Dotson's attorney also petitioned the Governor of Illinois, James R. Thompson, for clemency on April 19. "Big Jim" Thompson, formerly a federal prosecutor, responded to the media attention by declaring that he personally would oversee three days of public hearings on Crowell Webb's recantation. The hearings lasted three days, from May 10 through May 12, 1985. Twenty-four witnesses were called to testify at the just-opened new State of Illinois Center in Chicago which Thompson had built, and which is now named after him. The sexually graphic proceedings were televised, creating a nationwide crime drama at a time when cameras in the courtroom were unheard of. Viewers were shocked when a "gigantic" projection of Crowell Webb's stained underwear was projected onto a massive screen on the wall, and when she and her boyfriend recited details of their sexual activity. Nearly a quarter-century later, the Thompson Dotson hearings were still described as "circuslike," a description widely used in 1985.