‘Englewood Four’ to Receive $31 Million in Settlement of Chicago Wrongful Conviction Case

In 2011, a judge overturned the conviction of the “Englewood Four,” freeing Richardson and Saunders after they spent 17 years behind bars. Swift and Thames, who served more than a dozen years, had already been released.
“These were four young men who no way possible they could have committed the crime they were manipulated and coerced into confessing to. They all spent . . . over a decade in prison for something they didn’t do. The number is very large and the magnitude of the injury is very large,” said attorney Locke Bowman, who represented Swift.
Bowman said the $31 million settlement would not have been possible if former assistant state’s attorney Terence Johnson hadn’t “broken ranks from the other law enforcement personnel” and provided a statement to the FBI that confirmed what the Englewood Four had long maintained.
“This was psychological coercion primarily in all four of the cases. They were tricked and coerced into confessing . . . They were fed the information. And they were the victims of police overreaching,” Bowman said Friday.

Ex-prosecutor: Systemic collusion between Chicago police, prosecutors in Englewood Four wrongful conviction case https://t.co/nT9Ks7V84a pic.twitter.com/R3ItbsS4D3

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) July 21, 2017

“The wagons had been circled and the code of silence was in full force and effect and Terence Johnson spilled the beans. What’s striking is that his account of the night when all this misconduct occurred matches up quite specifically with what the young men themselves had been saying for years had happened to them.”

The combined $31 million settlement to the four men is believed to be one of the largest, if not the largest, in Chicago history stemming from allegations of police abuse.

The Englewood Four filed lawsuits in 2012 accusing a Cook County prosecutor and several Chicago Police detectives of ignoring evidence that linked career criminal Johnny “Maniac” Douglas to Glover’s murder. It was Douglas’ DNA, found on Glover’s body, that finally exonerated the men.
On Monday, the City Council’s Finance Committee will be asked to approve the settlement, just the latest tied to alleged wrongdoing by Chicago cops.
The massive payment will end the lawsuits that alleged that a code of silence within the Chicago Police Department led to their false convictions — long before Mayor Rahm Emanuel famously acknowledged its existence in the unrelenting furor that followed the release of the McDonald shooting video.
Attorneys representing the “Englewood Four” have argued that police even interviewed Douglas but let him go. Even after the DNA match, prosecutors initially discounted Douglas, arguing that Glover’s history of prostitution made it possible the two had consensual sex.
Swift said that led to him and his friends being “abducted” because they were “young black youth in urban communities” and, therefore, easy targets. Over the last decade alone, Chicago taxpayers have paid more than $500 million in legal settlements tied to allegations of police abuse and wrongdoing.
The massive settlement was likely triggered, in part, by the FBI report unsealed in July alleging that Chicago police fed information to suspects in the Englewood Four case as they gave their statements to prosecutors.
To read full article, go to: https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/englewood-four-31-million-settlement-tortured-false-confession-exonerated/