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CHICAGO (CBS) – A milestone has been taken in one man’s struggle to secure the publication of decades of Chicago police misconduct records.
As CBS 2 political investigator Dana Kozlov reported Wednesday night, the case is going to the Illinois Supreme Court.
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Lawyer Jared Kosoglad was only hoping for this opportunity – and now it’s official. He received a notice telling him that the state Supreme Court had agreed to hear his case and that judges would decide whether the city should release five decades of police misconduct files.
“It means the Illinois Supreme Court is going to decide this case, and since the Court of Appeals ruled against us, it means we have a chance to fight – and they see a real legal problem here,” he said. Kosoglad said.
Kosoglad has been in his battle for 11 years on behalf of his client, Charles Green.
Green has spent the past decade fighting to get his name cleared of any connection to a 1985 quadruple murder, for which he spent 24 years in prison. Kozlov spoke with him in May.
Kozlov: “Do you have anything to do with the murder of these people? “
Green: “No ma’am, I didn’t.”
On January 12, 1985, police discovered the burnt bodies of Raynard Rule, Lauren Rule, and Yvonne Brooks in an apartment on the second floor of 458 N. Hamlin Ave. in the East Garfield Park neighborhood – now the site of a vacant lot. A fourth victim, Kim Brooks, also died later.
Green was 16 when a Chicago Police Detective brought him in for questioning in the absence of a lawyer or parent.
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“He’s going to love to hit me and hit me,” Green said in May.
Green said he felt the beatings left him no choice but to sign a confession.
“Eventually that got me to say, ‘Wow they’re going to kill me – I’d better go ahead,’ you know what I’m saying? ‘ Green said in May. “Because it was like, ‘Now we have a statement that we need you to sign before you go home.'”
Released from prison in 2009, Green began to fight to clear his name. It was at this point that he submitted a public registration request for all police misconduct records to be released to help prove his innocence.
The city ignored him, so Green went on and won. But the city’s lawyers fought the decision, and an Illinois Court of Appeals judge ruled in the city’s favor.
It was then that Kosoglad went to the State Supreme Court.
“We are going to go to the Supreme Court and we are going to ask them to right this injustice,” Kosoglad said. “He expects to prove that there is a cover-up going back decades, and that these files are proof of it.”
The Kosoglad Supreme Court’s opinion comes a week before Green’s pardon hearing before the state.
“What he’s doing here is helping other people who may still be in prison – who may still be fighting and pretending they’re innocent – and are innocent – by giving them access to these records without having to fight for them. “
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Pending is a now stalled city council plan to release only some of these misconduct files. A spokesperson for the Chicago Legal Department said the city plans to defend the appeals court’s decision, which means it plans to fight to prevent the publication of those records.
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