Cook County’s Conviction Integrity Unit, which has been accused of being slow to investigate wrongful conviction cases, will be renamed, revamped and led by a new leader, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx recently announced.
The agency will be called the Conviction Review Unit, to be led by Michelle Mbekeani, who in 2020 was named as Governor JB Pritzker’s Commissioner on the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission.
“The establishment of the Conviction Review Unit is not just a name change; it represents a shift in our approach toward rectifying the wrongs of the past, ensuring fairness in our justice system, and incorporating community voices in our decisions,” said Foxx in a statement.
“Our work has already led to significant strides, and this move further symbolizes our promise to the people we serve that we will continue to review, rectify, and restore justice, especially in cases marred by historical injustices and misconduct.
“The Conviction Review Unit stands as a beacon of hope and a testament to our dedication to turning the tide against systemic inequities and rebuilding trust in our legal system.”
In 2018, Mbekeani was an advisor. In this role, she worked alongside the National Innocence Project, the Center on Wrongful Convictions, and the Illinois Innocence Project, leading lobbying efforts for first-of-its-kind legislation prohibiting law enforcement from using deceptive tactics when interrogating minors in custody.
Mbekeani also argued Illinois’ first successful prosecutor-initiated resentencing case, which resulted in the early release of an individual sentenced to an excessive 44-year sentence for a drug conviction.
She previously served as a Community Justice Staff Attorney at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, and while there, Mbekeani focused on police, prison, and criminal justice reform. She both co-authored and lobbied Springfield legislation to create the nation’s first internal jail polling station, allowing individuals incarcerated pretrial to vote.
Mbekeani holds an undergraduate degree in German Language and Literature, Political Science, and Middle Eastern Studies from Stony Brook University and earned her law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 2014. She is currently a University of Chicago Booth School of Business MBA student focusing on strategic management and economics.
Foxx did not say what changes will be made to the agency’s process for investigating claims of wrongful convictions. Many convicted Black and Latino men remain in prison, while others have been released with criminal convictions on their records.
Under Foxx, the Conviction Integrity Unit has led to 250 wrongful conviction cases being thrown out. Most of those cases involved disgraced Chicago Police Sgt. Ronald Watts and Detective Reynaldo Guevara.
But other wrongful conviction cases where disgraced officers and detectives had many Black men locked up have not been investigated by the Cook County Integrity Unit.
In October five men filed federal lawsuits against the city of Chicago, including Roosevelt Myles, exonerated in 2022, some 30 years after being accused of murdering a teenager on Chicago’s West Side.
Foxx’s office fought his post-conviction case and at one point had a judge dismiss his exoneration case. The Conviction Integrity Unit stopped investigating Myles’ wrongful conviction claims after he retained private Attorney Jennifer Bonjean in 2017.
And it is unclear whether Foxx’s latest move is enough to fully address the problems in Cook County’s broken criminal justice system. Illinois leads the nation in wrongful convictions, and Cook County has often been called the “False Confession Capital of America.”
The nation’s second largest court system has often been accused of allowing police officers to arrest Blacks and minorities, who are often forced to claim crimes they did not commit. Police officers accused of planting drugs and guns on residents often aren’t prosecuted and remain on the streets.
In a wrongful conviction case involving 38-year-old Dashonn Maggette, the Crusader filed papers to unseal a document that a judge sealed to allegedly protect two police officers accused of lying and planting a gun on the Black man. Foxx remains silent on the case, and her prosecutors have moved forward in the case despite potential Brady violations against Maggette.
In the award-winning book “Crook County,” by Northwestern Law School graduate Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, judges, prosecutors and even public defenders are accused of engaging in racist behavior while deciding on the fate of Black defendants accused of crimes.
