Chicago City Wire

In yet another wrongful conviction case set in motion by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, city attorneys are asking a federal judge to bifurcate charges that the city violated the constitutional rights of two convicted murderers from allegations in the lawsuit of torture by Chicago police officers. 

The plaintiffs in the wrongful conviction suit filed in 2023 are brothers Reginald Henderson and Sean Tyler. They were convicted of the 1994 murder of ten-year-old Rodney Collins in the Back of the Yards, and imprisoned for 25 years before Foxx vacated their convictions in 2021.

City attorneys are asking the judge to isolate Monell claims – the failure of a municipal government to protect an individual’s constitutional rights—made by the brothers from the claims of police misconduct. In their motion, the lawyers argue that separation of the charges will result in a quicker and less costly legal process. In addition, the lawyers maintain that win or lose the case against police officers, the brothers will not be compensated on the Monell claims.

“But trial of the Monell claims asserted by Plaintiffs ultimately will be unnecessary under any circumstances,” the lawyers said. “If Defendant Officers are found not liable, there will be no basis to impose Monell liability on the City, for the reasons explained above. And if Defendant Officers are found liable, Plaintiffs have no economic incentive to proceed against the City. As a matter of law, Plaintiffs are not entitled to recover any additional compensatory damages if they prevail on their Monell claims after a finding of liability against Defendant Officers.”

They are also asking for a stay in discovery on the Monell claims.

Lawyers for Henderson and Tyler oppose the bifurcation.

A former Cook County prosecutor told Chicago City Wire that a Monell discovery process in the case would be “voluminous.”

“You could be going 30 years into city practices,” the former prosecutor said. “Their lawyers [for Henderson and Tyler] are probably on a fishing expedition for future cases.”

Federal Judge Thomas Durkin has set August 2 for plaintiffs’ lawyers to respond to the motion.

The Tyler and Henderson civil complaints tell of an elaborate scheme, citing former Detectives Kenneth Boudreau and James O’Brien, to frame the brothers as part of a vendetta stemming from Tyler’s testimony for the defense in a separate shooting case.

But Boudreau had minimal involvement in the case. He and other former detectives have become targets in dozens of wrongful conviction lawsuits due to a past association with former Commander Jon Burge, who in 2010 was convicted of perjury surrounding allegations that he tortured suspects into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit. Burge died in 2018.

For an earlier story, Boudreau called the granting of Certificates of Innocence to Tyler and Henderson in April of this year “one hundred percent pathetic.”

Foxx has exonerated over 250 since taking office in late 2016. She announced in April 2023 that she is not running for re-election. In November Democratic nominee Eileen O’Neill Burke faces off against Republican Bob Fioretti and Libertarian Andrew Charles Kopinski to replace her.