In what plaintiffs' attorneys call the largest police misconduct settlement in U.S. history, Chicago agrees to compensate 17 men whose murder convictions were overturned after decades behind bars. The Chicago City Council approved a $260.8 million settlement on October 14 to resolve 16 federal lawsuits brought by
The season premiere raises troubling questions about prosecutorial discretion and how far investigators should go to secure a conviction. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is one of the longest-running crime shows in television history, but I hadn't paid much attention to it until a couple of
Nearly 27 years after Joseph Ward was killed, Ivy Kelly is preparing for a second murder trial. A Sept. 29 pretrial hearing offered a preview of how different that trial could be. When Ivy Kelly returns to trial next month on charges that he participated in the 1999 murder of
From watching jury trials to working FOIAs, veteran trial lawyers school journalists on who holds power in the U.S. legal system Joel Collins has stood in hundreds of courtrooms during his more than half-century as a South Carolina attorney, but one conviction has remained constant — his faith in
What happens when the initial charge and the resolution tell radically different stories about the same conduct? For nearly four years, Cook County prosecutors maintained that Keshia Golden committed first-degree murder when she fatally stabbed her boyfriend, Calvin Sidney. On Monday, they were finally scheduled to prove it. Instead,
This morning, the Chicago Sun-Times published an investigation into Ivy Kelly's decades-long fight to clear his name. According to prosecutors, Kelly and a co-defendant fatally shot Joseph Ward on Dec. 10, 1999. At Kelly's 2003 bench trial, the State's case relied
Last week I expressed my dismay over a recent development in one of the cases I've been following. A man who had just been released from pretrial detention was returned to custody. The allegation: He violated the terms of his parole by visiting the Facebook page of the
As we approach the Fourth of July holiday, I've been following a case that has only deepened my unease about how easily justice and freedom can be derailed in Cook County. At the beginning of June, someone at the center of one of the cases I've
Lawmakers and advocates say the reforms will improve oversight, staffing, and fairness in courtroom proceedings. On a Sunday evening at 6 p.m. two patrol officers stopped him, searched his car, and handcuffed him, telling him he needed to come to the station. A detective, they said, wanted to “talk”
From Easter Visits to Daily Letters: The Jackson Family and the Human Dimensions of Incarceration At a press conference Wednesday, Jesse Jackson Jr. reminded the crowd of the breadth of experiences that make up the life and times of his father, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson. “His life is broad
The eldest of five children, Thaddeus L. Wilson was raised in rural South Carolina, where he drove a tractor on his uncle’s farm and worked long days in the fields. He was active in school and church. “I played piano for the church choir, was captain of the high
In this week’s edition of the Cook County Courtroom Observer, I want to highlight the work of CBS Chicago investigative journalist Dorothy Tucker. The year 2025 marks her 40th year as a reporter in Chicago. Her skill at uncovering injustice is on display in her most recent investigation. For