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A man wrongfully convicted in the 1988 homicide of a 6-year-old boy in Illinois is free after 35 years behind bars, the Cook County State’s Attorney Office mentioned. Brian Beals, who was a school athlete studying to be a police officer when he was arrested, was launched after a Cook County court docket granted a petition to vacate the conviction, in accordance with an announcement from the state’s attorney’s office. The state’s attorney’s workplace referred to as it a “significant step in the course of justice.” The Illinois Innocence Project, which was involved in the case, mentioned in a post on X that the exoneration “ends the second-longest #wrongfulimprisonment in #Illinois history!” Beals, a Southern Illinois University scholar at the time, was visiting residence when he “became the unintended target of an area drug supplier’s threats,” the University of Illinois Springfield, the bottom of the Illinois Innocence Project, men