Chicago City Wire

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is objecting to being deposed in the federal wrongful conviction case of Jose Cruz, a man she exonerated in 2022 for the 1993 murder of a 16-year-old.

An attorney for some of the police defendants in the case, Lisa Meador, told U.S. District Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes in an August 30 attempt to resolve a dispute over deliberative process—or shielding of internal government processes from civil litigation—that the State’s Attorney’s Office has “indicated an objection” to a deposition subpoena.

“…she [Foxx] engaged in communications directly with Mr. Cruz,” Meador said according to a transcript of the discussions, “and we believe that there's substantial deliberative process privilege waived, and so, you know, there's a lot of confusion on our part as to what the intent is on exactly the deliberative process privilege to be raised here, if I can just add that.”

Meador added that they were working with Foxx’s office to resolve the dispute.

Cruz was serving a 90-year-sentence for the 1993 murder of Atwane Douglas when Foxx exonerated him. He also served 15 years on an unrelated gun charge. In July 2023, Cruz filed a wrongful conviction suit, naming former Detective Reynaldo Guevara, former Detective Ernest Halvorsen (now deceased), former Assistant State’s Attorney Edward Maloney, the city of Chicago and others.

In June 2022, just before Cruz’s exoneration, Foxx visited him in Stateville prison where he was serving his time. In a video posted on the State’s Attorney’s website, Cruz said that the visit was the result of a chance encounter.

Foxx was at the prison that day to speak to graduates of the North Park University School of Restorative Arts.

Cruz said that he gained access to the ceremony with the help of a prison chaplain and happened to meet Foxx by a water fountain.

In the meeting, Foxx told Cruz that just the day before, her office had discussed his post-conviction review case.

Cruz said he met Foxx again by the door at the conclusion of the ceremony.

“She called me over,” Cruz said. “Gave me a hug and said, ‘God bless you; you’re going home.’”

A month later Cruz walked out of Stateville a free man.

Foxx’s discussion of the case with Cruz was a violation of Illinois Supreme Court rules covering communications with another attorney’s client, former assistant prosecutors said about the meeting.

Supreme Court Rule 4.2 states:

“In representing a client, a lawyer shall not communicate about the subject of the representation with a person the lawyer knows to be represented by another lawyer in the matter, unless the lawyer has the consent of the other lawyer or is authorized to do so by law or a court order.”

Cruz’s journey to freedom was initiated by Gregory Swygert, a professor of law at Northwestern University. In 2018 Swygert filed Cruz’s post-conviction petition; he was still representing Cruz upon his release from prison.

Swygert did not respond to an earlier request from Chicago City Wire about whether he had given Foxx permission to discuss the post-conviction petition with Cruz.