises on one leg. Police said both women declined medical treatment.
Anthony Porter’s defenders called the incident heartbreaking but, in some ways, a symptom of the predictable problem of a sudden adjustment to life outside prison after 16 years behind bars. In September, Anthony Porter came within two days of execution but got a stay over questions about his mental fitness.
“It’s important to remember this is a very difficult adjustment,” said Northwestern University journalism professor David Protess, who led a group of students in uncovering evidence implicating a Milwaukee man, Alstory Simon, who has since been charged with the murder of Jerry Hillard and Marilyn Green. “You can’t be incarcerated for that long and be expected to begin normal life,” Protess said.
On Sunday evening, Anthony Porter began arguing with Perkins, 43, one of three women with whom he has had children, about a broken armrest inside a van belonging to a friend who has been chauffeuring Porter to various events, according to witnesses and authorities. The argument escalated and he began punching her, according to authorities.
“He was beating my mom,” said Evelyn Porter, who lives in the South Morgan Street apartment where the attack allegedly occurred. “He was punching her in the face and chest.”
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Evelyn Porter told authorities she tried to break up the altercation, but her father attacked her also. Anthony Porter, according to an order of protection issued Tuesday, “hit (Evelyn Porter) around her body with his fists, pulled her down the porch stairs, threatened to kill her, stomped on her left leg and hit her on her back with a beer bottle.”
A family member and witness to the incident Sunday, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the attacks as severe. “It was no joke,” the family member said. “He was really hitting hard. You wouldn’t think he would do that to his own blood.”
While in prison, Anthony Porter sustained head injuries in two separate attacks by inmates during the 1980s, said Terri Marroquin, a lawyer with the state-funded Capital Litigation Division. Marroquin had represented Porter during hearings to determine whether he could be lawfully executed.
A psychiatrist at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood diagnosed Porter as suffering from a form of dementia related to the head injuries that can affect the ability to reason and control impulses, Marroquin said. The condition can be helped with medication such as Ritalin, which is commonly prescribed to hyperactive children, but there has been no one to see that Porter gets counseling and medications.
“We feel horrible about what happened because we came to know Evelyn through the hearings she’d show up for–and she’s a wonderful, very caring young lady,” Marroquin said.
Lawyer Daniel Sanders, who currently represents Anthony Porter, said the latest charges would have no effect on Porter seeking a settlement from the state for his wrongful conviction.