A judge on Tuesday overturned decades-old murder conviction in the shooting deaths of two 14-year-old boys in 1989, eliciting cheers from a packed courtroom.

Francisco Benitez, 52, maintained his innocence in a motion for post-conviction relief, referencing that he had an alibi for the April 28, 1989, killings of Prudencio Cruz and William Sanchez near the corner of Potomac and Harding avenues on the city’s West Side and pointing to witnesses who identified different suspects.

“This is not normal,” said Joshua Tepfer, one of Benitez’s attorneys, of the volume of overturned convictions in Cook County. “It’s an epidemic. It’s a human rights violation.”

Judge Sophia Atcherson vacated the conviction during a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, citing evidence pointing to Benitez’s innocence presented during a hearing earlier this year. Cook County prosecutors did not drop the charges and asked for time to review the case, so Benitez still faces murder charges in the teens’ deaths.

Meanwhile, Atcherson allowed Benitez to be released on a personal recognizance bond and electronic monitoring, meaning he did not have to put up money for release. She said she took the “serious nature” of charges into account, but also the new evidence brought forth in the post-conviction hearings.

She also declined to order monetary bail, citing the new law abolishing cash bail set to take effect next month. The Illinois Supreme Court in July ruled that the measure meant to foster equity in the criminal justice system does not violate the state constitution.

“Even though the law has not gone into effect, I think it would be disingenuous for the court to set monetary bond at this point,” she said.

Family members in the gallery yelled “Hallelujah!” as Atcherson read her decision. After the hearing, Benitez’s mother Betty Benitez tearfully said she’s happy to have her son back.

“It’s been a long road,” she said.

Benitez, who was 18 years old when Cruz and Sanchez were killed, has spent 34 years in prison.

His motion for post-conviction relief described the two victims as “churchgoing kids who were steps from their home on the way to the corner store.”

“Their deaths are a tragedy,” the motion said. “When Francisco Benitez was wrongfully arrested, charged, and convicted of that heinous crime, another tragedy occurred.”

The motion argues that Benitez was with family friends at the time of the shooting, and that witnesses came forward to point the finger at different suspects, members of a street gang that controlled the street. The witnesses signed sworn statements that said they were sitting on a radiator in the front window of their apartment and watched the men, whom they knew, walk toward the boys and kill them.

In overturning the convictions, Atcherson said the eyewitness testimony was “first and foremost in the court’s mind.”

Further, the defense attorneys presented testimony from a former Chicago gang officer who said in a sworn statement: “(T)his is the one case in my entire Chicago Police Dept career that has bothered me and think we got the wrong guy.”

The motion also alleged that the detectives on the case, Jerome Bogucki along with partner, Raymond Schalk, had a history of misconduct, and were found liable by a federal jury of manipulating eyewitness identifications.

mabuckley@chicagotribune.com