Lawyers battling in the wrongful conviction lawsuits of two brothers convicted of the 1994 murder of a 10-year-boy on the South Side continue to dicker over the expanse of files to be included in the discovery phase of claims that the brothers’ constitutional rights were violated in their arrest and prosecution.
The two, Sean Tyler and Reginald Henderson, who each served 27 years in prison, were exonerated in 2021 by former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. They filed wrongful conviction lawsuits in federal court in July 2023.
Lawyers for the two, including the firm Loevy & Loevy for Tyler and Jennifer Bonjean for Henderson, recently filed a motion to compel attorneys for the city of Chicago to make available a voluminous expanse of files involving past murder investigations in an attempt, they say, to show a practice of coerced confessions by police and poor training of police under the city. If true, the city, as the employer of the police, would be liable for violating the brothers’ constitutional rights—Monell Doctrine violations under the law.
Reginald Henderson (left) and Sean Tyler (right)
| Chicago Torture Justice Center (X)
“Plaintiffs have attempted in good faith to reach an agreement with the City about the discovery it can produce from previous litigation to minimize the burden to the City,” the motion said. “Unfortunately, despite repeated efforts, no agreement could be reached, and Plaintiffs are filing this motion to compel to keep this case moving forward.”
The real aim behind the request for the files, one former prosecutor told Chicago City Wire, was to find other potential civil lawsuits by digging through past murder investigations.
“It’s a fishing expedition,” the former prosecutor said.
Lawyers for the city had earlier asked the judge to separate the Monell violation claims from the claim that the Chicago police coerced the two to confess.
The lawyers argued in their motion that separating the charges will result in a quicker and less costly legal process. In addition, the lawyers maintain that win or lose, 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.”
The judge denied 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 exonerated over 250 during her time in office from 2016 to 2024. Her replacement, Eileen O’Neill Burke, was sworn in in December.
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