Thomas Breen was a Chicago prosecutor in the 1970's. He prosecuted and won first degree murder convictions of two men who allegedly had killed a nine year old girl.

Breen is now leading the charge to vacate the men's convictions and obtain their release from jail:

I would rather [this case] come back 25 years later and find out I'm dead wrong than those guys spend one more day in jail," he said in an interview. "I don't see anything wrong with correcting your errors when the errors are shown. "If these guys didn't do it--and all the evidence seems to indicate we are dead wrong--then it's devastating."

Larry Marshall, director of the Center or Wrongful Convictions at Norwestern University, whom Breen turned to when he began having doubts about the men's guilt long after the trial, said of Breen:

"Did Tom make a mistake in this case?" Marshall asked. "It certainly appears so now . . . But one way you measure a person's humanity is by how someone remedies mistakes. And by that measure, Tom's actions in this case are heroic." "It's about as noble a thing," Marshall added, "as I can imagine."

We agree. Breen deserves a Champion of Justice award. We hope more prosecutors follow his example. DNA testing, urged by Breen and asked for by Marshall, proved the men were not the culprits.

Now, Breen is struggling to reconcile his actions at the 1977 trial with the results of the DNA tests.

"I'm avoiding thinking about this," he said. "When I begin to think that I caused two innocent people--" His voice trailed off as he was unable to finish the sentence. He pressed his hands to his face momentarily, then looked up.

"There are no words to describe what's been done to an innocent person who has been incarcerated," he said. "I want to believe somehow that we were right, but to do that I'd have to be mentally and intellectually dishonest.

"The only thing I can say that I did good was that I brought this up to somebody who could maybe fix it."

In addition to being a hero, we'd call Breen a true mensch.