W.J. Kennedy Stories | Chicago City Wire

Activists target law enforcement tool valued by Chicago police and other law enforcement agencies around the country

By W.J. Kennedy | Mar 30, 2023

A class action lawsuit against the city of Chicago over its use of a technology, ShotSpotter, that detects the sounds of gun shots and immediately notifies police, is at odds with law enforcement’s, and the community’s, endorsement of it.

Legal authority of torture relief commission challenged in wrongful conviction cases

By W.J. Kennedy | Mar 27, 2023

The very legal authority of an obscure state-level commission created to address claims of police torture is under fire in two wrongful conviction cases naming a former Chicago police detective.

Sheriffs consistent in opposition to ban of so-called assault weapons says Second Amendment advocate

By W.J. Kennedy | Mar 24, 2023

A leading guns rights advocate has taken issued with a Chicago Tribune story saying that the Illinois Sherriff Association has flipped its position regarding the new law banning so-called assault weapons.

Plaintiffs’ firm asks city to stand down in wrongful conviction cases

By W.J. Kennedy | Mar 23, 2023

A powerful plaintiffs’ firm this week announced it had filed 11 more wrongful conviction cases, and asked the city to settle them, not fight these and other cases alleging police brutality now percolating in the courts.

Plaintiffs’ firm, on record as engineering a media campaign in a wrongful conviction case, accuses former investigating detective of waging campaign of his own

By W.J. Kennedy | Mar 21, 2023

A plaintiffs’ firm that orchestrated a media campaign to help further a wrongful conviction case surrounding the 1993 murder of a college basketball star is accusing a former detective, who investigated the murder, of launching a media campaign of its own.

Exoneration industry churns on in Cook County; Man convicted of killing two children to get new trial

By W.J. Kennedy | Mar 17, 2023

Two recent legal developments shows that the exoneration industry, with the prospect of big paydays for once convicted murderers and their attorneys, is going strong in Cook County.

'Zero deterrence' against crime is real world side of argument over constitutionality of cashless bail

By W.J. Kennedy | Mar 15, 2023

The reckoning is at hand for the cashless bail provision in the General Assembly’s overhaul of the criminal justice system, the SAFE-T Act approved in the Democratically controlled legislature with no debate late last year.

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Big win for Chicago police in lawsuit charging police accountability board with overstepping its bounds in officer-involved death investigations

By W.J. Kennedy | Mar 10, 2023

The chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) can be deposed as part of a lawsuit brought by Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 alleging COPA’s investigations into shooting deaths involving police officers are unlawful.

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Foxx owes her survival in office to a vague state law, and powerful political allies

By W.J. Kennedy | Mar 9, 2023

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s recent move to fire a soft-on-crime circuit attorney is a public safety check that the attorneys general in many states have over their regional prosecutors.

Former Gov. Pat Quinn facing his own trial of sorts in wrongful conviction case

By W.J. Kennedy | Mar 3, 2023

A key part of a wrongful conviction case against former city detectives is coming back to haunt former Gov. Pat Quinn.

Gun sales spike after summer of 'mostly peaceful protests,' passage of SAFE-T Act passage

By W.J. Kennedy | Mar 1, 2023

Sales of firearms in Illinois spiked with the onset of the Covid lockdowns and the Chicago riots over the summer of 2020, and again late last year, just before the SAFE-T Act with its cashless bail system, went into effect in the new year.

Reporters willing participants in contrived media campaign that freed convicted killer: city attorneys

By W.J. Kennedy | Feb 28, 2023

City attorneys representing former Chicago police detectives in a wrongful conviction case blasted the reporters from the New Yorker magazine, NBC Chicago and other news outlets for pushing a narrative that one of the convicted killers of a college basketball star in 1993 was innocent of the crime

Admit evidence that gang member pressured key witness to recant testimony in murder of college basketball star, city attorneys say

By W.J. Kennedy | Feb 23, 2023

A key witness in the 1993 murder of college basketball start Marshall Morgan Jr. was pressured by a gang member to recant his testimony, and that evidence should be allowed in a civil trial brought by two men later exonerated of the crime, city attorneys argued in a motion recently filed in federal court.

City attorneys seek answers from Kim Foxx's office in brutal double murder case

By W.J. Kennedy | Feb 23, 2023

City attorneys representing former Chicago police officers are trying to pull back the curtain on why in November the Cook County State’s Attorney’s reversed its opposition to the granting of Certificates of Innocence (COI) to two convicted of the 1998 brutal murders of a husband and wife, and the kidnapping of their children.

Woman who nearly killed police officer gets bail conditions reduced to simple nighttime curfew

By W.J. Kennedy | Feb 16, 2023

In what one criminal justice scholar called “absolute craziness,” a Cook County judge last week eased bail conditions from an ankle monitor to a nighttime curfew for a woman who nearly killed a police officer in June.

Rats and needles hot election issue in Rogers Park Aldermanic race

By W.J. Kennedy | Feb 14, 2023

Some residents adjacent to Touhy Park feel like prisoners in their own homes, surrounded by rats, public drug use and threatening behavior that they blame on a year-and-a half old homeless encampment in the park.

Ald. Rodriguez slammed for identifying offender shot by police as 'victim'

By W.J. Kennedy | Feb 10, 2023

Samie Martinez, who is challenging Alderwoman Rossana Rodriquez (33 Ward), slammed her for characterizing an offender shot by police in Irving Park on Wednesday as a “victim.”

Ald. Maria Hadden hit with ethics complaint over alleged inside deal in licensing of two liquor stores

By W.J. Kennedy | Feb 7, 2023

Alderman Maria Hadden (49th) was hit with allegations of multiple ethics code violations for wielding her political influence to license two packaged good liquor stores in areas in her Rogers Park ward under a moratorium.

Police recruits to receive instruction on controversial wrongful conviction cases

By W.J. Kennedy | Feb 3, 2023

The instructor of a new wrongful convictions course for Illinois police recruits said he was unaware that many of the higher profile cases have been criticized as being short on findings of new evidence and long on hyped-up media reports.

Charges of racism leveled at Black high school teachers in complaint surrounding hanging of black Chicago Bears doll

By W.J. Kennedy | Jan 31, 2023

The attorney for suspended high school teacher Carl Pasowicz filed a blistering five count complaint in Cook County Circuit Court against his colleagues at the Whitney Young Magnet High School over the hanging of a black Chicago Bears doll from a cord in his classroom.

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