The Illinois Supreme Court has refused to undo the murder conviction of a man who claims he was framed by Chicago police, saying the fact detectives have been sued for misconduct in other cases, doesn't constitute grounds for a new hearing.
The Feb. 19 ruling was delivered by Chief Justice Anne Burke, with concurrence from Justices Robert Carter, Rita Garman, Mary Jane Theis, Michael Burke, David Overstreet and P. Scott Neville Jr. The decision went against Kevin Jackson, 39, who has been in custody since 2001 for murder and aggravated battery.
On May 6, 2001, Ernest Jenkins, Stanley Watson and Michael Watson were at a gas station at Damen Avenue and 55th Street in Chicago, when a man approached and started firing shots that killed Jenkins and wounded Michael. According to prosecutors, Stanley belonged to the Gangster Disciples gang, and the gas station was in the territory of the rival Vice Lords gang. Jackson fired the shots, because he was a Vice Lord and was in a dispute with Stanley over a woman, prosecutors charged.
Brandon R. Clark
| Burke Warren MacKay & Serritella
Police arrested Jackson several weeks later, based on information given by Michael and four other eyewitnesses.
Before trial, the eyewitnesses signed statements identifying Jackson as the gunman, but during their trial testimony, they recanted, saying four detectives sweated them into fingering Jackson. The detectives denied using coercion. A jury found Jackson guilty and he was sent to prison; he is set for parole in 2046.
The convictions were upheld in 2006 by Illinois First District Appellate Court. Jackson then presented to the trial judge, Evelyn Clay, material allegedly showing it was the practice of the four detectives to intimidate witnesses. The material consisted of citizen complaints and two lawsuits. Jackson argued the material backed up the recantations, and considered this material to be "new evidence," warranting a hearing.
Clay did not consider the material worthy of a hearing and subsequently neither did the Illinois First District Appellate Court.
The Illinois Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts.
The Supreme Court's decision was delivered just a few days before Gov. JB Pritzker signed a sweeping criminal justice reform bill into law. The new law makes it now possible for complaints of police misconduct to be submitted anonymously. Previously, complaint against officers needed to include a sworn affidavit from those accusing officers of misconduct.
Many of those lawsuits are spearheaded by organizations ostensibly seeking to exonerate the wrongly accused, with deep connections to trial lawyers who then bring lawsuits against police and their municipal employers. Such lawsuits have cost taxpayers in Chicago and elsewhere hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years.
In Jackson's case, Chief Justice Burke noted none of the citizen complaints lodged against the officers who investigated his case alleged coercion or intimidation against the officer, making the complaints irrelevant, in the court's opinion.
As far as the two lawsuits alleging misconduct, one was settled with no finding of wrongdoing and the other was dismissed through summary judgment. Further, the allegation in the second suit took place five years after the Jackson murder case. As a consequence, Burke, quoting a 2000 Illinois Supreme Court ruling, found it a "'single incident years removed'" that was not "relevant to establishing a pattern and practice of witness intimidation.'"
Jackson also put forth affidavits from two of the eyewitnesses in which they attested Jackson was innocent. Burke said the affidavits did not constitute new evidence, pointing out they merely repeated the testimony the two eyewitnesses gave at trial.
Another affidavit was from a woman, who did not testify at trial, but who proffered testimony for Jackson and stood by to testify at his trial. Burke determined her information was available at time of trial and was not new.
Burke added the woman's proffered testimony, while intended as exculpatory, undercut Jackson, because the woman was questioned by detectives, but never signed a statement implicating Jackson, showing she was apparently able to withstand the allegedly heavy-handed police tactics.
Burke said police records indicated that if the woman had taken the witness stand, prosecutors could have called witnesses who would have said the woman told police Jackson was the killer, but that she would not make a written statement, because she was in a relationship with Jackson.
Justice Neville agreed with Burke's decision to deny Jackson a new hearing, but voiced uneasiness with continuing accusations of police misbehavior.
"I am deeply troubled by the recurrence of complaints of serious misconduct by police officers against witnesses and defendants in criminal cases. I do not believe that prosecutors can sit idly by and allow serious complaints of witness intimidation and coercion to go uninvestigated," Neville said.
Neville noted Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is "duty bound" to investigate and "encouraged her to do so."
Jackson was represented before the state Supreme Court by attorneys Brandon R. Clark, of the firm of Burke, Warren, MacKay & Serritella, and formerly of the firm of Proskauer Rose LLP, of Chicago; and Elizabeth R. Bacon Ehlers, of the firm of Brooks Tarulis & Tibble LLC, of the firm of Brooks Tarulis & Tibble LLC, of Naperville.
The state has been represented by the Illinois Attorney General's office.
Jonathan Bilyk contributed to this report.