Activists set to call for action on wrongful conviction cases

Chicago activists will continue efforts to lobby Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx to vacate more wrongful convictions before she leaves office in December.

"What we want them to know is we're not going to stop," said Jasmine Smith, co-chair of the Campaign to Free Innocent Survivors of Torture.

The group is planning a series of demonstrations next week, including a rally on Sept. 30 outside of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.

During her eight-year tenure Foxx has vacated as many as 253 wrongful convictions, making Illinois the state with the highest number of exonerations across the country for the past five years.

Yet, activists and Foxx herself have acknowledged that there is more work to be done to address the state's history of police, prosecutorial and judicial misconduct that has resulted in an untold number of people convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms for crimes they didn't commit.

Smith acknowledges that when Foxx revamped a wrongful conviction unit soon after taking office in 2016 – which led to an unprecedented mass exoneration of 18 people in November 2017 – it may have made her unpopular.

"She's got a lot of people mad at her," Smith said, calling on Foxx to continue the work, despite the adversity.

"Make them madder. Clear that roster of post convictions that's pending in court right now! Clear them out! That's what we want her to do," Smith said.

Foxx has vacated convictions that resulted from a pattern of police misconduct.

Foxx also established a "do not call" list in which the state's attorney's office doesn't call to testify questionable officers with misconduct in their files. In March of 2023, Foxx announced that she wouldn't seek a third term.

Innovating on the techniques set in place by former Chicago police commander Jon Burge – who from the 1970's through the 1990's led cases that resulted in more than 200 wrongful convictions secured by physical and psychological torture to elicit false confessions – Smith says Brian Forberg is among officers who represent a third generation of Chicago law enforcement officers deploying misconduct to frame people from vulnerable communities for crimes that they didn't commit.

This time it's by means of coerced false statements from witnesses.

That's what CFIST says happened almost two decades ago to brothers Lester Owens and Rico Clark, who in court documents both say that this was how the now retired Forberg secured indictments against them for unsolved shootings.

Despite an alibi, Owens was sentenced to 24 years for two charges of aggravated battery with a firearm for a 2007 shooting in the Woodlawn neighborhood.

Despite a lack of evidence, Clark was convicted of murder and sentenced to 55 years in prison.

"They are familiar with these names," Smith said.

Community members, attorneys and activists say the powers-that-be in Illinois continue to turn a blind eye to the personal relationships between police, prosecutors and judges that keep these cases from resolution.

Forberg has more than 38 allegations of misconduct filed against him. He was married to Kirsten Ann Olson, an assistant state’s attorney who before her death in 2022 worked with the post-conviction unit and the conviction review unit at the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.

"They already know about the conflicts of interests," said Sean Tyler, who served 25 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit after detectives ignored a judge's protective order after Tyler, at age 15, served as witness defending another teen detectives who served under Burge charged with murder.

In April 1994 Tyler was arrested, beaten and withheld food until he signed a false confession. At age 17, Tyler was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 58 years. In 1998, he filed a post-conviction claim.

In February 2019, Tyler was released on parole. Meanwhile, the newly convened Illinois Torture Inquiry Relief Commision found credible his claims of police torture and ordered a new trial. In 2021 prosecutors advised that they wouldn't pursue charges. In April 2024 a judge granted Tyler a certificate of innocence.

On November 5, Cook County voters will elect the next state's attorney.

All three candidates have criticized Foxx's approach to reviewing wrongful conviction claims. Smith says activists are bracing for the change.

"Getting some type of movement on these cases is going to be ten times worse," Smith said.

Making things even more of an uphill battle is the lack of support wrongful conviction activists say they have received from lawmakers.

"Except for the argument about the money that is being spent on wrongful convictions, no elected officials are really making this a top priority," Smith said.