The Illinois Supreme Court unanimously declared a Cook County judge erred in preventing a man who once pleaded guilty to a murder from requesting a certificate of innocence after an investigation revealed police coerced his confession.
Justice Mary K. O’Brien wrote the opinion, filed July 18, joined by Justices P. Scott Neville, Lisa Holder White and Joy V. Cunningham. Justice Elizabeth Rochford wrote a special concurrence, joined by Justices Mary Jane Theis and David Overstreet.
The underlying issue dates to the May 1993 arrest of Wayne Washington, then 19, along with Tyrone Hood. Prosecutors charged both men with armed robbery and the murder of Marshall Morgan Jr.
Washington’s first trial ended in a hung jury and mistrial. After a judge convicted Hood and sentenced him to 75 years in prison, Washington agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a 25-year sentence.
In 2014, then-Gov. Pat Quinn commuted Hood’s sentence, a decision O’Brien linked to a New Yorker article on witness coercion. In February 2015 the state moved to vacate the convictions of both men and to grant them new trials, then abandoned the charges. Both men sought certificates of innocence, but Washington also claimed his guilty plea stemmed from coercion via physical abuse and misleading information from Chicago police officers.
Washington told the court “after he was arrested for Morgan’s murder and told the police he knew nothing about it, the detectives began to beat him, slap him in the face, and push over the chair to which both of his wrists were handcuffed,” O’Brien wrote. “The abuse continued throughout the day, and he was told he could not leave until he confessed. That night, he was given a prewritten confession and signed it because he ‘couldn’t stand the beatings any longer.’ ”
After a judge denied both men’s petitions, a First District Illinois Appellate Court panel reversed the ruling with respect to Hood and ordered the trial court to grant the certificate. But on a 2-1 vote, the panel affirmed the denial of Washington’s petition, prompting his appeal to the Supreme Court.
O’Brien said the court had to answer two questions: First, whether a guilty plea prohibits anyone from getting a certificate of innocence and second, if the first question is answered in the negative, whether Washington’s plea resulted in his conviction.
“We find nothing in the plain language of the certificate of innocence statute that precludes plea petitioners from obtaining a certificate of innocence,” O’Brien wrote. “The legislative intent, as expressed in the plain language of the statute, does not reflect a blank prohibition precluding petitioners convicted based on guilty pleas.”
Washington asked the court to agree with Appellate Justice Carl Walker, whose dissenting opinion noted the guilty plea stemmed directly from a coerced confession. O’Brien said the majority “appellate decision creates obstacles to obtain a certificate of innocence” and said whether considering abuse of judicial discretion or the manifest weight of the evidence, Washington should be given an innocence certificate.
Justice Rochford’s special concurrence said the court should’ve addressed which review standard is appropriate. O’Brien wrote in support of the general premise the Supreme Court should resolve appellate level conflicts in hopes of keeping the state’s laws applied uniformly, but added “we do not believe courts of review should resolve questions of law that are not raised, briefed and argued by the parties.”
Calling Washington’s evidence of police coercion “unrebutted and compelling,” O’Brien said the trial court improperly ignored his testimony and noted the appeals panel said it did the same regarding Hood. But she also said the appellate court erred by determining any guilty plea should bar someone from a certificate of innocence and further that Washington adequately established he is entitled to such documentation.
In her special concurrence, Rochford wrote “It is one thing for the majority to decide not to set forth a standard of review. It is quite another thing to say that it would be improper for the court to do so.” She added the court should’ve decided the proper review standard was the manifest weight of the evidence and wrote petitioners who prove their case cannot be denied an innocence certificate through judicial discretion.