Chicago City Wire

A federal judge presiding over the wrongful conviction cases of two convicted of a 1998 double murder has ordered both parties in the cases “to put their pencils down” to stop the number of briefs filed from climbing any higher.

“So far, the parties have filed 109 pages of briefs, supported by 7,041 pages of exhibits,” Judge Steven Seeger of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District wrote in his May 14 order. “This Court has started to calculate whether that number is greater than the number of windows on the Dirksen Federal Building. Before that number goes up, the parties need to put their pencils down. The briefing schedule on the motions for summary judgment is hereby stayed.”

The judge set an in-person hearing for May 24, 2024, at 11:00 a.m. so that the court can “set a workable path forward.”

The two wrongful conviction lawsuits were filed by Arturo DeLeon-Reyes in February 2018, and Gabriel Solache in March 2018. Both claimed that retired Detective Reynaldo Guevara beat team them into confessing to the stabbing deaths of 43-year-old Mariano Soto and his 35-year-old wife, Jacinta, and the abduction of their two children in Bucktown.

In 2000, Solache was sentenced to death and Reyes to life for the murders. In 2017, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx vacated their convictions. Also convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murders was 23-year-old Adriana Mejia who presented the kidnapped two-month-old child as her own. Mejia, who remains imprisoned, maintained for many years that all three were involved in the murders.

In 2021, Foxx’s office dropped its opposition to Certificates of Innocence (COIs) for the two men.

One of the briefs in the case filed by defense attorneys tried to get to the bottom of why Foxx reversed the office’s stance on the COIs.

Per the motion: “Until November 2022, the CCSAO’s position was consistent and unequivocal: Solache and Reyes were guilty. What is not clear, is how, when and on what record, that position changed. In addition, based on Mejia’s continued insistence for 25 years that Solache and Reyes helped her savagely murder the Soto parents and kidnap their children, Defendants had every reason to believe that the CCSAO would continue to oppose the COIs and that they would be denied.”

One former assistant State’s Attorney Eric Sussman telling CBS Chicago when the charges were dropped: “There is no doubt in my mind, or the mind of anyone who has worked on this case, that Mr. Solache and Mr. Reyes are guilty of these crimes. It is a tragic day for justice in Cook County.”

In addition, Sussman, now in private practice, told Chicago City Wire in an email for an earlier story that he "certainly didn't believe that he [Guevara] coerced confessions in that case."

The law firm representing DeLeon-Reyes is Loevy & Loevy; the People’s Law Office is representing Solache.  

Foxx has vacated over 250 since she first taking office in late 2016. Last April, she announced she would not seek another term. Last month, Eileen O’Neill Burke won the Democratic nomination for state’s attorney over Clayton Harris III, a candidate endorsed by Foxx and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. Burke faces off against Republican Bob Fioretti and Libertarian Andrew Charles Kopinski in the November General Elections.