Chicago City Wire

In a wrongful conviction lawsuit, a federal judge rejected a motion by attorneys for retired Chicago police detectives and the city of Chicago to bifurcate (separate) claims by brothers Reginald Henderson and Sean Tyler, who were convicted of the 1994 year murder of a ten-year-old boy. 

One claim by the brothers is that the detectives framed them for the murder; the other is that the city of Chicago violated their constitutional rights by not intervening and stopping patterns of abuse by the police and prosecutors—Monell violations under the law.

The judge’s ruling is likely to result in a massive discovery process involving city documents that go back decades.

“For the reasons stated on the record, City Defendants' joint motion to bifurcate Plaintiff's Monell claims for trial is denied without prejudice to renewal closer to a trial date, and City Defendants' joint motion to stay discovery on Plaintiff's Monell claims is denied,” Judge Georgia Alexakis of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois said in her November 19 ruling.

“The parties are directed to file a joint status report regarding their progress on fact discovery by 2/18/25, although the Court is available to resolve any discovery disputes that may arise before then.”

Lawyers for the officers and the city contend that the discovery process in the case would be voluminous and time-consuming, needlessly delaying the trial against the officers.

“Plaintiffs’ initial discovery requests seek a broad swath of documents,” the attorneys wrote in a November 8 memo to the court.

It would include “all Chicago Police Department (“CPD”) disciplinary records from September 30, 1990-October 1, 1996 all documents related to homicide investigations from 1983-1996; all documents related to homicide investigations from 1983-1996 which involve any claim of actual or alleged withholding of exculpatory or impeaching information from a criminal defendant.”

It would also include “complaint files against any CPD officer from 1984-2004 alleging dishonest behavior, lying under oath, witness manipulation, improper behavior during interrogations or interviews, use of improperly suggestive, coercive, or torturous methods on suspects, arrestees, or witnesses, use of excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution, fabrication or planting of evidence, concealment or suppression of evidence, use of unduly suggestive visual or voice identification procedures, and lawsuits or administrative complaints filed in state or federal courts or agencies alleging police or prosecutorial misconduct.”

Henderson and Tyler were convicted of the 1994 murder of ten-year-old Rodney Collins in the Back of the Yards, and were imprisoned for 25 years before Foxx vacated their convictions in 2021.

The brothers claimed, and stated in their wrongful conviction lawsuit, that former Detectives Kenneth Boudreau and James O’Brien framed them 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 told Chicago City Wire for earlier stories on the case. He also called the granting of Certificates of Innocence to Tyler and Henderson in April of this year “one hundred percent pathetic.”

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 false confessions. Burge died in 2018.

Foxx has exonerated over 250 since taking office in late 2016. Many were based on claims by inmates of police abuse, including the framing of suspects to win convictions for the murders.

Foxx announced in April 2023 that she is not running for re-election. On November 5 Democratic Eileen O’Neill Burke won the election for State’s Attorney. She ran on a tough-on-crime platform, and law enforcement and former prosecutors are hopeful that future exonerations will be based on new evidence and not claims of abuse and fabrication of evidence.