Wrongfully convicted man awarded $25M by federal jury

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A man who was wrongly arrested and imprisoned for murder at age 13 and exonerated more than 16 years later has been awarded $25 million by a federal jury in Chicago.

Jurors found that the city of Chicago maliciously prosecuted Thaddeus Jimenez and violated his due process rights by coercing testimony that blamed Jimenez for the shooting death of another teenager while ignoring evidence pointing to the real killer.

“T.J. always declared his innocence,” said Jimenez’s attorney Stuart J. Chanen. “There was never a point that he confessed. There was never a point that he didn’t scream loudly that a mistake had been made.”

Exoneration after 16 years

Jimenez was convicted in 1993 for the murder of 19-year-old Eric Morro and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

During his incarceration, Jimenez, who proclaimed his innocence throughout his trial and prison term, reached out to several organizations in an effort to get help reopening the investigation. After years of attempts, the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law took up his case in 2005.

A lengthy reinvestigation by the center revealed that evidence pointing to another man, Juan Carlos Torres, had been ignored or discarded once police began investigating Jimenez.

“In September of 2007, we brought it to the state’s attorney and we said: ‘You’ve made a terrible mistake here,” said Chanen, who aided in the investigation.

Ultimately the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office moved to have Jimenez exonerated. His conviction and sentence were vacated by the Cook County Criminal Court and he was issued a Certificate of Innocence. He was released on May 1, 2009, and on the same day police issued a warrant for Torres’ arrest. Torres was indicted 17 days later. He is awaiting trial.

In December 2009 Jimenez filed a civil suit in federal court against the City of Chicago and several police detectives for malicious prosecution, civil rights violations and conspiracy. Jimenez alleged that the police coerced witnesses into incorrectly identifying him as the shooter.

The defendants denied the charges, and before trial the claims against all but one officer and the city were dropped because the evidence was strongest against the lead detective. Given that, Chanen said he made a tactical decision to focus on him.

Tale of the tape

According to Chanen, the judge encouraged both sides to consider settling the case, but settlement negotiations “didn’t really go anywhere” until the trial began in January.

By then, Chanen and Jimenez weren’t interested.

“Once the trial began, we knew we’d get a large verdict,” Chanen said.

His confidence was based on compelling testimony by Jimenez, who described not only the botched criminal investigation but also his experience serving time in prison for 16 years, 2 months and 27 days.

“T.J.’s testimony was incredibly powerful,” Chanen said. “Everyone in the courtroom was affected. … He talked about what he suffered in the prison system – some really horrific things. He was always [housed] with the worst of the worst. [He talked about] trying for years to get people to listen to him, that he was innocent.”

A key piece of evidence, according to Chanen, was an audio recording of Torres confessing to the shooting – saying that he had shot Morro because Morro had taken a swing at him.

The tape, which was created by the father of another teenager who was a witness to the shooting, was given to police days after it was recorded in 1993, but they ignored it because their investigation had already focused on Jimenez, Chanen said.

“At that point, the police had a big, big problem,” Chanen said. “They have four people identifying T.J. as the shooter because they coerced that testimony. Now if they go after Torres, they jeopardize both cases. [So] they decided to run away from the evidence that pointed to Torres. They sabotaged the investigation.”

According to Chanen, the defense argued that Jimenez was involved in the shooting and that police acted reasonably in conducting the criminal investigation.

After a 10 day trial, the case went to the jury, which took one day to rule unanimously in Jimenez’s favor on all three counts. They awarded $25 million in compensatory damages.

Chanen said he was not surprised by the result.

“Once we rested our case, I wasn’t surprised that the verdict [was fast] and that it was unanimous,” he said. “I wasn’t surprised … by the dollar amount. The police … really took this guy’s life away from him.”

In a post-trial agreement, the plaintiff agreed not to seek punitive damages in exchange for undisclosed non-monetary relief, Chanen said.

Chicago attorney Andrew M. Hale, who represented both remaining defendants, did not return a message seeking comment.