Vol. 2, Issue 67: Chicago's Criminal Justice Playbook
At Issue: Juveniles in Solitary Confinement Rising
While solitary confinement of juveniles is being restricted and eliminated across the country, its use is increasing at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center—even as the center’s population declines (Chicago Reporter).
The number of confinements at the center increased by 25 percent in 2017—amounting to 1,000 additional incidents—while the center’s population dropped by 20 percent.
Superintendent Leonard Dixon defended the practice. “We see [solitary confinement] as a tool to get kids going where they need to and to help them,” he told the Chicago Reporter.
Many others disagree. States such as Massachusetts and California and cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have banned or severely restricted the practice. In 2016, President Barack Obama banned solitary confinement of juveniles in federal facilities.
The Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators has reported that “there is no research showing the benefits of using isolation to manage youths’ behavior.” Experts note that it is particularly ineffective in reducing aggressive and disruptive behavior.
According to the Chicago Reporter, Cook County routinely violates state rules limiting solitary confinement in juvenile centers to 36 hours. Juveniles have been confined for more than a day for failing to wear their ID wristbands and for as long as ten days for fighting.
“The largest category of punitive confinement—and the one that has increased the most since Dixon started—is for ‘unauthorized movement,’ which the Center for Children’s Law and Policy noted could be something as small as stepping outside of the TV room,” according to the Chicago Reporter.
Stop Solitary for Kids, a national campaign to end solitary confinement for youth, is backed by groups ranging from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Defense Fund to the National PTA (Stop Solitary for Kids).
BILL WOULD INCREASE JUVENILE DETENTION FOR CARJACKING
Sharply increased pretrial detention of juveniles is one goal of a bill passed unanimously by the State Senate after meeting resistance in the House. The bill is reportedly a high priority for Mayor Rahm Emanuel (Chicago Sun-Times).
While promoted as a response to a spike in carjackings, the bill would actually make it easier to charge anyone driving or riding in a stolen vehicle—whether they know it or not—with felony possession of a stolen car, a Class 2 felony carrying a prison sentence of three to seven years.
This represents a significant sentencing increase for individuals who would typically be charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass of a vehicle. Given that 20,000 vehicles are stolen each year, the impact could be substantial. The change is not specifically targeted at perpetrators of armed carjackings (Chicago Sun-Times).
The bill also creates a “presumption of immediate and urgent necessity” that juveniles charged with possession of a stolen car should be held in detention. The goal is to keep more carjacking suspects in detention longer and prevent repeat offenses, said Senator Bill Cunningham, the bill’s chief sponsor (NPR).
Juvenile justice advocates argue that the bill would shift from an individual-based risk assessment to offense-based detention decisions, affording juveniles less protection in detention hearings than adults. It would also raise concerns about preventive detention, violate constitutional provisions guaranteeing reasonable bail, and undermine efforts to reduce overcrowding in Cook County’s juvenile detention center.
Media accounts characterize the bill as “designed to close a revolving door” for carjacking suspects (Chicago Sun-Times). That argument draws from a recent Chicago Sun-Times analysis that purported to show that most juveniles arrested for armed carjacking were “not detained longer than 24 hours” (Chicago Sun-Times).
However, the numbers reported by the Chicago Sun-Times indicated that out of nearly 1,000 carjackings last year, only 49 juveniles were charged with aggravated vehicular hijacking in Cook County. Of those, 19 were held in detention, 29 were released to house arrest with electronic monitoring, and three of those defendants were later re-arrested on armed carjacking charges.
“That’s a very small ‘revolving door’ to close by throwing out the carefully crafted screening and risk assessment system that the courts have developed over the years,” said Stephanie Kollmann, policy director of Northwestern’s Children and Family Justice Center.
JUVENILE OFFENDERS WITH “DE-FACTO LIFE SENTENCES
Despite two U.S. Supreme Court decisions declaring life sentences for juveniles unconstitutional, dozens of individuals in Illinois are serving “de facto life sentences” for crimes they committed as juveniles. “Because Illinois almost entirely abolished parole in 1978, these juvenile offenders do not get the same chance to show rehabilitation and change that they might get in other states” (Injustice Watch).
A law pending in the State Senate (SB 3228) would restore parole for offenders who committed crimes as juveniles (Chicago Sun-Times).
LIGHTFOOT ANNOUNCES CANDIDACY; GUTIERREZ CHALLENGES REBOYRAS
Police Board President Lori Lightfoot resigned and announced her candidacy for mayor (Chicago Tribune; Chicago Sun-Times). Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that Chicago Police Board Vice President Ghian Foreman would become president of the board (Chicago Sun-Times).
Foreman is the executive director of the Greater Southwest Community Development Corporation and serves on the boards of the Chicago Rehab Network and the Southwest Organizing Project (South Side Weekly). Paula Wolff, executive director of the Illinois Justice Project, was appointed to the newly vacant seat on the police board. She is the former president of Governors State University and former chair of the City Colleges Board of Trustees.
Lightfoot cited Emanuel’s dismissal of a proposal for a police oversight body by the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability as an example of the mayor’s “top-down style of governance.” Asked whether former Superintendent Garry McCarthy was a “scapegoat,” Lightfoot responded, “the threshold question is, should he have been hired in the first place” given McCarthy’s “troubling” track record (Chicago Sun-Times). The Newark Police Department, which McCarthy previously led, was cited by the U.S. Department of Justice for patterns of unconstitutional stops, searches, arrests, and use of force (DOJ). Lightfoot stated that McCarthy “still sincerely believes that stop-and-frisk, stopping everything that moves without legal justification, without meeting the constitutional restrictions, is appropriate.”
McCarthy dismissed her allegations as “absurd” and “revisionist history,” pointing to the increase in shootings that followed his dismissal in December 2015. He also claimed credit for New York City’s low murder rate and argued that in Newark, “We did less enforcement. We got less complaints against officers. We did more specific enforcement, which meant that we got more guns and the results were much better” (Chicago Sun-Times).
Meanwhile, Jessica Washington Gutierrez, daughter of outgoing U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez, announced that she will run against Alderman Ariel Reboyras (30th), chair of the City Council’s public safety committee (Chicago Sun-Times).
Reboyras’ record on police reform is expected to be a key issue. Noting her opponent’s committee chairmanship, Gutierrez called it “an opportunity... to lead the way forward for meaningful, robust, comprehensive police reform. And yet too often he has failed to step up and lead; instead, he does what he’s instructed.”
Reboyras stated that he believes he has earned Emanuel’s support, even against the daughter of a mayoral ally. He announced plans to hold neighborhood hearings over the summer regarding proposals for an oversight commission. He also emphasized that one of his priorities is guiding contract negotiations with police unions. “I want to concentrate on what I’m doing for the Fraternal Order of Police in making sure their job does not become more difficult than it is today” (Chicago Sun-Times).
HEARINGS ON CIVILIAN POLICE COMMISSION PROPOSALS
Alderman Ariel Reboyras announced that the City Council’s public safety committee will hold five public hearings on rival proposals for a civilian police commission. The hearings will take place on the following dates and locations:
Tuesday, May 15, 6:30 p.m. – Carliss High School, 821 E. 103rd
Saturday, May 19, 1:00 p.m. – Gage Park High School, 5630 S. Rockwell
Tuesday, May 29, 6:30 p.m. – Westinghouse College Prep, 3223 W. Franklin
Thursday, May 31, 6:30 p.m. – Wright College, 4300 N. Narragansett
Tuesday, June 5, 6:30 p.m. – Amundsen High School, 5110 N. Damen
GANG OFFICERS CHARGED WITH THEFT
Two West Side gang unit officers have been indicted on federal charges alleging they lied to judges to obtain search warrants and then stole cash and drugs from properties they raided (Chicago Tribune). The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office stated that it is “reviewing cases” involving Sergeant Xavier Elizondo and Officer David Salgado.
In February, the Chicago Tribune reported that “a sergeant and at least three officers” of a Chicago Police Department (CPD) gang unit were “stripped of their police powers amid a federal criminal probe into allegations they ripped off drug dealers” and that federal agents conducted searches of two officers’ homes (Chicago Tribune).
According to a Chicago Tribune analysis, Elizondo has had at least 23 civilian complaints filed against him, including several for alleged illegal arrests, civil rights violations, and improper use of weapons, but has been disciplined only once—a reprimand for a “preventable traffic accident” in 1998. Salgado has had at least 14 complaints but was disciplined only once—a one-day suspension for disobeying an order to stop a traffic pursuit.
CPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau investigated allegations in 2011 that Elizondo threatened to arrest a man unless he turned over guns or drugs, but the alleged victim later dropped the complaint, according to the Chicago Tribune. Salgado was investigated by Internal Affairs and cleared of taking $3,800 while executing a search warrant in 2009 and in a similar incident in 2012. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Salgado was also cleared by Internal Affairs in 2013 of entering a home without a warrant (Chicago Sun-Times).
In 2016, the city paid $40,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging that Elizondo and others broke down the door of a North Lawndale home without a warrant. Salgado was sued in 2013 and accused of entering a home without a warrant.
CPD RECRUITMENT OF AFRICAN AMERICANS LAGS
Despite outreach efforts to increase the number of African Americans applying for the Chicago Police Department (CPD), only 14.3 percent of new CPD hires in 2017 and 2018 were Black, and the proportion of the police force that is African American dropped from 21.9 percent at the end of 2016 to 20.5 percent in March (Chicago Tribune).
Alderman Anthony Beale (9th), former chair of the City Council’s public safety committee, and Alderman Chris Taliaferro (29th), a former officer, argue that the screening process—which includes credit scores and college credit requirements—is disproportionately burdensome to African American candidates. CPD officials state that they have relaxed some requirements.
Meanwhile, despite a hiring push that has resulted in new hires outpacing retirements at CPD, 14 of the city’s 22 police districts now have fewer beat cops than they did when the drive was announced (Chicago Sun-Times).
The steepest declines occurred in four districts with high rates of violence. However, despite the reduction in beat cops, murder rates and most other crimes have fallen so far in those districts this year.
CPD has kept deployment data secret for years. Making it public, Superintendent Eddie Johnson recently stated, would give “the bad guys” a “mechanism to try to figure out how to defeat us.”
TOUGHER GANG LOITERING ORDINANCE DEMANDED
West Side residents packed City Council chambers to advocate for a stronger anti-gang loitering ordinance, complaining of “neighborhood streets overrun with gangbangers, drug dealers and prostitutes” (Chicago Sun-Times). Alderman Jason Ervin (29th) has proposed a ban on “prostitution-related loitering” in designated areas as a first step.
Ed Yohnka of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) warned that a similar “broad, sweeping ordinance” enacted in the 1990s—and later rewritten after being struck down as too vague by the U.S. Supreme Court—resulted in “mass arrests of young men of color, many of whom were guilty of nothing more than being in their own neighborhoods.”
A Chicago Sun-Times editorial called on the city to “find some way to toughen the ordinance” without “infringing on civil rights.” It added, “the best long-term crime deterrent is a decent education and a good-paying job. But opportunities for both are few and far between on the West Side” (Chicago Sun-Times).
WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS REVERSED
On April 30, prosecutors dropped murder charges against two men, each of whom spent over 20 years in prison after being convicted as juveniles in separate cases involving discredited Chicago detectives (Chicago Sun-Times).
Special Prosecutor Robert Milan dropped charges against Anthony Jakes, who was arrested in 1991 two months after his 15th birthday, held incommunicado for 11 hours, and beaten until he confessed by former Detectives Kenneth Boudreau and Michael Kill, who were serving under Commander Jon Burge. Jakes, now 41, was released from prison in 2013 after serving 23 years of a 40-year sentence (Chicago Tribune).
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office moved to vacate the conviction of Robert Boutro, convicted of a 1993 murder when he was 17 years old based on two witnesses who later said their identification was at the direction of former Detective Reynaldo Guevara. This marks the 18th conviction overturned due to allegations of misconduct by Guevara, including 11 in the past two years (Chicago Tribune; BuzzFeed).
At a press conference, attorney Russell Ainsworth of the Exoneration Project stated, “there are many other innocent men who remain in prison.” He called on prosecutors to re-investigate every case involving Guevara, Boudreau, and other detectives with records of wrongful convictions “and to investigate these detectives for the crimes they committed in obtaining these wrongful convictions.”
Also on April 30, Thomas Sierra filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city, Guevara, and other police officials (Chicago Sun-Times). Sierra’s conviction for a 1995 murder was vacated in January, two months after he was paroled following more than 22 years in prison. He was 19 when he was arrested by Guevara, who reportedly ignored contradictory evidence and failed to interview eyewitnesses to the murder (BuzzFeed). Guevara invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked in a 2013 court hearing whether he had framed Sierra (Chicago Tribune).
On the same day, a former Burge detective who had previously taken the Fifth provided extensive testimony in a hearing to suppress the confession of George Anderson, who was convicted of a 1994 murder. Retired Detective John Halloran denied that he or his colleagues beat or bullied suspects, stated that Burge never advised him on handling cases, and defended investigations he had conducted in which individuals were later exonerated by DNA (Chicago Sun-Times).
On May 12, Ariel Gomez filed a lawsuit against Guevara and the city, alleging that he was falsely convicted of a 1997 murder after Guevara beat him and coerced witnesses into identifying him. Gomez’s conviction was overturned in February, four months after he was paroled from his 35-year sentence (Chicago Sun-Times).
Meanwhile, researchers estimate that tens of thousands of crimes are committed each year by individuals who were never investigated or apprehended in connection with earlier crimes for which others were wrongfully convicted (Injustice Watch).
GAUGHAN CLEARS COURTROOM IN VAN DYKE HEARING
In a pretrial hearing for Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is charged with murdering Laquan McDonald, Judge Vincent Gaughan cleared the courtroom to address the admissibility of testimony regarding allegedly violent episodes in McDonald’s past (Chicago Tribune).
Under Illinois law, defendants arguing self-defense can introduce testimony concerning a victim’s character and past behavior.
Previously, Kane County State’s Attorney Joseph McMahon, the special prosecutor in the Van Dyke case, filed a request to bar the public and media from the hearing, arguing that “potentially inadmissible evidence” would be introduced that could prejudice potential jurors.
Attorneys representing media organizations objected, arguing that the information was already public. McDonald’s juvenile court records were released in 2016 following Freedom of Information Act requests by reporters.
Gaughan cited Van Dyke’s right to a fair trial as well as concerns about the safety of witnesses in his decision to close the courtroom.
At a previous hearing, Gaughan “screamed at [McDonald’s defense attorney] to sit down” when the attorney pressed for the release of a months-old defense filing alleging misconduct by former State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez (Chicago Tribune). At that hearing, Gaughan considered motions to release 50 previous court filings, ultimately unsealing 12 of them in redacted form.
Media organizations have intervened in the case to challenge Gaughan’s practice of requiring motions to be filed in secret (Chicago Tribune).
CITY PAYS $200,000 IN EVANS LAWSUITS
The city will pay $200,000 to settle two lawsuits alleging excessive force by former Commander Glenn Evans, including one case in which he was acquitted of criminal charges by a judge who discounted DNA evidence (WBEZ). This settlement brings total payouts in lawsuits involving Evans to over $620,000, with at least two more suits pending.
In 2014, then-Superintendent Garry McCarthy promoted Evans despite a long record of civilian complaints, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel defended the promotion. A recommendation by the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) that Evans be fired failed due to a missed filing deadline. Evans is now a lieutenant in the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) medical records division.
DOCUMENTARY ON LAQUAN MCDONALD CASE
Filmmakers producing a new documentary on the fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald “have fleshed out the story with fresh interviews and rare archival material that are going to make The Blue Wall the must-see film of 2018 in Chicago,” writes Eric Zorn (Chicago Tribune).
New material includes interviews with civilian witnesses to the shooting, who describe “lengthy questioning in which they say detectives badgered them to change their story to have McDonald lunging at [Officer Jason] Van Dyke instead of moving away.” The film also features surveillance video from minutes before the shooting, showing McDonald “walking down a sidewalk followed, calmly, by a police officer on foot,” suggesting that most officers on the scene “felt they had the situation under control and did not see McDonald as an immediate threat.”
Richard Rowley directed the film, with Jacqueline Soohen and Jamie Kalven serving as producers. The film premiered at a Toronto festival this month and is expected to open in Chicago this summer.
DECEPTIVE INTERROGATION PRACTICES CHALLENGED
A groundbreaking ruling issued in April by the Illinois Appellate Court challenged the use of deception by police when interrogating suspects. An opinion by Justice P. Scott Neville called for law enforcement to “renounce the use of deceptive practices in law enforcement so that the members of the community learn that they can trust police officers to treat them honestly” (Injustice Watch).