Lawyers representing Jose Cruz in a federal civil rights case stemming from his decades-old conviction of the 1993 murder of a 16-year-old are on a “fishing expedition” to get at unrelated, yet “highly publicized” cases involving the Chicago Police Department, city attorneys argued in an August 13 response to an earlier filing by Cruz.
On August 9, Cruz’s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Gabriel Fuentes to compel the city to hand over files of depositions from unrelated wrongful conviction cases to show that the city, through “policy and practice,” covered up evidence of police misconduct. Proof that the city knew of police misconduct and did nothing to stop it would be a violation of the Monell doctrine, which binds a municipal government to protect the constitutional rights of its residents. Monell was established under a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
But the city attorneys representing former Chicago police officers named in the case said the unrelated cases “lack any relevance” to Cruz’s claims that the city, among other startling allegations, kept “secret files in homicide cases and withheld such files from criminal defendants and their attorneys.”
Jose Cruz
| Chicago City Wire
Cruz was exonerated in 2022 by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx while serving a 90-year-sentence for the murder of 16-year-old Antwane Douglas. He also served 15 years on an unrelated gun charge. In July 2023, Cruz filed a wrongful conviction suit, naming former Detective Reynaldo Guevara, former Detective Ernest Halvorsen (now deceased), former Assistant State’s Attorney Edward Maloney, the city of Chicago and others.
The Cruz complaint says that Guevara and the other officer defendants framed Cruz by “manipulating and pressuring a witness” and “fabricating police reports.”
Claims of Monell violations run through dozens of wrongful conviction lawsuits filed after those convicted were exonerated by Foxx. The current Cook County State's Attorney is responsible for over 250 since first taking office in late 2016. Many of those cases have been settled before going to trial.
One attorney not attached to the case but familiar with Monell claims said that the trial attorneys representing clients alleging wrongful conviction are using Monell as a "safety net."
“Monell is the exception to the rule that you can only sue a person,” said an attorney, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “So if by chance a police officer is found not liable, then they can fall back on Monell.”
The attorney also agreed with the response in the case, that Monell is a big "fishing expedition."
"You are looking at massive amounts of discovery involving other cases under Monell," the attorney said. "It's a way to locate other potential clients."
In the Cruz case, city attorneys earlier offered a compromise that it would agree to the release of depositions in some other cases that name Detective Guevara. The city attorneys said that Cruz’s lawyers never responded.
“To date, the City has not received a response from Plaintiff’s counsel to this reasonable, well-considered and tailored proposal,” the attorneys said. “Instead, on August 9, 2024, Plaintiff filed the aforementioned Motion to Compel Monell Deposition Transcripts of prior witnesses and cases, which is chock-full of exaggerated platitudes, baseless assumptions, unprofessional accusations and verifiable falsehoods.”
The attorneys added: “Plaintiff’s counsel even goes so far as to seek sanctions against the City on the basis that it has objected and negotiated in bad faith, all while the City’s proposed compromise remains outstanding, making this Motion a needless and vexatious waste of the Parties’ and this Court’s time.
On August 14, Judge Fuentes granted the Cruz request in part by allowing the introduction of depositions taken in some of the cases offered by city attorneys as part of their earlier compromise proposal. The judge denied the more sweeping requests.
Cruz is represented by attorneys with the firm of Chanen & Olstein.
Officer defendants in the case are being represented by Rock, Fusco & Connelly, LLC.