Chicago City Wire

The Cook County State’s Attorney office (CCSAO) said it’s willing to admit in a court declaration that its non-opposition to Certificates of Innocence (COIs) for two, Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes, convicted in a 1998 double murder “did not reflect a final determination that either Petitioner Solache or Petitioner Reyes was innocent.”

The CCSAO, headed by Kim Foxx, said in a case status report in federal court that it would agree to the declaration in lieu of not having First Assistant State’s Attorney (ASA) Risa Lanier deposed in the case. Lanier was identified in the status report as making the final decision not to oppose the awarding of the COIs to Solache and Reyes.

The case, involving an alleged wrongful conviction in the U.S. District for the Northern District of Illinois, was brought by Solache and Reyes after the CCSAO dismissed the charges in 2017 over claims the two confessed to the crimes due to police intimidation.

Attorneys representing the defendants in the case -- the city of Chicago, former lead investigating Detective Reynaldo Guevara and others – are trying to get to the bottom of why the CCSAO, which once opposed the COIs, reversed itself last November when the certificates were awarded to Solache and Reyes. They wrote in the status report that the defendants have a right to know “what facts were known to First Assistant State’s Attorney Lanier up to and at the time she made the decision regarding intervention in the COI proceedings; who First Assistant State’s Attorney Lanier spoke to regarding the COIs; and the reason(s) for the final decision to withdraw the CCSAO as intervenors in the COI proceedings, and because the CCSAO was not agreeing to these topics in the proposed declaration, that Defendants wished to proceed with the deposition of ASA Risa Lanier.”

The status report stems from an extended period of discovery requested by defense attorneys to investigate why the CCSAO office dropped its opposition to the Solache and Reyes COIs.

On May 12, presiding federal Judge Steven Seeger asked the CCSAO to explain all the intraoffice activity over the COIs.

“As an aside, this Court does not understand why the CCSAO has 20,000 emails about the Certificates of Innocence in question,” Seeger wrote. “Is that right? Are all of those emails external? How many emails does the CCSAO have with Plaintiffs' counsel, or members of his team? Has CCSAO talked with the custodians in question, and asked them if they ever told anyone why the CCSAO was dropping its opposition to the Certificates of Innocence? That's a good place to start.”

 The awarding of a COI to a once-convicted murderer means an almost certain payoff by the city in a wrongful conviction case.

Solache was sentenced to death in 2000 and Reyes to life in prison for the murders. Also convicted and sentenced to life in prison 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.

Some are still convinced that Solache and Reyes are guilty of the crimes.

“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,” Eric Sussman, former first assistant state’s attorney, told CBS Chicago when the charges against the men were dismissed in 2017. “It is a tragic day for justice in Cook County.”