REGINALD HENDERSON SPEAKS as his brother Sean Tyler (white shirt) looks on during a press conference after they were granted their certificates of innocence at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse. (Photo by Erick Johnson)
For more than a year, they struggled and waited to see their criminal records wiped clean, as exonerated brothers who were denied their certificates of innocence for reasons the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office never gave.
It was the final hurdle Sean Tyler and Reginald Henderson overcame in a packed courtroom this week at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on the West Side.
After enduring torture from police, wrongful convictions, decades in prison, court delays and stiff opposition from prosecutors, the brothers were granted their certificates of innocence as Judge Erica Reddick gave her ruling during an emotional hearing that left the men feeling vindicated.
Cheers and applause erupted in the courtroom when Reddick said both men had proven their innocence in a murder case that occurred 30 years ago in Chicago.
To the dismay of the courtroom bailiff, surviving relatives of the brothers shouted and openly wept as the brothers’ long ordeal finally came to an end after decades of being wrongfully convicted felons with criminal records. They hugged each other before hugging their aunts who had waited so long for this day.
“To come this far 30 years later, it’s more than a blessing,” Tyler said.
“I just want to be able to be me, to not worry about anything no more, to live life, to get up and be able just to be a father again,” Henderson said.
The brothers’ mother died years ago, but her sisters lived to see the men cross the final stage of clearing their name.
“I stand here representing my sister Evy Tyler, who waited for this for years,” said Deborah Tyler Stokes, the brothers’ aunt.
The ruling came more than a year after the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office filed a motion to oppose the brothers’ efforts to obtain their Certificate of Innocence, which expunges their criminal record and allows them to collect compensation from the state of $200,000.
Last month, as the brothers waited for their next day in court, prosecutors dropped their opposition to their efforts to obtain the certificates of innocence. Prosecutors never explained why they filed a motion in the first place to oppose the certificates of innocence. Nor did they explain why they dropped their opposition.
The brothers would have to wait several more weeks as Judge Reddick examined evidence and documents to determine whether they met the standard of proving their innocence.
“What I think is especially difficult for Sean and Reggie, is having them complete their entire sentence, get released and be on parole and all of that for something they didn’t do,” said Karl Leonard with the Exoneration Project.
Attending the hearing was Roosevelt Myles, a wrongfully convicted man who last week learned he would face similar opposition from prosecutors in obtaining his Certificate of Innocence. Myles spent 28 years in jail before he was exonerated in 2022.
“We are in this struggle together. I see victory. I see my victory in them,” Myles said.
Tyler and Henderson were arrested in 1994 in the murder of Rodney Collins, a 10-year-old boy. Henderson was arrested and tortured by now-retired detectives Kenneth Boudreau and James O’Brien, who were accused of forcing a false confession in which he was forced to implicate Tyler, his brother. The detectives worked under disgraced police Commander Jon Burge.
The brothers claim the detectives targeted them after Tyler, in another murder case in 1991, testified for the defense in the case of a 13-year-old boy. The boy claimed he confessed to a murder after he was beaten and shocked by Boudreau and O’Brien and others working for Burge.
Three years later, Tyler and Henderson claim the detectives came after them, in 1994, and arrested them for the murder of Collins.
According to lawsuits, Tyler, who was 17 at the time, while in police custody was beaten “so severely in the chest, face and eyes that he was later taken to the hospital for vomiting blood.”
Henderson claims he signed a confession after 48 hours of torture while in police custody. Henderson said he was punched repeatedly and left handcuffed in an interrogation room without food or access to a bathroom.
During trial proceedings, the detectives denied abusing them or other suspects, but decades later, more allegations of torture by police who worked under Burge were presented in court by other victims.
They were convicted in 1996, and each of them spent more than 23 years in prison, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.
Last year, at a news conference announcing their federal lawsuit at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, Tyler and Henderson set up an easel displaying funeral programs for nearly a dozen loved ones who died during their decades in prison.
“I want people to look at our history and our hurt,” Henderson said, as his voice cracked. “I left [for prison] with a 5-month-old child, and came home to three grandkids, people [for whom] I’ve never been a part of their lives.”
