Under the pressure of a lawsuit, State's attorney Kim Foxx has agreed to turn over documents surrounding numerous wrongful conviction cases that Chicago City Wire requested through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Foxx’s office promised to comply on January 30 before two Cook County judges, months after the initial FOIA requests and the five business days the law allows for a response.
In May and June of 2023, City Wire filed separate FOIA requests for all documents related to the exonerations of cases tied to retired Detective Reynaldo Guevara, and documents related to the exonerations in 2022 of brothers Juan and Rosendo Hernandez, convicted of a 1997 murder.
On January 30, Foxx’s office sent over 3,000 pages related to the cases of the Hernandez brothers, and promised the additional Guevara documents within weeks.
City Wire has been investigating unanswered questions surrounding a host of exonerations originating from Foxx’s office.
In one case, investigated by Guevara, Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes were convicted of the 1998 murders of a husband and wife and the kidnapping of their children. Solache was initially sentenced to death and DeLeon-Reyes to life in prison. Charges against both were dropped in 2017, and they filed wrongful conviction lawsuits in 2018. Both claimed that Guevara coerced them into confessing.
In a controversial move, Foxx’s office, without explanation, reversed its opposition to Certificates of Innocence (COI) for the men in November 2022. A COI presents a powerful argument for winning an award in a civil case.
This, even though a third accomplice in the murders, Adriana Mejia, maintained for years that all three were involved in the murders.
In addition, one former assistant State’s Attorney Eric Sussman told CBS Chicago in 2017 when the charges were dropped: “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. It is a tragic day for justice in Cook County.”
Sussman, now in private practice, told Chicago City Wire in an email for an earlier story that he "certainly didn't believe that he [Guevara] coerced confessions in that case."
During the wrongful conviction cases, Foxx’s office said that it was willing to admit in a court declaration that its reversal on the COIs “did not reflect a final determination that either Petitioner Solache or Petitioner Reyes was innocent.”
The office offered the declaration in lieu of having Foxx assistant Risa Lanier deposed. Attorneys representing the defendants in the case -- the city of Chicago, Guevara and others – balked. They said that the declaration offered by Lanier did not get to the bottom of why the office reversed itself.
The documents requested by City Wire may shed light on the motivations behind the reversal on Solache/Reyes COIs and controversies surrounding numerous additional wrongful conviction cases.
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