Data Project Exposes Wrongful Conviction Crisis in Chicago
Costs projected to reach 1 billion spent by city taxpayers fighting over 1,700 wrongful conviction lawsuits over 23 year span
The massive impact of wrongful conviction legal cases in Chicago is a financial and moral crisis the city is ignoring, according to social justice advocates. The city continues to fight lawsuits against people who were exonerated, though many have certificates of innocence, which are granted by a judge.
A new database that tracks 23 years and over 1,700 wrongful conviction lawsuits shows this crisis has already cost Chicago taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Civil rights attorneys and justice reform advocates question why the city continues to fight the cases of those who have been declared factually innocent. A new report will be released today providing details into how much money taxpayers have paid out to cover the city's fight against lawsuits filed by people who have been declared factually innocent, and had their wrongful convictions vacated.
Since 2000, Chicago has paid out more than $675 million on wrongful conviction litigation. There's at least 200 wrongful conviction cases pending against the city, and based on predictive analytics, that amount has potential to cost almost one billion dollars.
The non-profit advocacy organization Truth, Hope and Justice Initiative is delivering this message to the City of Chicago and Mayor Brandon Johnson to deal with what it calls an emergency.
"Chicago is the wrongful conviction capital of America. We're going to look at this data, understand the data, make recommendations, working with key stakeholders with the city, and then we're going to take the same approach and go to municipalities, cities across the country. But from our research, Chicago is at the top of the list and worst city dealing with this issue," said Andrew Stroth, founder of the Truth, Hope and Justice Initiative. "The city of Chicago has a billion dollar wrongful conviction problem. It's a crisis."
"What the wrongful conviction data has shown us is the city continues to lose these cases, the city continues to spend tens of millions of dollars paying outside counsel to defend these cases. They consistently lose at trial. Millions of dollars, and then are also responsible for paying legal fees to the plaintiffs' attorneys on top of the settlements or verdicts," Stroth said.
"I think the most important thing that this project brings to the table is that it increases transparency around the litigation related to police misconduct. I think that, you know, historically there's not been a lot of information that's made publicly available about litigation related to police misconduct. And it's been sort of hard to sort of piece together the information if you're interested in trying to probe into those issues. And so, this database brings together a lot of information and puts it in one place, which I think will be very valuable," said Sharon Fairley, University of Chicago Law School Professor.
You can read more about this investigation and watch the investigative report "Taxpayers funding city's fight against exonerees suing over wrongful convictions, new report finds" from ABC Chicago 7 news. The Truth, Hope and Justice Initiative is a non-profit organization committed to advancing social justice and racial equality by publishing stories and sharing the human truths of mothers impacted by unjustified police violence in America.
