Chicago City Wire

Attorneys defending former city detectives in a wrongful conviction case are arguing for the allowance of gang affiliation, and witness intimidation, as evidence in the trial.

In the case, Wayne Washington and Tyrone Hood, convicted in the 1993 murder of college student Marshall Morgan Jr., both had their convictions vacated as part of a string of exonerations beginning under former Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, and continuing under Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Fox. Both Hood and Washington later sued in federal court for damages.

In a recent motion, defense attorneys asked federal Judge John Kness to allow them to present evidence of witness intimidation, implicit, they say, with gang affiliation. The legal strategy is similar to one in a separate wrongful conviction case - Arnold Day, convicted in the 1991 murder of Jerrod Erving on the South Side. Day’s conviction was vacated by a judge in 2018 following a request by Foxx’s office. In Day’s civil suit for damages, defense attorneys are likewise seeking to present as evidence that gang associates of Day intimidated witnesses into recanting testimony.

Chicago Police Department

One of the former detectives named in both cases, Kenneth Boudreau, told Chicago City Wire that the gangs “are the main drivers of intimidating witnesses and having the witnesses recant. Then they start false allegations not only against detectives but the state's attorneys. “

“They are alive and well in their organization at the IDOC [Department of Corrections],” he added.

The defense’s motion in the Washington/Hood case noted that at the time of the Morgan murder Washington was "undeniably a member of the Black P Stones or ‘Blackstones’" street gang.

The motion argues that one witness, Jody Rogers, recanted his testimony because he and his family were threatened by a member of Washington’s gang. Rogers was subsequently beaten in Cook County jail before Washington’s criminal trial.

Hood was also fearful of Washington and the Blackstones, the motion says.

Legal precedence exists to include gang affiliation as evidence in both the Washington/Hood and the Day trials.

“The Seventh Circuit [U.S. Court of Appeals] recognizes that gang evidence is admissible to show conspiracy between gang members, bias, for impeachment, and to explain inconsistencies in witness statements due to fear of gang retaliation,” the defense motion states.

If successful, the legal strategy by the defense could play out in other trials where Boudreau, his former partner Jack Halloran and other detectives are named in wrongful conviction cases over their past association with former Commander Jon Burge. Burge, now deceased, was accused of torturing suspects. He was eventually convicted of perjury charges and spent two and a half years in jail.

Boudreau has even been characterized in the media as a Burge protégé. But for an earlier story, Boudreau noted that he worked under Burge for only a few months, and had almost no contact with his former supervisor.

In fact, a separate motion by the defense in the Hood case argued that Hood’s 2015 exoneration was based not on new evidence of police intimidation, but rather on “an intense media campaign.”

In yet another civil case naming Boudreau, city attorneys deposed former prosecutors about their decision not to retry Nevest Coleman and Darryl Fulton for the 1994 rape and murder of Antwinica Bridgeman. In their court filings, the city attorneys allege that Foxx’s top prosecutors did not believe Coleman and Fulton were innocent, nor did they believe the detectives engaged in any misconduct in the case.

Both Boudreau and Halloran have denied allegations of abuse in the cases, and say they are willing to go to trial to clear their names.