A test for police accountability and governmental transparency.

Chicago, IL. - A drama is unfolding in Illinois courts that has profound implications for police accountability and governmental transparency. At the center of this drama is Kilroy Watkins, a prisoner serving a 55-year sentence for first-degree murder and armed robbery. A skilled jailhouse lawyer, Watkins has presented the state appellate court with a case that tests not only the meaning of the Freedom of Information Act but also the integrity of the judicial process.

Chicago police officers arrested Watkins in 1992 in connection with an armed robbery. The next day he confessed to committing a murder in a separate incident. He has consistently claimed his confession was coerced by Detectives Kenneth Boudreau and John Halloran, associates of disgraced Commander Jon Burge. Under Illinois FOIA, he sought access to the police misconduct complaints against Boudreau and Halloran. Known as "complaint register" files or CR's, these documents contain the complaints filed against an officer and the substance of the City's investigation of those allegations.

Watkins' aim was to demonstrate a pattern of coerced confessions by the two detectives, in support of a post-conviction petition (since denied). In light of what we now know about police torture and coercion by officers under Burge's command, this is a plausible argument. A Tribune investigation in 2001 reported that Boudreau had, as of that time, helped secure confessions from more than a dozen defendants in murder cases in which the charges were later dropped or the defendant was acquitted.

Watkins represented himself in his FOIA suit until last year when the law firm of Loevy & Loevy took him on as a client. (I too am represented by the Loevy firm in a FOIA case against the Chicago Police Department.) When the circuit court ruled against him, Watkins appealed to the Illinois Court of Appeals for the First District.

A central issue in this case -- and in the long history of litigation over CR files -- is whether such documents are public information or private personnel matters. In recent years, a number of judges in both state and federal courts have ruled that records related to police misconduct are quintessential public information.

In the leading Illinois case, Gekas v. Williamson, decided in 2009, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth District ruled that police misconduct files are not personal information, the disclosure of which would violate the officer's privacy:

What [the defendant] does in his capacity as deputy sheriff is not his private business. Whether he used excessive force or otherwise committed misconduct during an investigation or arrest is not his private business.

Alderman Donovan calls on Flynn to release police records.
Milwaukee, WI. - Alderman Bob Donovan called on Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn to release an estimated 800 assault reports to the Journal Sentinel as part of the newspaper's investigation of crimes that had been misreported as minor crimes.

In a prepared statement, Donovan said, "It does our city a disservice to have this back-and-forth fighting between the newspaper and the Milwaukee Police Department."

Donovan added: "And with all due respect to Chief Flynn, the longer he withholds those reports the more it appears to some outside observers that he has something to hide."

"The newspaper has raised some legitimate questions about the department's crime-reporting systems and practices, and it is important for the city and the department to be as transparent as possible in this matter. In short - we need to get to the truth - and we need to do it quickly so this episode doesn't drag on any longer than it has to."

Last month, the Journal Sentinel had requested the records under the state's open records law as part of its investigation that found more than 500 aggravated assaults were misreported as lesser offenses and not counted in the city's violent crime rate. On Wednesday, Milwaukee police officials said in a letter that they want more than $10,000 in fees before they will turn over the records.

In his statement, Donovan said he also was urging Mayor Tom Barrett to support his call for the release of the records.

"For the sake of our citizens and our city, let's get the records released, and let the chips fall where they may so we can all move on," Donovan said.

There was no reaction from Flynn or Barrett. Calls placed to Barrett's chief of staff, Patrick Curley, were not returned.

Dana Brueck, a Department of Justice spokeswoman, said Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has been an advocate for open government but would decline to comment. Brueck added that Van Hollen's agency had filed a "friend of the court" brief in the Journal Sentinel's lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee, now before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In the case, the Justice Department argued that the state's records law does not authorize charging for redaction costs.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-kalven/chicago-police-misconduct-_b_1661796.html
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/donovan-to-flynn-release-police-records-ul5pcsp-159053855.html