Vol. 2, Issue 52: Chicago's Criminal Justice Playbook
At Issue: Fifteen Men Claim Watts Frame-ups
Fifteen men who claim they were framed by corrupt Sgt. Ronald Watts and his crew have filed a court petition seeking to have their convictions overturned. According to the petitioners’ attorney, Joshua Tepfer of the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project, those convictions relied on the credibility of the arresting officers, which has now been destroyed.
Tepfer questioned why seven officers from Watts’ crew—including Alvin Jones, who has since been promoted to sergeant—are “still on the street making arrests.”
Since last year, five convictions tied to Watts-related arrests have been overturned, following Jamie Kalven’s exposé in The Intercept, which revealed how CPD leadership covered up Watts’ extortion racket. Those cases established that Watts and his team enforced their demands for protection money from drug dealers and public housing residents by filing false charges against those who refused to pay.
According to the new petition, police investigators, prosecutors, and judges accepted the denials by Watts and his crew when complaints of abuse were filed—despite lengthy probes by CPD’s internal affairs bureau, the Cook County State’s Attorney, and the FBI. Individuals who filed complaints were also repeatedly subjected to retaliation.
“The most egregious claims come from Leonard Gipson, who said Watts and his fellow tactical team officers arrested him three times after planting drugs on him,” the Sun-Times reported. Gipson spent two years in jail and was sentenced to four years in prison.
“When Watts was finally caught, it was on relatively minor federal charges, and he was given a break at sentencing by a federal judge who talked tough but ultimately handed him only 22 months behind bars,” the Tribune reported.
A Free the Fifteen campaign by the Exoneration Project includes a timeline documenting the record of Watts and his crew.
GUEVARA ORDERED TO TESTIFY
Retired Detective Reynaldo Guevara is expected to take the stand on Oct. 17 in a hearing to determine whether he coerced the confessions of two men now serving life sentences for a 2000 double murder.
Guevara invoked the Fifth Amendment during testimony in the case in 2013, but earlier this year, the Cook County State’s Attorney offered him limited immunity. Last month, Cook County Judge James Obbish ruled that he must testify, warning that he risks contempt of court and jail if he refuses.
Guevara’s testimony is crucial to defending the convictions of Gabriel Solache and Arturo Reyes, as no physical evidence links them to the crime. The two men claim Guevara beat them over extended periods of questioning. They spoke no English, and their oral confessions were translated by Guevara and another officer for a statement taken by prosecutors.
Obbish has previously ruled credible several allegations in separate cases that Guevara coerced confessions and manipulated eyewitness testimony. Advocates accuse Guevara of railroading scores of Latino men over a two-decade period. Since July 2016, four murder convictions based on Guevara’s investigations have been overturned.
FAMILIES DEMAND A VOICE IN CONSENT DECREE
At a City Hall press conference on Thursday, relatives of police shooting victims demanded inclusion in negotiations over a consent decree to guide police reform. Following the event, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan told the Chicago Tribune she is scheduling a meeting with their attorneys.
"We are asking for what is due to us," said Tiffaney Boxley, mother of Joshua Beal, who was fatally shot by police in 2016. "It's important our voices be heard, that we have our say... It's us, the Black and Brown community, that is being affected."
Families for Justice, an organization of relatives of police shooting victims, is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed in June by community groups and victims of police abuse seeking a consent decree. Madigan filed a similar lawsuit last month, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel has agreed to negotiate an agreement with her.
"Right now, it seems they are trying to cut us out," said Arewa Karen Winters, whose 16-year-old nephew, Pierre Loury, was fatally shot by police in 2016.
Attorney Sheila Bedi, lead co-counsel in the class-action lawsuit, said the groups aren’t interested in “another meeting or listening session” but want to be directly involved in negotiations to develop “a resolution to CPD’s rampant violence and dysfunction.”
PROGRESS SLOWS ON DOJ RECOMMENDATIONS
Out of 99 recommendations in the U.S. Justice Department’s January 2017 report on the Chicago Police Department, only six have been fully implemented, with another 23 partially implemented, according to the Chicago Reporter. The absence of an independent monitor operating under judicial supervision in a consent decree makes tracking reforms more challenging. The Reporter has released an online tracker to monitor progress on recommended reforms based on publicly available information.
COPA OPENS
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), a new agency replacing the discredited Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), opens for business Friday with a budget twice the size of IPRA’s but not yet fully staffed, The Tribune reports. COPA will be led by IPRA’s last chief administrator, Sharon Fairley, under whom the rate of sustained findings in fully investigated cases increased. Since January 2016, five police shootings have been found to violate department policy—compared to just two out of 400 ruled unjustified from 2007 to 2016.
Fairley said extensive staff training was designed to make COPA a “best-in-class civilian oversight agency.”
Questions remain, however, including whether Mayor Emanuel will move to establish the community oversight board recommended 16 months ago by his Police Accountability Task Force. Among its outlined duties, the board would select COPA’s chief administrator and review its findings. It is also unclear whether the city will push to remove police union contract provisions that shield officers in disciplinary cases.
Fairley “grew most animated” during an interview when asked about police union claims that oversight agencies have been unfair to officers. “Just because we’re holding them accountable in a way they haven’t experienced before, they’re squealing,” she said. “I can’t be sorry for that.”
FLINT FARMER’S FAMILY SEEKS SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
Emmett Farmer has petitioned for a special prosecutor to investigate the 2011 fatal shooting of his unarmed son, 29-year-old Flint Farmer, by Officer Gildardo Sierra. Farmer argues that current State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has a conflict of interest in the case and told reporters that Foxx has declined to review it.
In 2013, then-Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez declined to charge Sierra, arguing he had reasonably mistaken Farmer’s cellphone for a gun—despite dashcam video showing Sierra standing over Farmer and shooting him in the back as he lay on the ground. The Independent Police Review Authority initially cleared Sierra but reopened the case last year, ultimately finding the shooting unjustified.
Sierra was involved in two shootings in the six months before Farmer’s killing, including the fatal shooting of Darius Pinex. He resigned from CPD in August 2015. In 2013, the city settled a lawsuit filed by Farmer’s family for $4.1 million.
NORMAN MCINTOSH SUES FOR WRONGFUL CONVICTION
“Broad cultural problems” in the Chicago Police Department that “serve to induce rather than deter misconduct” are reflected in the 2001 wrongful murder conviction of Norman McIntosh, according to his lawyer.
McIntosh, whose conviction was overturned last year after he spent 15 years in prison, is suing the city. According to his lawsuit, witnesses who identified him as the killer later stated they were pressured by detectives to do so. The car McIntosh was allegedly driving during the incident was found to have been impounded at the time. New evidence showed that a fingerprint taken from the scene did not match McIntosh’s. Additionally, attorneys in a separate lawsuit challenging the use of “street files” discovered dozens of pages of investigative materials that had been withheld from defense attorneys and prosecutors.
BAIL REFORM ADVOCATES TO MONITOR COURTROOMS
Bond reform advocates say they will monitor compliance with an order by Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans requiring bond court judges to set bond amounts that defendants can afford to pay. The order goes into effect Monday, September 18. The Chicago Community Bond Fund and the Coalition to End Money Bond will hold a rally and press conference outside the county courthouse at 26th and California at 12:15 p.m. on Monday, followed by court observations of bond rulings.
“We’re really satisfied with the language of Judge Evans’ order,” said Matt McLoughlin of the Community Bond Fund. “The big question is how it’s going to be implemented and whether judges will be held accountable if they don’t follow it.”
According to McLoughlin, more than 4,000 people—62 percent of Cook County Jail’s population—are being held because they cannot afford to pay bond. Evans’ order requires judges to determine whether defendants can afford bond and mandates a review of cases where bond has not been posted after seven days.
Noting that Evans’ order could be rescinded by a future chief judge, McLoughlin said he hopes for permanent statewide bail reform that reduces pretrial incarceration, either through legislation or a judicial ruling. (A bail reform law signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner in June recommends but does not require judges to avoid using money bonds, he said.)
Such a ruling could result from a current class-action lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Cook County’s bail system, he added. A hearing on the lawsuit was held Monday, with state lawyers arguing for dismissal, citing recent reforms, while plaintiffs’ attorneys countered that the reforms remain insufficient.