A group of Chicago police officers and a Cook County prosecutor have asked a federal judge to cut out a malicious prosecution claim brought against them by two men who claim they were coerced into confessing to a woman’s brutal rape and murder, as the cops and prosecutor say Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx chose to surrender the case, and not contest the men’s claims to innocence, leaving the cops and prosecutor exposed to lawsuits.
On May 24, attorneys representing the police officers and prosecutor filed their motions in federal court, asking for a grant of partial summary judgment, as they seek to whittle down the lawsuits brought against them by lawyers for plaintiffs Nevest Coleman and Derrell Fulton.
The Chicago police officers, identified as John Halloran, Kenneth Boudreau, James O’Brien, Gerald Carroll, William Moser, Al Graf, Thomas Kelly and Thomas Benoit, and former Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Harold Garfinkel, have been in federal court for nearly four years, defending themselves against lawsuits brought by Coleman and Fulton.
Eric Sussman
| Reed Smith LLP
The lawsuits center on claims the officers and prosecutor worked together to coerce Coleman and Fulton into each confessing the 1994 slaying of Antwinica Bridgeman.
According to court documents, Bridgeman’s body was discovered in the basement of a building in the 900 block of W. 55th Street, on Chicago’s South Side. According to documents, Bridgeman died from suffocation, after a piece of concrete was forced down her throat. She had also been sexually violated by a six-inch pipe, which was still inserted when her body was found, court documents said.
Both Fulton and Coleman signed confessions to playing a role in her death, and they were sentenced to life in prison.
However, they later denied those confessions, saying investigating officers and at least one Cook County prosecutor coerced them into signing confessions.
After the men served 20 years in prison, the Cook County CIU, then under former Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, reopened the case in June 2016.
Foxx defeated Alvarez in the November 2016 election.
After analysis of DNA evidence from the murder scene was matched to another man, attorneys for Coleman and Fulton asked a Cook County judge to vacate the convictions and grant the men new trials.
However, after initially backing the new trials, Foxx’s office within two weeks reversed its position, and did not contest the court’s decision to grant the men Certificates of Innocence.
Coleman and Fulton then filed civil rights lawsuits against the officers who had investigated the case, as well as the city of Chicago.
The officers and prosecutor have argued Coleman and Fulton were each wrongly issued Certificates of Innocence, and the men should face a new trial, where, they argue, both Coleman and Fulton would be found guilty of Bridgeman’s sexual assault and murder.
Last year, a federal judge ruled, over Foxx’s objections, that lawyers for the officers and Garfinkel should be allowed to question both Foxx’s former First Assistant State’s Attorney Eric Sussman, and Mark Rotert, who formerly served as the head of Foxx’s CIU.
With that questioning complete, attorneys for the officers and Garfinkel believe they can establish that Coleman’s and Fulton’s claim of malicious prosecution – which is central to their case – cannot hold up in court.
“Here, the undisputed record proves that Plaintiffs’ criminal charges were not terminated in a manner indicative of innocence. In fact, the CCSAO (Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office) has made it abundantly clear it did not conclude Plaintiffs were innocent,” attorneys for the officers wrote in a brief supporting their request for judgment on the malicious prosecution claim.
“Nonetheless, Sussman and his team decided not to re-prosecute because it would be impossible to overcome the burden of proof on a retrial ‘in this day and age’ … Sussman clarified that this ‘day and age’ means he expected a jury to consider allegations of past misconduct against the Chicago Police Department, regardless of whether that consideration was appropriate.
“Put another way, Sussman did not believe jurors would be able to set aside their negative impressions of the Chicago Police Department and focus on the facts, even though Sussman and his team, including Rotert, had concluded the confessions were not coerced and that (the other man whose DNA was found on the crime scene) likely was not involved the violent crime.
“… Because the undisputed evidence shows that the State chose to terminate the proceedings, not because of Plaintiffs’ innocence, but because of what they perceived as the impossibility of a retrial despite Plaintiffs’ guilt, Plaintiffs cannot establish this element of his malicious prosecution claim,” the officers’ attorneys argued.
Further, they argued, the Certificates of Innocence also should not change any aspect of the case, because Sussman and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office have indicated the decision to not push for a new trial against Coleman and Fulton was not based on the men’s innocence, but rather on a lack of resources and wherewithal under Foxx’s administration to fight those claims.
The officers and Garfinkel also argued lawyers for Coleman and Fulton have yet to produce any evidence backing their claims the officers coerced the confessions or withheld or fabricated evidence against the two men.
They assert the claims accusing the officers and Garfinkel of conspiring to frame the men for Bridgeman’s sexual assault and murder amount to “speculative hypothesizing without evidence,” based solely on the notion that “because (the officers) worked together and communicated with each other, they must have conspired with each other.”
Attorneys for Coleman and Fulton have yet to reply to the defendants’ summary judgment motions.
The officers are represented by attorneys Patrick R. Moran, Eileen E. Rosen and Andrew J. Grill, of the firm of Rock Fusco & Connelly, of Chicago, acting as special corporation counsel for the city of Chicago.
Garfinkel, who now works as a criminal defense lawyer, is represented by attorneys William B. Oberts and Amy M. Kunzer, of the firm of Tribler Orpett & Meyer, of Chicago.
Fulton is represented by attorney Kathleen T. Zellner, of Downers Grove.
Coleman is represented by attorneys with the firm of Loevy & Loevy, of Chicago.