Vol. 2, Issue 39: Chicago's Criminal Justice Playbook
At Issue: More Lawsuits for Guevara, Watts
Two lawsuits were filed last Monday by men whose convictions were overturned based on evidence that they had been framed by Chicago police.
Armando Serrano was released last July after serving 23 years in prison for a murder conviction based on an investigation by now-retired Detective Reynaldo Guevara. He filed suit just days after the Guevara-linked murder convictions of two other men, Roberto Almodovar and William Negron, were overturned. Guevara has been accused of manipulating witnesses in dozens of murder cases.
Serrano’s lawsuit alleges that Guevara and others coerced a heroin addict facing four felony charges to testify falsely in a 1993 murder case in exchange for leniency. The witness, Francisco Vicente, testified that Serrano and co-defendant Jose Montanez had bragged about committing the murder. Vicente also provided statements identifying suspects in two other murder cases investigated by Guevara. However, in a 2004 interview with the Medill Innocence Project, he recanted his testimony.
Also named in Serrano’s lawsuit are Guevara’s longtime partner, Ernest Halvorsen; his former sergeant, Edward Mingey; and two former Assistant State’s Attorneys, Matthew Coghlan and John Dillon. Coghlan is now a Cook County judge.
“When people wonder why [Chicago] is the wrongful conviction capital, it’s not just the rogue officers,” attorney Bonjean told BuzzFeed. “It’s their partners. It’s the prosecutors who rise to the bench. And then it’s the judges and the judges’ friends.”
In the other lawsuit, Lionel White alleges that Sergeant Ronald Watts and a patrol officer “broke into his girlfriend’s apartment without a warrant, beat him, and planted heroin on him,” The Chicago Sun-Times reported. “White spent more than two years in prison before a judge tossed his conviction.”
White’s case is one of hundreds in which attorneys argue that Watts falsely arrested individuals to enforce his extortion racket. Watts pled guilty in 2013 to shaking down an FBI informant.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has stated that she is reviewing convictions linked to Watts. It remains unclear whether she is conducting a similar review of Guevara’s cases.
Also last week, a jury awarded $350,000 in a wrongful death lawsuit naming a former Watts associate. Officer Robert Gonzalez was found unjustified in his 2013 shooting of 17-year-old Christian Green. Gonzalez is also named in White’s lawsuit, which alleges that he assisted Watts in setting up White for arrest. Gonzalez is currently a tactical officer in the Wentworth District.
“UNLAWFUL CONTACT” ARRESTS
Since Chicago decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana in 2012, arrests for the crime of “unlawful contact” with gang members while on parole have increased by over 13,000%, according to a Chicago Sun-Times investigation.
Individuals have been arrested while walking down the street or sitting on a porch, with no other criminal conduct involved. “It’s a way to get them off the street,” one officer told reporters.
Arrests are concentrated on the South and West Sides, with 78% of those arrested for “unlawful contact” being African American. Since 2011, over 3,000 individuals have been convicted of the offense, which is punishable by up to a year in jail. The average sentence was three days.
Two proposed bills aim to change the law. The first, sponsored by Representative Kelly Cassidy, would limit the ban to “street gang-related activity.” A separate bill, sponsored by Representative Justin Slaughter, would create exceptions for “pro-social activity,” including church attendance, volunteering, and family events.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Reader found that arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana have declined significantly since decriminalization measures were enacted by the city in 2012 and by the state in July. However, stark racial disparities persist, with Black individuals accounting for 78% of those arrested.
Additionally, 59 people were arrested for possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana in the six months since the state barred such arrests. The Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the mayor’s office declined to provide an explanation for these arrests.
INSPECTOR GENERAL FINDS “ISSUES” WITH PROMOTIONS
The Chicago Inspector General uncovered “procedural and compliance issues” with the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) merit promotion process, and CPD has agreed to implement changes, according to the Inspector General’s (IG) quarterly report.
A member of then-Superintendent Garry McCarthy’s security detail was promoted to sergeant despite having failed the written exam for the promotion. An unnamed “superior officer” directed a subordinate to nominate the officer, even though the subordinate had no knowledge of the officer’s work performance. CPD’s human resources department approved the promotion, despite McCarthy failing to complete the required justification memo. The city’s human resources department later discovered that the officer was ineligible—only after he had completed sergeant’s training and the promotion was forwarded for final approval.
CPD has agreed to implement several changes to the merit promotion process. Nominators must now have direct knowledge of the work performance of officers they recommend for promotion. Additionally, CPD’s human resources department will be responsible for verifying eligibility, and nominators, merit board members, and the superintendent will be required to complete annual training on the merit promotion policy.
In its recent report on CPD, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) stated that issues with the promotional system “have created a narrative among the rank-and-file that CPD does not value good leadership, and that current leaders are unqualified to lead.” DOJ called for changes to make the promotion process more fair, including reviewing promotional exams for discriminatory impact and increasing their frequency.
DOJ also found that the lack of transparency around merit promotions—originally instituted to increase minority promotions—was “one of the major complaints” among both minority and white officers, who view the process as a “reward for cronyism.” A Chicago Sun-Times investigation found that, over the past decade, the largest number of merit promotions went to white officers.
Last year, the mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force found that 98% of officers surveyed believe that merit promotions are based on “connections.” The task force also noted that ten years had passed between the last two sergeant exams.
In January, Superintendent Eddie Johnson reinstated a policy requiring CPD to publicly identify officers who receive merit promotions along with their nominators. In February, he modified the merit promotion policy to allow members of the Merit Board—who approve nominations—to also nominate officers, stating that he aimed to increase promotions of patrol officers, whose chiefs sit on the board. Inspector General Joe Ferguson criticized the change, arguing that the policy was implemented via a verbal order, stating, “CPD should not be operating from nonofficial, nonpublic orders.”
