Chicago City Wire

Cook County Judge Williams Hooks, suspended in late June from judicial duties, could be called to testify in the criminal trials of former assistant prosecutors Andrew Horvat and Nick Trutenko scheduled to begin in mid-October, sources say.

Horvat and Trutenko were indicted last December surrounding the second prosecution of Jackie Wilson in 1989 for his role in the 1982 murders of police officers William Fahey and Richard O’Brien. In the trial, Wilson was acquitted of the O’Brien murder but convicted a second time of the murder of Fahey, and again sentenced to life in prison.

In late June, the Cook County Circuit Court executive committee ordered an investigation by the court system’s Judicial Inquiry Board into allegations that Hooks made racist remarks and tampered with witnesses. The committee assigned Hooks to duties other than judicial duties.

It was Hooks who in 2018 ordered yet another trial for Wilson on the grounds that his confession for his role in the murder was coerced by police. Hooks also ordered Wilson released on bond that same year.

In his ruling ordering the new trial, Hooks cited the legacy of former Commander Jon Burge who in 2010 was convicted in federal court of charges of obstruction of justice and perjury surrounding allegations that he tortured suspects into making false confessions. 

“The abhorrence of basic rights of suspects by Mr. Burge and his underlings has been costly to the taxpayers, the wrongfully convicted, and worst of all, the dozens of victims and their families who have suffered untold grief —in many cases, a 30-plus year horror story,” Hooks wrote.

Yet in another 2020 case Hooks rejected George Anderson’s claim that  he was beaten into confessing to the 1991 murders of two children in Englewood.

In his ruling, Hooks said that Anderson had provided no medical evidence to show injuries from the alleged beatings.

Hooks also said that Anderson’s claims of abuse were a “failed attempt to paint himself as a victim” of police torture. He denied Anderson’s claims of abuse and refused to vacate his conviction.

In addition, Hooks wrote that no evidence existed in the Anderson case, or any others, that former detectives Kenneth Boudreau and Jack Halloran ever abused Anderson, or any other suspects cited as examples by Anderson’s lawyers. 

Numerous media reports have linked Boudreau and Halloran to Burge, even though they worked under this command for a brief time, and Boudreau told Chicago City Wire for an earlier story they he never had direct contact with Burge.