CHICAGO – A new expert report in a civil rights lawsuit challenging “incommunicado detention” in Chicago police stations has found that almost no one in police custody is consulting with a lawyer and more than half of the people in Chicago Police Department custody are not making a phone call within three hours of arrest. These findings are despite a consent decree in the case, #LetUsBreathe Collective, et al. v. City of Chicago, requiring the City of Chicago to provide prompt access to attorneys and lawyers for all people in police custody.

The MacArthur Justice Center (MJC), the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project at the University of Chicago, and First Defense Legal Aid (FDLA) brought the lawsuit in state court in the summer of 2020 against the City on behalf of a collective of community and legal groups, challenging the Chicago Police Department’s decades-long practice of incommunicado detention, which has allowed police torture, false confessions, and wrongful convictions. Plaintiffs in the case–the Cook County Public Defender, #LetUsBreathe Collective, Black Lives Matter Chicago, Good Kids Mad City, STOP Chicago, UMedics, and the National Lawyers Guild–won a first-of-its-kind consent decree in the case in 2022 requiring that people receive access to lawyers and phone calls soon after being brought into custody. The decree incorporates requirements under Illinois law that people receive a phone call as soon as possible after arrest and “no later than three hours of arrival at the first place of detention.”

Since the Consent Decree went into effect, the MJC, Police Accountability Project, and FDLA, together with the community organizations that brought the lawsuit, have been monitoring its implementation. Now, more than one year into the Decree, the vast majority of people in custody are still unable to consult a lawyer or get a prompt phone call.

Kyle Rozema, Professor of Law at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, issued a report about the City’s compliance with the Decree, analyzing over 50,000 arrests from February 2023 to March 2024, using Chicago Police Department data.

Rozema found that within three hours of arrest, 99.8% of persons in Chicago Police Department custody did not consult with a lawyer and 47% of them did not make a phone call. (99% never consulted with a lawyer, and 41.1% never made a phone call.).

People charged with the most serious crimes who are subject to interrogation by detectives also rarely receive counsel: 91.2% never consult with a lawyer and 52.1% do not get a phone call within three hours, leaving them especially vulnerable to being coerced or abused during interrogations.

“Denying access to attorneys and phone calls is a longtime tactic of the Chicago Police Department to prevent people from having a lawyer during interrogation,” said Alexa Van Brunt, Director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Illinois office. “Chicago has a reputation as the false confession capital of the nation and a long history of holding people ‘incommunicado.’ The consent decree should help cure both problems, but only if the City actually complies with its terms.”

“It is difficult to believe that so many people vulnerable to CPD interrogation in jeopardy of decades in prison and desperate for help would turn down the right to use the phone and get legal assistance if they were actually offered the chance to do so,” said Craig Futterman, Director of the University of Chicago Law School’s Police Accountability Project. “CPD’s own data reveals that something is seriously wrong.”

“With the Democratic National Convention fast approaching, there will likely be increased opportunities for law enforcement to violate the rights of people arrested,” said Emma Melton, Community and Civil Rights Attorney at FDLA. “In addition to holding CPD accountable, we need to empower each other to enforce our right to phone calls and attorneys when arrested.”

Plaintiffs and counsel for the City will be in Cook County Chancery Court before Judge Neil Cohen on Tuesday, July 16 to discuss the expert report and the status of the consent decree.

To help educate the public, the lawyers are launching a know-your-rights campaign aimed at encouraging those who have their rights denied in Chicago Police custody to share their stories via a secure online form.

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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

The Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project (PAP) is one of the nation’s leading law school civil rights clinics focusing on issues of race and criminal justice. Founded in 2000 by Clinical Professors Craig Futterman and Randolph Stone, we strive to be a grassroots, ground-up, community-based law school clinic. https://www.law.uchicago.edu/clinics/mandel/police

First Defense Legal Aid is an Illinois nonprofit legal organization that works to connect, educate and defend over-policed community members throughout Chicago and Illinois. www.first-defense.org 1-800-LAW-REP4 (7374)