People v. Jackson

1

2024 IL App (1st) 241356

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. KEVIN JACKSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-24-1356

Court of Appeals of Illinois, First District, Fifth Division

October 25, 2024

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County. No. 01 CR 17492 Honorable Angela M. Petrone, Judge Presiding.

Attorneys for Appellant: Brandon R. Clark and Elizabeth A Thompson, of Saul Ewing LLP, of Chicago, and Elizabeth Bacon of Brooks, Tarulis & Tibble, LLC, of Naperville, for appellant.

Attorneys for Appellee: Kimberly M. Foxx, State's Attorney, of Chicago (C. Thor Martin and Enrique Abraham, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

PRESIDING JUSTICE MIKVA delivered the judgment of the court. Justice Oden Johnson concurred in part and dissented in part, with opinion. Justice Mitchell concurred in part and dissented in part, with opinion.

OPINION

MIKVA PRESIDING JUSTICE

¶ 1 Twenty-one years ago, a jury convicted defendant Kevin Jackson of first-degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm. The State's case rested on the out-of-court statements of four eyewitnesses who, at trial, all recanted, insisting that they had been coerced by the detectives investigating the case into falsely identifying Mr. Jackson as the shooter. Their trial testimony was corroborated by the surviving victim, who testified that Mr. Jackson looked "nothing like" the man who shot him.

¶ 2 On direct appeal, this court considered whether we could uphold a conviction resting on nothing more than recanted statements. Noting that there was considerable disagreement on that question, we ultimately sided with those cases concluding that, under appropriate circumstances, such statements alone could be sufficient. People v. Jackson (Jackson I), 364 Ill.App.3d 1050, slip order at 11-16 (2006) (table) (unpublished order under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23). We were confident that was the case here because we believed, as the State told the jury in its closing argument, that the recanted statements were corroborated by the forensic evidence. Id. at 16.

¶ 3 Over the years, as one after another of Mr. Jackson's challenges to his convictions were rejected-see People v. Jackson (Jackson II), No. 1-07-1680 (Apr. 29, 2009) (affirming the summary dismissal of his initial pro se petition for postconviction relief), People v. Jackson (Jackson III), 2018 IL App (1st) 171773 (affirming the denial of his motion for leave to file a successive postconviction petition), affirmed by People v. Jackson, 2021 IL 124818-additional evidence has surfaced both that there was another suspect the police never investigated and that the detectives in this case have been accused of intimidating and coercing witnesses in a number of other cases.

¶ 4 Mr. Jackson's case was reviewed by the State's Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), which initially decided to take no action. An apparent conflict of interest-a member of the CIU was married to Detective Brian Forberg, one of the lead detectives in this case-prompted the State on September 5, 2022, to appoint Thomas F. Geraghty and Robert C. Owen as Special Assistant State's Attorneys (SASAs) to independently review Mr. Jackson's case. The SASAs and their team, including ASA Heather Hu, who was assigned by the Cook County State's Attorney's Office to assist them (collectively, the reinvestigation team), conducted a sweeping investigation, reviewing the paper record, interviewing witnesses, and hiring independent experts. On August 4, 2023, SASAs Geraghty and Owen and ASA Hu provided the State with their report and recommendations (the reinvestigation report), in which they concluded that Mr. Jackson's convictions "lack[ed] sufficient integrity to be allowed to stand."

¶ 5 Having learned of that report, Mr. Jackson filed a petition, under section 2-1401 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Code) (735 ILCS 5/2-1401 (West 2022)), asking that his convictions be vacated. The State did not and has not opposed that relief and has made clear that if Mr. Jackson's convictions are indeed vacated, it will not retry him. The circuit court nevertheless concluded that there was no basis on which to grant Mr. Jackson's petition. Mr. Jackson now appeals.

¶ 6 Everything about this case has been extraordinary-from the troublingly thin evidence upon which Mr. Jackson was convicted, to the disturbing facts that have been uncovered regarding the tactics employed by the detectives in this case, to the State publicly taking the position that it does not oppose the extraordinary relief that Mr. Jackson seeks and that it would not retry Mr. Jackson for these crimes. It is not every day that an authoring justice of this court is willing to reconsider her prior ruling in response to a defendant's petition for rehearing, or that a concurring justice of our supreme court implores the State to further investigate improprieties that may have led to false convictions. It is not every day that SASAs are appointed to conduct a monthslong independent review in addition to the review of the CIU. And it is not every day that individuals so appointed unequivocally conclude that a defendant's convictions cannot stand. All of this, to say the least, has been extraordinary.

¶ 7 In section 2-1401 of the Code, our legislature had the foresight to provide a remedy for extraordinary situations, like this one, where new information has emerged that casts real doubt on the integrity of a judgment-civil or criminal. Before it ruled on Mr. Jackson's petition brought pursuant to that section here, however, the circuit court failed to provide defense counsel with the very reinvestigation report that was the basis for the relief he sought. Without the benefit of defense counsel's arguments based on a full, unredacted version of the report, the court also incorrectly concluded that the reinvestigation team had "found nothing new" and that Mr. Jackson's petition thus did nothing more than "repeat[ ] the same arguments previously made and ruled on." Having reviewed the petition and the report ourselves, as well as the relevant portions of the lengthy record in this case, we conclude that Mr. Jackson should be granted the relief that he seeks in this petition. Indeed, we conclude that any reasonable review of this record demonstrates by a preponderance of the evidence that there are facts that, if known at the time of Mr. Jackson's trial and direct appeal, would have prevented his convictions. We reverse the circuit court's denial of his petition for relief from judgment under section 2-1401 of the Code, vacate his convictions, and remand this matter to the circuit court where, in light of the State's declaration that it will not retry Mr. Jackson for these crimes, it is our expectation that this criminal matter will be concluded.

¶ 8 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 9 A. Trial and Direct Appeal

¶ 10 The evidence presented at Mr. Jackson's trial and this case's long procedural history have been summarized countless times, by the parties, the circuit court, this court, and our supreme court. We draw as appropriate from those summaries here, elaborating where necessary to explore aspects of the proceedings that bear on Mr. Jackson's section 2-1401 petition.

¶ 11 This case involved a shooting that took place in the early morning hours of May 6, 2001. As we recounted in Jackson III:

"Ernest Jenkins drove his car to a Citgo gas station on the corner of Damen Avenue and 55th Street in Chicago. The car's passengers-Michael Watson and Michael's nephew Stanley 'Meechie' Watson-exited the vehicle to pump and pay for gas. Shots rang out, and Michael and Mr. Jenkins were both struck. Michael survived, but Mr. Jenkins died of his injuries later that same day. Following a police investigation, Mr. Jackson was arrested on June 19, 2001.

At trial, the State's theory of the case was that the shooting was a turf dispute involving members of rival gangs. According to the State, Mr. Jackson, known in the neighborhood as 'Googie' or 'Googy,' was a Vice Lord who shot at Meechie Watson, a Gangster Disciple because the gas station Meechie stopped at was in Vice Lord territory and because, while at the gas station, Meechie talked to Mr. Jackson's girlfriend, Quiana (sometimes referred to as Quina) Davis. Although Meechie escaped unharmed, Michael Watson and Ernest Jenkins, finding themselves between Mr. Jackson and his target, were both shot, and Mr. Jenkins was killed.

To support its theory, the State relied on the signed handwritten statements of four eyewitnesses-Brandy Butler (also known as Brandy Grant or Brandi Grant), Vernon Clay Manuel 'Manny' Stewart, and Shemika Mason-which were admitted into evidence pursuant to section 115-0.1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (Code) (725 ILCS 5/115-10.1 (West 2000)). That section of the Code provides that prior inconsistent statements are substantively admissible if the witness is subject to cross-examination at trial and the statements were made from personal knowledge and were written or signed by the witness. In their statements, each of these witnesses identified Mr. Jackson as the shooter and indicated that he or she was treated well by the police and not promised anything in exchange for signing a statement. Three of the witnesses-Ms. Butler, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Stewart-also testified before a grand jury, where they confirmed the accuracy and truthfulness of their signed statements.

At trial, however, none of these witnesses identified Mr. Jackson as the shooter. They instead each testified that they had been threatened and coerced by detectives into signing the statements and giving the grand jury testimony implicating Mr. Jackson. No forensic evidence connected Mr. Jackson to the crime, and Michael Watson, the

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