Taxpayers funding city's fight against exonerees suing over wrongful convictions, new report finds

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The ABC 7 I-Team has obtained new details of a potential billion-dollar crisis for the city of Chicago after some say the city is continuing to mishandle wrongful conviction legal cases, adding to a deepening human cost.

On Monday, a new report will be released tabulating just how much money taxpayers have doled out to cover the city's fight against lawsuits filed by people who have been declared factually innocent, and had their wrongful convictions vacated.

As the I-Team previously reported, Chicago has been labeled the "wrongful conviction capital of America" based on the number of cases and lawsuits brought against it, according to the social justice group "The Truth, Hope and Justice Initiative."

Since then, the scale of the problem has only become worse.

A new report from the group, set to be released this Monday, states that the city has spent nearly $750 million on wrongful conviction litigation since the year 2000, including nearly $150 million to private outside law firms hired to defend the city.

Truth, Hope and Justice Initiative founder and defense attorney Andrew M. Stroth says the organization's predictive analysis has found the problem could grow into a billion-dollar problem for Chicago taxpayers.

"Based on our calculations, and based on data provided by the city and data from other independent sources, we believe the city of Chicago has a $1.2 billion exposure as it relates to these cases," Stroth said.

Stroth said his organization partnered with dozens of data scientists and legal professionals to conduct their analysis, and that he hopes the city will take the numbers seriously.

"Our perspective is the city should look at these numbers, or numbers by objective third parties, to do a risk analysis to save taxpayer money," he said.

For years, advocates and attorneys have questioned why city lawyers continue to fight lawsuits against people who were exonerated, many who already have certificates of innocence granted by a judge.

The wrongly imprisoned, and much later released incudes James Gibson, who served more than 29 years for a double murder in 1989 before it was determined he'd been tortured by Chicago police into confessing.

Gibson was freed from prison, exonerated and given a certificate of innocence in 2019, and says his newfound freedom remains filled with challenges more than five years later.

"I'm still adjusting and sleeping in my wonderful bed, and I'm still readjusting into society, reintegrating myself back into society," Gibson said.

Gibson said City Hall continues to fight against his lawsuit, as well as others, long after the wrongly convicted like him have been found innocent; what he calls "playing political football with human lives."

"It's like a systematic pattern and practice all over again," Gibson told the I-Team. "I think that the system needs to be dismantled. I think the system needs to be broken down."

Since the I-Team had reported the first assessment last year, the city has ignored requests to conduct an internal risk assessment of pending wrongful conviction cases and create a taskforce to deal with the issue, according to civil rights attorneys for the wrongfully convicted.
The group of attorneys and advocates say they want to collaborate with the city, but have yet to hear from City Hall even though the red carpet was rolled out almost a year ago.

"Mayor [Brandon] Johnson and [Corporation Counsel] Mary Richardson have a $1.2 billion problem, which is the exposure on currently pending wrongful conviction cases," Stroth said. "We are willing to share all of our data with the city of Chicago and work collaboratively to address this issue. We think the time is now."
The I-Team contacted the city's law department, and Mayor Brandon Johnson's office on Friday, requesting comment for this report.

A spokesperson for the city's law department said, "The City performs risk analysis of all pending litigation and has for years. As a fiduciary bound to act in the best interest of the taxpayer, we are deeply committed to identifying potential risks and exposure to the City."

The statement continued, "Because the City's internal analysis of pending and active litigation is privileged information, we cannot further comment."