Politics
Pay $13M to Man Who Spent 26 Years in Prison After Being Wrongfully Convicted, City Lawyers Recommend
Arnold Day speaks to the media on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019. (WTTW News)
Chicago taxpayers should pay $13 million to a man who spent 26 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of a 1991 murder, city lawyers recommended.
Arnold Day was 18 when he was arrested in connection with the May 1991 murder of 16-year-old Jerrod Irving in his New City apartment.
Day was convicted and sentenced to 60 years in prison in 1994 based on confessions coerced by Chicago police detectives trained by Jon Burge, a disgraced Chicago police commander, according to court records.
The proposed $13 million settlement is set to be considered Monday by the City Council’s Finance Committee. A final vote of the City Council could come on Wednesday.
Twenty-four Black men have been exonerated after being convicted based on evidence developed by former Chicago Police detectives James Halloran, Kenneth Boudreau, Michael Kill, William Foley, James O’Brien and James Clancy.
All were trained by Burge who tortured and beat more than 100 Black men, from the 1970s to the 1990s, city officials have acknowledged.
In 2017, the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission determined there was credible evidence that Day was tortured by Boudreau and Foley. Day was granted a certificate of innocence in 2019, records show.
Day said he confessed to shooting Irving as part of a gang-related dispute after he was choked, punched, kicked and slammed against the wall repeatedly by Boudreau, Foley and former Chicago Police Detective John Halloran, according to court records. Foley threatened to throw him out the window, records show.
“Although Detectives Boudreau and Foley have denied that the incidents Day described ever occurred… there is pattern and practice evidence suggesting that both officers may have engaged in abusive conduct during police interrogations,” the commission determined.
At his trial, the judge rejected Day’s bid to toss out his confession as coerced.
No physical, forensic or eyewitness evidence linked Day to Irving’s slaying, making his confession the only evidence against him, records show.
Day was released from prison in December 2018 after a special prosecutor, appointed by former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, dismissed the charges against him, records show.
In a separate trial, Day was acquitted of the September 1991 murder of 48-year-old Rafael Garcia during an attempted robbery near 51st Street and Racine Avenue in Back of the Yards.
Anthony Jakes, who was 15 at the time of Garcia’s murder, confessed to police that he and Day both killed Garcia, and Day killed Irving.
Day confessed to killing both Garcia and Irving, records show.
Jakes was convicted and sentenced to 40 years for killing Garcia.
The charges against Jakes, who was released on parole in 2012, were dismissed in April 2018, records show.
A judge granted Jakes a certificate of innocence in 2019. The Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission found credible evidence Jakes, too, had been physically abused by the same detectives who Day accused of beating him until he confessed.
The City Council agreed in September 2024 to pay $11.6 million to Jakes to resolve the wrongful conviction lawsuit he filed against the city.
Chicago taxpayers paid an additional $50 million to four men who each spent 20 years in prison after being convicted in connection with a 1995 double murder based on evidence gathered by Boudreau and another detective who reported to Burge, records show.
In all, seven wrongful conviction cases naming Boudreau have been settled by the city, for a total of at least $81.6 million, records show. Another nine wrongful conviction cases naming the now-retired officer are pending, including Day’s case, according to court records.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
