Chicago City Wire

Chicago police officers named in the wrongful conviction lawsuit of convicted murderer Arnold Day have filed a motion in federal court for summary judgement (dismissal of charges) against them on the heels of a summary judgement for others named in the lawsuit.

On April 21, retired Detective Kenneth Boudreau and others asked U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis for the Northern District for summary judgement on charges levelled at them by Day’s attorneys, charges including fabrication of evidence, Brady violation claims, or withholding of material evidence, and violations of Day's fourth amendment rights—unreasonable search and seizures. On April 25, the defendants filed a memorandum in support of the motion. 

The original motion for dismissal came just four days after Judge Ellis ruled on April 17 that charges against other detectives, including James Brennan and Michael Kill, are "dismissed with prejudiced with no admission of fault or liability."

One former prosecutor told Chicago City Wire in an email: “Yes, when case dismissed always good!. With prejudice just means they cannot refile. It means it was dismissed for an issue that can't be resolved with amended filing, or correcting a claim. It means no case against those guys.”

“Now question is,” the former prosecutor added, “why were they brought in? Can they now sue for being sued? Not sure, but it's good.”

Day was convicted of the 1991 murder of 16-year-old Jerold Irving on the South Side. He was sentenced to 60 years but was released in 2018 when the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office under Foxx dropped charges on claims that his civil rights were violated. He filed his wrongful conviction lawsuit in November 2019.

Day’s case is one of dozens of questionable exonerations under Foxx during her eight-year tenure in office, some on the basis of claims that detectives named in the wrongful conviction lawsuits had ties with former Commander Jon Burge, who was convicted in 2010 of perjury in a civil lawsuit surrounding allegations that he tortured suspects. Burge died in 2018.

Boudreau and his former partner Jack Halloran have been named in a series of wrongful conviction lawsuits over their brief association with Burge.

Boudreau has even been characterized in the media as a Burge protégé. But Boudreau worked under Burge for only a few months, and had almost no contact with his former supervisor, he told Chicago City Wire in an earlier story. 

In the Day case, a Cook County judge in 2019 vacated a Certificate of Innocence (COI) for after Boudreau’s attorneys argued that the original COI was “rubber stamped”; no evidence was ever presented to show that he was innocent of the murder. The attorney also noted that after his arrest in 1992 Day denied that Boudreau had ever mistreated him.

For his part, Boudreau has also repeatedly denied ever physically abusing or intimidating Day.

City payouts for those filing wrongful conviction lawsuits since 2020 now exceed $700 million and climbing.

In March, the plaintiffs’ firm of Loevy & Loevy won a $120 million jury verdict for John Fulton and Anthony Mitchell in their wrongful conviction case against the City of Chicago. It was the largest wrongful conviction settlement in history. The two were convicted of the 2003 murder of 18-year-old Christopher Collazo. In 2019, Kim Foxx’s office dropped all charges against them.