Chicago City Wire

For the fifth straight year, the city of Chicago has led all U.S. cities in the number of criminal exonerations of wrongful convictions in 2022, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.

The Center Square reported that Cook County recorded 124 exonerations in 2022, all but two of those tied to former Chicago Police Sgt. Ronald Watts and Detective Reynaldo Guevara. All but one of the suspects were black or Latino, and at least four people were exonerated twice, according to the report.

"The wrongful convictions have come at a financial price, with Chicago taxpayers paying out about $98 million to settle lawsuits alleging police misconduct in 2022 and some $82 million being set aside as part of the city’s 2023 budget to cover the cost of resolving legal actions taken against the department," the report read. "In September, the Chicago City Council agreed to pay $9 million to a man who was exonerated after spending more than two decades in prison for a murder he has since been found to have not committed."

Newly sworn-in Mayor Brandon Johnson has vowed to reform the Chicago Police Department, which remains under the control of a federal judge and a consent decree until at least 2027 following a 2017 investigation that found a pattern within the department of officers violating the Constitutional rights of blacks and Latinos, the Center Square Reported.

In all, 97 of the exonerations from 2022 were linked to a pool of officers that included Watts, and 212 convictions tied to Watts and others who patrolled the Ida B. Wells housing project have been overturned over the past six years, the report said. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx told the Center Square that 14 people were exonerated who were convicted after being arrested by Watts and others in his unit in 2021.

Meanwhile, another 25 exonerations were tied to Guevara in 2022, and a judge ruled in 2017 that he routinely lied under oath, according to the report.