Vol. 2, Issue 56: Chicago's Criminal Justice Playbook
At Issue: A Week of Exonerations
In a “momentous week,” Cook County prosecutors and courts moved to correct a series of wrongful convictions, including the first mass exoneration in county history.
Convictions were vacated for 15 men who said they were framed by corrupt former Sgt. Ronald Watts and his crew, who extorted protection payments from drug dealers and residents in a South Side public housing development a decade ago.
Josh Tepfer of the Exoneration Project, attorney for the 15 men, estimated that as many as 500 convictions may have been tainted by Watts and his team. State’s Attorney Kim Foxx promised a review of those cases, stating they need to be examined individually. She cited limited staffing in her office’s post-conviction and conviction integrity units as a challenge.
Asked about Watts-linked officers still on the force, Supt. Eddie Johnson initially said they were entitled to due process. “If the day comes when they are convicted of something, they won’t be on the job,” he said. Hours later, however, the police department announced that six officers and a sergeant from Watts’ team had been removed from street duty pending an investigation. Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th), chair of the Black Caucus, said this action should have come much earlier, as tainted arrests “put taxpayers at risk.”
Prior to this mass exoneration, five other men who alleged they were framed by Watts had their convictions overturned. The city also paid $2 million to settle a lawsuit from two officers who claimed they faced retaliation for investigating Watts. None of the supervisors named in that lawsuit for enforcing a “code of silence” to protect Watts were ever investigated, said whistleblower Shannon Spalding.
Separately, charges were dropped against Jose Maysonet after five former detectives, including former Det. Reynaldo Guevara, invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than testify in his retrial. Maysonet’s 1995 murder conviction was thrown out last year due to his original defense attorney’s association with Guevara. After serving 27 years in prison, he is now the fifth defendant in a case handled by Guevara to win release in the past year.
In a letter to the Chicago Sun-Times, Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Graham defended the detectives’ refusal to testify, saying they “can no longer trust the Cook County state’s attorney.” He accused Foxx of shifting “away from prosecuting criminals to vilifying police officers.”
Foxx said her office is investigating every case Guevara handled. However, Jennifer Bonjean, attorney for Maysonet and other Guevara victims, expressed skepticism that the investigations are meaningful, noting that none of the witnesses she identified had been contacted by prosecutors.
Meanwhile, Arthur Brown was released after 29 years in prison when prosecutors dropped murder charges against him for a 1990 arson. He had won a new trial last month after a judge ruled that prosecutors falsely implied Brown had provided information leading police to a gas can used in the crime. Earlier this month, prosecutors said they would appeal that ruling but later reversed course after defense attorneys appealed directly to Foxx.
Prosecutors also vacated the convictions of Nevest Coleman and Darryl Fulton in a 1994 rape and murder, allowing them to go free on bond. Days earlier, columnist Eric Zorn had urged Foxx to consider new DNA evidence excluding the two men as perpetrators. Prosecutors said they will continue reviewing the case and have not ruled out the possibility of a retrial.
NO MORE CHARGES IN LAQUAN MCDONALD COVER-UP
A grand jury investigating the cover-up of Laquan McDonald's 2014 shooting was discharged after indicting only three lower-level officers on conspiracy, official misconduct, and obstruction of justice charges. The jury examined “the conduct of other individuals but concluded its inquiry without returning any further indictments,” special prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes said in a statement.
Last year, the city’s inspector general recommended CPD fire ten officers and supervisors for giving false statements about the shooting. Four higher-ranking individuals named in the report resigned or retired, including Deputy Chief David McNaughton and Commander Eugene Roy. In August, Supt. Eddie Johnson moved to fire five officers, including Jason Van Dyke, who faces murder charges.
The inspector general was reportedly conducting a follow-up investigation last year to determine the role of top department officials in the cover-up, but no updates have been released. Earlier, the Chicago Tribune reported that then-Supt. Garry McCarthy and current Supt. Johnson were among those who viewed the video and initially deemed the shooting justified.
The failure “to indict each officer and supervisor involved in covering up Laquan McDonald’s murder makes it clear that the criminal justice system, even with the appointment of a skilled special prosecutor, cannot be relied upon to truly hold police officers accountable or root out the culture of corruption that infects the Chicago Police Department,” the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern said in a statement. The group argued that this underscores the need for a consent decree that gives “those most impacted by police violence a role in crafting and enforcing solutions.”
COPA REPORTS BLOCKED
The first set of summary investigative reports published by the new Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) includes ten cases in which officers were cleared of misconduct—but excludes two cases where civilian complaints were sustained, ProPublica Illinois and the Chicago Tribune report.
This omission stems from a provision in COPA’s founding ordinance that bars the publication of reports with sustained findings until a departmental review is completed—a process that can take months. The Tribune article calls this “a big step backward” for transparency.
COPA’s first chief administrator, Sharon Fairley, now a candidate for state attorney general, said she opposed the provision but was overruled by the city’s law department.
Meanwhile, ProPublica and the Tribune report that months after an earlier exposé on delayed or unenforced departmental punishments for police misconduct, the problem persists.
DISCIPLINE GUIDELINES CHALLENGED
An administrative law judge has recommended that the Illinois Labor Relations Board require CPD to rescind its new discipline guidelines, ruling that the department failed to negotiate the changes with the Fraternal Order of Police. The recommendation is not legally binding, and the labor board may take months to issue a final ruling, which could affect thousands of cases closed since the guidelines were implemented in February.
A city law department spokesperson said Chicago would challenge the recommendation, arguing that CPD has the authority to impose discipline unilaterally.
A Chicago Tribune editorial, citing the Ronald Watts case as “an outrageous example of a failed system of police accountability,” criticized the FOP’s objections, stating that the union “relies on a familiar tactic of denying the depth of the police culture problem.” The editorial added, “Until the new disciplinary guidelines are in place, every day is potentially a bad one for Chicago.”
PUBLIC DEFENDERS, JAILED GUARDS SUE
In separate lawsuits, female public defenders and female correctional officers at Cook County Jail allege that county officials have failed to protect them from acts of public indecency by male detainees. The guards also report being threatened and groped by inmates.
Advocates cited by the Chicago Reader attribute the problem to understaffing caused by Cook County’s fiscal crisis, as well as the broader impact of punitive pretrial policies.
ANOTHER LAWSUIT FOR PATRICK KELLY
Two weeks after a jury awarded a record $44 million in a lawsuit involving Officer Patrick Kelly—who shot his friend Michael LaPorta in the head, leaving him permanently disabled—another lawsuit has been filed against Kelly. This case involves the fatal shooting of a young Hispanic man who was reportedly holding a knife to his own throat and threatening to kill himself.
CIVIC FED: COURT DATA LACKING
A Civic Federation report finds that tracking Cook County bail reform progress is impossible due to officials withholding critical data, Injustice Watch reports.
The federation urged the sheriff and chief judge's offices to release more data, arguing that “tight control opens public officials to criticism for selectively using data rather than measuring policy effectiveness.”