Appellate denial ignored evidence of innocence and relied on invented technical obstacle.

ILLINOIS — After 14 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Wayne Washington is taking his fight for his certificate of innocence to the Illinois Supreme Court. The filing is in response to the appellate court’s decision, which defied long standing precedent by ignoring indisputable evidence of his innocence and denying the petition solely because he pled guilty.

“I just want to get my name cleared,” said Washington. “They vacated my conviction but won’t recognize my innocence. After everything I’ve been through, it still hangs over my head. I’ve lost out on jobs because of the background check. Without a certificate of innocence, this will continue to hinder me personally and professionally.”

In 1993, Washington was 20 years old when he was arrested and charged for the murder of Marshall Morgan Jr. He was arrested largely because he was in the same store as his equally innocent co-defendant, Tyrone Hood.

In 2015, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office vacated his conviction and dismissed the charges against him. Around the same time, Hood’s sentence was also vacated.  Washington then filed a petition for a certificate of innocence.

Clear evidence shows that Morgan had been killed by his father, Marshall Morgan Sr. This overwhelming evidence of innocence was, in fact, the basis for the same appellate panel granting Hood’s certificate of innocence. Three months later, when it came to Washington’s petition, the First District’s ruling openly disregarded the issue of innocence to focus entirely on his guilty plea.

Washington’s lawyers argue that this First District’s ruling is a clear misinterpretation of the intent of the certificate of innocence statute. Enacted in 2008, the statute was intended to remove technical and substantive barriers that prevent innocent people from clearing their names. More recently, Representative Kwame Raoul, now Illinois Attorney General, sponsored a successful bill that further strengthened the original legislation.

“When the legislature enacted the certificate of innocence statute, the whole purpose was to remove barriers that prevented obviously innocent people like Mr. Washington from clearing their names, “ said David Shapiro, the Director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Supreme Court and Appellate Program, who is representing Washington in the Illinois Supreme Court. “The current decision in this case does the exact opposite of what the legislature intended—it makes a guilty plea an absolute roadblock to a certificate of innocence. The Illinois Supreme Court needs to hear this case to affirm the correct meaning of the law.”

The First District’s ruling presents a clear departure from precedent by alleging that a guilty plea automatically vetoes a certificate of innocence. Illinois circuit courts have previously granted certificates of innocence to innocent people who plead guilty in at least 77 cases. Appellate Justice Carl Anthony Walker, who authored the dissent, accurately summarized the intent of the statute: “[A] guilty plea should foreclose relief only when the person falsely accused culpably misled police or other officials.”

Nearly one-fifth of exonerees plead guilty. Washington only pled guilty after his first trial resulted in a hung jury and he watched Hood receive a 75-year sentence after maintaining his innocence.

“I was looking at 75 years for a crime I didn’t commit. They offered me 25 years – a second chance at life – and I took it. Now they are holding it against me,” said Washington.

Furthermore, he had been interrogated by two of Chicago’s most notorious detectives, Kenneth Boudreau and John Halloran. Both served under former police Commander Jon Burge, who has faced multiple accusations of misconduct for beating suspects and witnesses or fabricating evidence to obtain convictions. The detectives beat him until, after days of abuse, he agreed to sign a false confession.

Despite clearly being the product of coercion, the appellate court’s ruling also went so far as to classify Washington’s statement as a “voluntary” confession. As Justice Walker found in his dissent, however, Washington “proved by a preponderance of the evidence from multiple witnesses . . . that police used physical coercion and threats to obtain [his] wrongful conviction.”

Left to stand, the First District’s ruling undermines the certificate of innocence statute’s intent and would have devastating consequences for individuals, their families and the justice system. The last thing Illinois needs is a new barrier that will prevent innocent people from clearing their good names.

“In seeking to clear his name with a certificate of innocence, Mr. Washington is standing up against an injustice that would harm many innocent Illinois residents. Just like Mr. Washington, innocent people too often are forced to plead guilty by the prospect of a crushing sentence if they go to trial. They should not lose the ability to clear their good name by seeking a certificate of innocence just because they pled guilty years or decades ago to a crime they did not commit.” said Steven Greenberg of Greenberg Trial Lawyers. Mr. Greenberg also represents Mr. Washington and has done so for many years, in both the appellate court and the circuit court.

In 2019 and 2020, Illinois accounted for more wrongful convictions than any other state. Chicago was famously dubbed the “wrongful conviction capital of America”.

The impact of the appellate court’s ruling will be felt disproportionately by people of color. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 62% of people who proved their innocence after being wrongfully convicted were Black or Latinx. Black people remain seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than white people.

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The Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center is a national, nonprofit legal organization dedicated to protecting civil rights and fighting injustice in the criminal legal system through litigation at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels. www.macarthurjustice.org