Chicago City Wire

A little noticed Illinois Supreme Court ruling is a setback for plaintiffs’ firms representing clients who claim police torture in wrongful conviction lawsuits, some former Cook County assistant prosecutors told Chicago City Wire.

The February 16 ruling, a case of first impression, overrules an appellate decision in People v. Wilson, where convicted cop killer Jackie Wilson claimed he was tortured into confessing to his role in the 1982 murders of two Chicago police officers, William Fahey and Richard O’Brien.  

Last week, the Cook County Board awarded Wilson $17.5 million as part of a wrongful conviction settlement, but the legal proceedings that led to the settlement had begun years before.

Wilson’s wrongful conviction case began in 2015 when the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission (TIRC) said that his claims of torture were sufficient to warrant a new evidentiary hearing. In 2018, Cook County Judge William Hooks granted a new trial which later led to the dismissal of charges against Wilson, and the granting of a Certificate of Innocence. An appellate court in 2019 affirmed the Hooks ruling, but in Illinois v. Darrell Fair the Supreme Court overruled it.

In a 5-2 ruling, the High Court said that Hooks used an incorrect legal standard for proof of torture: Rather than require Jackie Wilson to prove his allegations of torture under the act that created TIRC, Hooks put the burden on prosecutors to disprove his claims.

“We conclude that the plain language of the Act requires the circuit court to determine whether a petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that (1) torture occurred and (2) resulted in a confession that was (3) used to obtain a conviction, not to assess the voluntariness of statements or other constitutional claims that can be raised in a post conviction petition,” the court ruled.

“To the extent a court answers these questions in the affirmative,” the court continued, “the Act provides the court with wide-ranging authority to craft an appropriate remedy to root out and ameliorate the effects of the tortured confession. We thus overrule Wilson, 2019 which adopted a contrary standard.”

Justices P. Scott Neville, Jr. and Mary Kaye O'Brien dissented.

TIRC has been a steady source of clients for plaintiffs’ attorneys filing wrongful conviction cases. The Supreme Court ruling, the former prosecutors maintain, will make it harder for the torture claims to hold up when TIRC refers the claims for new hearings.

The Illinois General Assembly created TIRC in 2009 in the wake of torture allegations against former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge. TIRC’s jurisdiction originally covered only those cases that could be tired to Burge. The act was later amended to include claims of torture against any Chicago Police officers. Legislation has been introduced to expand TIRC’s reach statewide.

TIRC’s constitutionality has been challenged in court, and last October a Will County judge came down hard on the commission.

“There is an old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I think that is absolutely appropriate when reviewing the TIRC statute,” Associate Judge David Carlson ruled on October 20 as part of a post-conviction hearing for two convicted of double murders. “The act itself skirts very closely to the edge of constitutionality. It also calls into question whether or not the TIRC statute in and of itself impugns the integrity of the judicial system of the third branch of government…”