Appellate court orders immediate release of Kevin Jackson
After more than two decades behind bars, Kevin Jackson is going home.
"Having now had the opportunity to review the briefs and hold oral argument in this case we are now of the opinion that Mr. Jackson meets the criteria for release," the panel wrote in an expedited briefing filed within days of oral arguments Oct. 1 challenging a circuit court judge's refusal to uphold an unopposed petition to vacate Jackson's conviction.
Even as the appellate court has yet to render a final decision on whether or not the circuit court abused its discretion, the panel said that the appeal raises a substantial question of law or fact likely to result in reversal or order of a new trial.
"The state did not object to Jackson's motion for release and thus we have no basis to believe that it views him not meeting the criteria" of the Illinois Code of Criminal Procedures.
Circuit court judge Angela M. Petrone on Monday took 20 minutes to explain to Johnson's family her decision to uphold his conviction, even after the State's Attorney's Office reviewed the evidence in murder charges against Jackson and signaled it wouldn't oppose vacating his conviction.
All four witnesses recanted – including a surviving witness who says Jackson wasn't the gunman in a 2001 shooting at a CITGO gas station on Chicago's south side.
Jackson, who turned 43 in August, is set to be released from a prison in downstate Illinois today, according to CBS News.
He is among more than a dozen other men who say that their confessions were coerced by detective Brian P. Forberg, who resigned from the Chicago Police Department in October 2023 following a CBS report. A case review found that at the same time that Jackson was pursuing a post-conviction case review, Forberg's wife worked as a prosecutor in a department that reviewed wrongful conviction claims.
An appellate court panel in 2023 ordered a similar immediate release for George Anderson who in 1991 confessed to two homicides. In 2014 a commission found credible his claims that police beat him with a telephone book and a rubber hose until he agreed to sign a confession written by a state prosecutor.
The State appealed the appellate court's decision and in a June 2024 order an appellate panel made the same decision.
"We again find that defendant is entitled to vacatur of his convictions and remand for new trials without the inculpatory statements....Presumption of innocence applies to him pending the new trials. We thus deny the State’s motion seeking to vacate our order releasing defendant on his own recognizance."
The State has signaled that it won't oppose vacating Jackson's conviction. It is unclear whether or not the State will seek to retry Anderson.
Stay tuned for updates.
