Chicago Alliance Initiates Campaign for Survivors of Police Torture
Hon. Kimberly Foxx
Cook County State’s Attorney
69 W. Washington St.
Chicago IL 60602
Dear SA Foxx,
The undersigned are among the almost 1.5 million people who voted for you in 2016 to end the nightmare of police crimes in Black and Latino communities. In your five years as State’s Attorney, you have proven that you have taken up this fight by, among other things, supporting civilian control of the police during your 2016 campaign and overturning high profile wrongful conviction cases. These are unquestionably progressive achievements, which have brought with them the ire of those who oppose ending the systemic abuse you were elected to address. We stand with you today, as we did in 2016, in the struggle to secure justice for those who for too long have been deprived of it. As your allies in that struggle, we call on you to continue that fight by meeting the demands listed below.
Furthermore, we support the demands made by torture survivors, their families, the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition & Solidarity, Innocent Demand Justice, Black Lives Matter - Chicago, and more. We implore you to immediately vacate convictions for all those framed, tortured, and wrongfully convicted as outlined in the detailed report recently made public by the Chicago Alliance at caarpr.org/torturereport. Torture survivors have been deprived of the basic human right to justice. Their lives were stolen from them, and that torture alone necessitates meeting this demand.
In your 2016 campaign for State's Attorney, you spoke in the language of the Black Lives Matter movement when you called Chicago “the wrongful conviction capital of the U.S.” That is not a thing of the past. Every survivor still suffers the consequences of that reality every single day. It is within your power to grant them freedom, so their wounds can begin to heal. Survivors and their families have suffered long enough.
Free Them All!
Respectfully,
Demands
1. Move to vacate convictions for all those framed, tortured and wrongfully convicted, particularly cases involving detectives where an established pattern of torture, forced confession and wrongful convictions holds, as clearly outlined in our comprehensive report.
2. Move to review and vacate convictions in which Jon Burge or any of his “Midnight Crew” were involved, including especially Kenneth Boudreau, John Halloran, and James O’Brien.
3. Publicly declare that police officers with established records of torturing suspects, false confessions, perjury, and subornation of perjury will no longer be called as witnesses for the prosecution.
4. Provide a timeline for taking over the Burge cases not under the jurisdiction of Special Prosecutor Robert Milan, as ordered by Judge Leroy Martin in June 2019.
5. Officially announce the formation of the select committee on the torture cop cases selected by your office, Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin LLP (NSB); and the Innocence Project; and call for their rapid resolution.
6. Provide information on the status of your promised comprehensive review of Guevara cases. Rapidly complete the review and vacate all convictions in which Detectives Reynaldo Guevara, Joseph Miedzianowski, or Ronald Watts were involved.
7. Reassign legal staff to the Conviction Integrity Unit from minor crimes and misdemeanors, with a directive to examine all convictions of all people in whose cases detectives with established patterns and practices of torture, forced confession and subornation of perjury were involved.
8. Announce that you will no longer oppose certificates of innocence for people whose convictions have been vacated.
9. Announce that you will no longer oppose petitions for pardons in cases associated with torture and corrupt cops.
Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture Initiated by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression 6352 S. Cottage Grove Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60637 (312) 939-2750 www.caarpr.org www.cfist.org
Campaign Endorsers:
Arab American Action Network, Black Lives Matter, Chicago, Chicago Metropolitan Association, Illinois Conference, United Church of Christ, Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America, Chicago Torture Justice Center, Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Innocent Demand Justice, Rev. Julian DeShazier, Senior Pastor University Church, Chicago Equity and Transformation, Chicago, Interfaith Action Group on Peace and Justice in Israel, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, Alice Kim, Director of Human Rights Practice, Pozen Family Center, University of Chicago, Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity, Rev. Dr. Aaron J. McLeod, Esq., Pastor, Gorham United Methodist Church Rev. Dr. Waltrina N. Middleton, Executive Director, Community Renewal Society, Rev. James Moody, Pastor, Quinn Chapel, Chicago, Rev. Otis Moss, III, Pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ, Mt. Carmel Missionary Baptist Church, Dr. Robert Jones, Pastor, Dian Palmer, President, SEIU L 73 Parole Illinois, Aislinn, Pulley, Co-Executive Director of the Chicago Torture Justice Center, Black Lives Matter Chicago, Bill Ryan, Pathway to Community Service Employees International Union Local 73, US Palestinian Community Network, Uptown Peoples Law Center, Alan Mills, Executive Director, Rob Warden, Co-founder, Injustice Watch, Executive Director Emeritus of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, Tanya Watkins, Executive Director, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL)