Chicago City Wire

The activist group Chicago Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression (CAARPR) is organizing a rally on Wednesday, August 6, outside the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, where attorneys will attend a status hearing on a petition for a Certificate of Innocence filed by a man convicted of a 2001 murder.

Kevin Jackson had served 23 years of a 45-year sentence for the gang-related murder when he was exonerated by former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in 2024. A COI would wipe clean Jackson’s conviction and present a powerful argument for a big payout in a wrongful conviction lawsuit. 

In its announcement of the August 6 rally, CAARPR calls out three Chicago detectives “who use their signature practice of witness coercion to falsely implicate innocent Chicagoans.”

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx | Facebook

The group, which says it’s been “fighting injustice since the racist frame-up of Angela Davis in 1973,” claims the three detectives are responsible for over 40 cases of wrongful conviction. 

The "witness coercion” angle would open up a whole new category of wrongful conviction lawsuits for plaintiff lawyers who up until now have relied on claims of police torturing suspects into confessions, or prosecutorial misconduct, or both.

“Apparently some of the other wrongful conviction cases out there are not paying off as much or as quickly as they would like,” a source close to the case, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, told Chicago City Wire for an earlier story.

One of the three detectives named by CAARPR is Brian Forberg, now retired. Forberg was the lead investigator in the Jackson case and many others over his 29-year career.

The website, www.stopforberg.com, claims to share stories from 14 “survivors” of his investigative techniques.

According to the site, “we are a community of survivors, family members, attorneys, and activists who have united to address Chicago's next big police scandal.”

The campaign against Forberg even extends to his late wife, Kirsten Ann Olson, who died in May 2022. 

Olson, an assistant state’s attorney in Cook County, was mentioned in news reports that raised “concerns about a conflict of interest.” 

However, the reports failed to note that Olson had recused herself from the one Forberg case that came across her desk, according to a source within the office.

Jackson’s conviction was upheld numerous times. In 2006, the First District Illinois Appellate Court upheld the conviction, saying that the physical evidence in the case supported eyewitness testimony.

In 2020, the Conviction Integrity Unit in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office conducted an investigation into the Jackson case but found “nothing requires a change of course.”

As recently as June 2024, Cook County Judge Angela Petrone denied a motion to vacate Jackson’s conviction. She ruled that the conviction was sound, noting it was “troubling” that the state’s attorney’s office, led by Kim Foxx, asked her to approve a motion to vacate. The motion was based on a special prosecutor’s report that assessed witness testimony as “improperly assessed”— a finding that shaped the state’s decision.

The Illinois Appellate Court later overruled Petrone, despite the lack of new evidence suggesting Jackson’s innocence, and ordered his release. Foxx’s office had already indicated it would not retry the case.

Under Foxx, more than 250 convicted felons have been exonerated. Many of those cases involved detectives, police officers, or prosecutors named in the lawsuits. Most lacked direct evidence of innocence, instead relying on claims of police or prosecutorial misconduct.