Chicago City Wire

Lawyers for the city of Chicago, named in a wrongful conviction lawsuit brought by exonerated brothers Sean Tyler and Reginald Henderson, are accusing lawyers for the brothers of trying to draw the emotionally charged allegations of torture against former CPD Commander Jon Burge into their lawsuits filed in federal court in 2023.

Convicted of the 1994 murder of ten-year-old Rodney Collins, the brothers claimed they were beaten into confessing by detectives who were proteges of Burge. Burge, now deceased, was convicted in 2010 of federal charges of perjury and obstruction of justice surrounding allegations he tortured suspects. Dozens of wrongful conviction lawsuits filed over the past two decades have attempted to connect defendant detectives with Burge.

Lawyers for the city and Tyler and Henderson are now locked in a battle over the period of time needed to show through discovery whether the city, as the employer of the police, had engaged in practices that led to the brothers’ constitutional rights being violated – Monell claims.

Former Chicago Police Detective Kenneth Boudreau | Screenshot from Fox32 Chicago

The city is asking the court to limit the time periods for discovery from 1991 to 1996—Tyler was convicted in 1996; Henderson in 1996—but that the lawyers for the plaintiffs keep changing the time frame.

“Plaintiff’s position on Monell discovery is a moving target—repeatedly walking back both their representations to this Court and agreement with the City on critical issues, creating great difficulty in reaching accord,” city lawyers said. “To be sure, it is Plaintiffs who are engaged in gamesmanship, not the City.”

The lawyers added that, “notwithstanding Plaintiffs’ advocacy here for a 1989-1996 Monell period here, they plainly intend to litigate ‘the Jon Burge era in these cases in the same manner as was done in Hood/Washington [Tyrone Hood and Wayne Washington exonerated of a 1993 murder]. Their Complaints target Burge’s alleged connection with Defendant Officers with completely unsubstantiated allegations that the officers electroshocked suspects as Burge was found to have done, and their 26(a)(1) disclosures are virtually identical to the Burge-era documents relied on in Hood/Washington, extending far beyond ostensibly providing ‘notice of the City’s alleged ‘coerced confession’ practice.”

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 told Chicago City Wire for an earlier story that he had minimal involvement in the case. Moreover, he served under Burge’s command briefly and had few encounters with him.

He called the granting of Certificates of Innocence to Tyler and Henderson, granted last April, in April “one hundred percent pathetic.”

A former Cook County prosecutor told Chicago City Wire that a Monell discovery process in the case could 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.”

Foxx exonerated over 250 over her eight-year tenure. Many based on claims of police torture and prosecutorial misconduct. Settlements in wrongful conviction lawsuits based on the claims have cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars.