The plaintiffs in the lawsuits, which date back to 2017, spent nearly 200 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted based on what they allege was fabricated evidence gathered by Sgt. Ronald Watts, who was convicted in 2013 of taking bribes, and other officers.

Neville, who has served on the high court for the past seven years, will take over for current Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis beginning in October. He’ll become the second Black chief justice in Illinois history.

Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s office announced the charges against the six adults, who were arrested Friday after allegedly leading authorities on a chase from the store down Lake Shore Drive and the Dan Ryan Expressway before they ultimately crashed.

Chicago taxpayers paid $6.3 million to settle 54 lawsuits, according to a WTTW analysis of city records. An additional $4.5 million went to pay private lawyers to defend the conduct of CPD officers named in those lawsuits.

In a letter to the Voting Section of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, ISBE general counsel Marni Malowitz said releasing the data would expose Illinois voters to unnecessary risks.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday on behalf of 15-year-old Marjay Dotson and 14-year-old Jeremy Herred, comes more than two months after the teens were shot in Douglass Park during an encounter with a 55-year-old lifeguard.

The Department of Justice on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Gov. JB Pritzker, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the state itself.

The order comes after California sued, saying the troops sent to Los Angeles over the summer were violating a law that prohibits military enforcement of domestic laws.

Illinois in 2023 became the first state to fully eliminate the use of cash bail with the Pretrial Fairness Act. Proponents said the law is intended to address equity issues. The president claims such policies allow “dangerous individuals to immediately return to the streets and further endanger law-abiding Americans.”

The petition was filed on the same day two children were killed and 17 other individuals were injured in a mass shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis. As of Thursday, authorities had not yet publicly identified the specific weapons used in that shooting, only to say one of them was a rifle.

Cesar Ramirez, 47, received his sentence this week after he pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated kidnapping stemming from the October 2022 incident. He was initially charged with numerous felonies that also included attempted aggravated sexual assault, attempted aggravated sexual abuse and aggravated battery.

Had the settlement been even one dollar more, it would have required Chicago City Council approval under city rules. Instead, it was authorized by Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson Lowry.

A federal judge in Chicago sentenced Yousef Abu Alhawa to 42 months in prison after he pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and tax charges.

President Donald Trump signed an order threatening to freeze federal funding to governments and jurisdictions that have eliminated the use of cash bail as a means of holding defendants in jail pretrial. Local officials say the system put in place in Illinois in 2023 is working.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued an injunction late Friday to that will prevent the Trump administration from blocking funding for some of the nation’s largest cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, Boston and Baltimore.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros announced Friday the creation of a new section within the Northern District of Illinois’s Criminal Division that will be dedicated to the prosecution of health care fraud.