Just some highlights from the 'Trailblazer'
In 1993, Burris, an advocate for a national handgun ban, helped to organize Chicago's first Gun Turn-in Day. The following year, Burris admitted that he kept a handgun in his home and had not turned it into police as he had urged others to do. A spokesman stated that Burris had "forgotten about" the handgun.
In 1985, Rolando Cruz was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for kidnapping, rape, and murder along with a co-defendant in a DuPage County Circuit Court. In 1992, Assistant Attorney General Mary Brigid Kenney, whom Burris had assigned to fight Cruz's appeal, sent Burris a memo identifying numerous errors in the investigation and trial in Cruz's initial conviction. Burris ignored Kenney's warnings, and she resigned in protest.
In September 1995, DNA tests showed that neither Cruz nor his co-defendant were the contributors of the semen found at the crime scene. On November 3, 1995, a DuPage County judge acquitted Cruz on the basis of recanted testimony, the DNA evidence, and the lack of any substantiated evidence against Cruz. He was fully pardoned by Governor George Ryan in 2002
Burris built a family tomb in Oak Woods Cemetery on Chicago's South Side. His tombstone proclaims, "Trail Blazer," and includes a list of his accomplishments, with space left for future ones.
