For more than two decades, Cook County has boasted the infamous reputation of the being wrongful conviction capital of the U.S.—both a statistical fact, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, and the result of ongoing public revelations since the 1990s, when the Reader’s John Conroy first exposed Jon Burge and his crew torturing suspects into making false confessions, through to today’s waves of mass exonerations of the victims of Ronald Watts and his crew.
At the heart of many wrongful convictions is the violation of a legal obligation on the part of police and prosecutors to provide evidence to defendants that might help their case. This violation can look like anything from withholding reports about conflicting eyewitness accounts to a failure to disclose that the investigating officer has a history of dishonesty or brutality.
This obligation has been outlined in several U.S. Supreme Court decisions, starting in 1963 with Brady v. Maryland and followed in 1972 by Giglio v. United States. These decisions state that the prosecution is required to turn over any evidence that would be favorable to the defendant, including information that calls into question the credibility of the prosecution’s witnesses—such as police officers or other investigators. Further Supreme Court decisions, the Illinois Code of Criminal Procedure, and a rule of the Illinois Supreme Court add even more weight to these requirements.
Despite a history of expanding obligations on prosecutors and police, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO) and Chicago Police Department (CPD) fail to comply with Brady in several ways, according to interviews with experts, successive outside reviews, and an investigation into the agencies’ practices by the Invisible Institute and the Reader.