Chicago City Wire

Gov. JB Pritzker recently nominated attorney Sarah Raisch with the prominent plaintiffs’ firm of Romanucci & Blandin to the eight-member Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission (TIRC), a controversial commission once described by a Will County judge as “very perilous to our system.”

TIRC can pave the way for the exoneration of those convicted of murders and other violent crimes, and has become a pipeline of clients for plaintiff lawyers filing wrongful conviction lawsuits on behalf of those claiming police abuse. Romanunucci & Blandin has represented clients in wrongful conviction suits.  

 A spokesperson for the firm told Chicago City Wire that "TIRC provides notice to its commissioners regarding the claimant’s cases they are reviewing at upcoming meetings. If the claimant is one of Romanucci and Blandin’s clients, then Commissioner Raisch would receive notice and of course appropriately recuse herself from voting.”

Raisch is now listed o.n the TIRC website as an “Alternative Former Public Defender Commissioner."

TIRC was created by the General Assembly in 2009 with the authority to refer cases of convicted murderers for new evidentiary hearings based on claims of police and prosecutorial misconduct. The hearings can lead to new trials and potentially the vacating of convictions, followed by the filing of wrongful conviction lawsuits in federal court. Prosecutors have long complained that many of the cases that TIRC refers for new hearings are based on a low standards of evidence, and in some instances, no new evidence is presented at all.

A statement from the governor’s office announcing the Raisch nomination said that she is a “committed advocate for human rights, her legal career centers on seeking accountability and justice for those harmed by systemic abuse. She represents victims of police brutality, institutional sexual abuse, and mass shootings.”

Her nomination must be approved by the state Senate.

Just this past December, Romanucci & Blandin law firm filed a wrong conviction suit on behalf of Brian Beals, convicted in 1990 of murder for a shooting that killed a 6-year-old boy and injured his mother in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. He was sentenced to 80 years.

Beals claimed police misconduct in the investigation of the case and mid-December a Cook County judge vacated his conviction and dismissed all charges.

According to a recent Sun-Times report, Antonia Romanucci has donated thousands to the campaign war chests of elected officials, including Mayor Brandon Johnson – this even though his firm has nine pending lawsuits against the city.

In October 2023, former Will County Circuit Court Judge Dave Carlson in a post-conviction ruling concerning two convicted of double murders said of TIRC:

“There is an old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I think that is absolutely appropriate when reviewing the TIRC statute. The act itself skirts very closely to the edge of constitutionality. It also calls into question whether or not the TIRC statute in and of itself impugns the integrity of the judicial system of the third branch of government…”

Besides taking a shot at the TIRC law, the judge also dismissed the TIRC referrals for new evidentiary hearings of Devon Daniels, convicted of a 1996 double murder, and Kevin Murray, convicted of a 1987 double murder. Both alleged that former Chicago police detective Kriston Kato tortured them into confessing. But without holding an evidentiary hearing, Judge Carlson ruled that “in reviewing the claims solely within the purview of the TIRC statute, accepting the evidence and findings for purposes of an evidentiary proceeding, I’m going to find that the defendants have not met their burden.”

The case is on appeal.