Chicago City Wire

One of the speakers at an upcoming wrongful conviction symposium hosted by DePaul University College of Law is a former Chicago Tribune investigative reporter whose 1999 series on wrongful convictions was eviscerated at the time by prosecutors for its inaccuracies and flawed research.

The Tribune series “Trial & Error” by Maurice Possley and Ken Armstrong ignited the wrongful conviction movement in Cook County and eventually nationwide, former Cook County prosecutors told Chicago City Wire. Over the past ten years, city taxpayers have paid out millions in wrongful conviction settlements stemming from cases filed in civil court. Possley, now with the National Registry of Exonerations, is scheduled to speak at the March 7 event.

One former prosecutor, Joshua Marquis, who was co-chair of the Media Relations Committee of the National District Attorneys Association when the series was published, told Chicago City Wire that the association hired a recent law school graduate to dive into nearly 400 convictions the Tribune claimed were wrongful convictions.

“We then relied on actual court opinions, not bar-room gossip,” Marquis wrote in an email. “We discovered that over 50% of the cases where the TRIBUNE had claimed ‘exoneration’ were in fact guilty pleas, plea bargains to lesser degrees of homicide or other resolutions that could not possibly fit any definition of ‘exoneration.’”

“In about 15% of the cases,” he continued, “the defendants were ultimately convicted of the original charges (sometimes after years of appeals) and even more disturbing in slightly more than 10% of the cases we could find no official records detailing what ever happened with the cases."

The "Trial & Error" series and a later Tribune series, “Failure of the Death Penalty in Illinois,” by Armstrong and Steve Mills, were finalists for a Pulitzer Prize in 2000 but did not win. The NDAA, the Illinois State’s Attorneys Association, and Cook County prosecutors blistered the reporting in a letter to the Pulitzer Prize Board. Marquis said that he couldn’t be sure if the letter influenced the Board’s decision.

Possley did not respond to a request from City Wire for comment but in 2003 wrote to the editor of the Chicago Reader protesting articles by Reader reporter Mike Miner, who quoted Marquis extensively about the flaws in the Tribune reporting.

Possley wrote that Miner never reached out to him for a chance at rebuttal.

“Rather than rebut him [Marquis] point by point, I will just say that Mr. Marquis is incorrect in each and every way,” Possley wrote. “He engages in exaggeration and broad generalizations.”

Also scheduled to speak at the DePaul symposium is the head of Kim Foxx’s Conviction Review Unit, Michelle Mbekeani, who was recently banned by Cook County Judge Michael McHale from his courtroom for running a side business that connect inmates claiming innocence with defense attorneys.

Not included among the list of speakers is anyone who has questioned the legitimacy of many wrongful conviction cases as being driven by activists and plaintiffs’ attorneys, capitalizing and enriching themselves, from anti-police sentiment.

Chicago City Wire has covered some of these cases; the stories include interviews with former detectives and prosecutors who insist that the police investigations were sound, and those convicted were guilty of their crimes. As previously reported, Cook County's post-conviction process has Illinois leading the nation in exonerations.

Law School Dean Jennifer Rosato Perea did not respond to an earlier City Wire inquiry asking why the symposium does not include a speaker with opposing views.