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Jon Burge accuser can stand trial again, judge rules — but cannot go to prison if convicted

Gerald Reed, whose life sentence was commuted last year amid allegations he was tortured into confessing to a double murder, can stand trial again for the 1990 killings — but he cannot go back to prison if convicted, a Cook County judge ruled Wednesday.

Circuit Judge Steven Watkins said in a videoconferenced court hearing that he would formally dismiss Reed’s initial convictions and grant him a new trial without the use of the confession. But because Gov. J.B. Pritzker commuted Reed’s sentence to time served, he cannot serve any further prison time even if he is convicted again, Watkins ruled.

It was the latest twist in a case that has become so complicated that one court filing compared it to the Gordian knot.

For years, Reed’s attorneys argued his conviction should be thrown out, saying he was tortured by detectives connected to notorious Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge. Prosecutors cast doubt on those claims and fought to keep the guilty verdict intact.

In 2018, one Cook County judge sided with Reed’s attorneys and ordered a new trial; more than a year later, a second judge unexpectedly reversed that decision and reinstated Reed’s conviction. Reed’s sentence was commuted in April of last year, and he was released from custody after about three decades behind bars.

Pritzker’s order affected only Reed’s sentence — his conviction remained intact.

The next month, the state Supreme Court ordered that Reed’s conviction should be thrown out — but for months, a Cook County judge had not signed an order formally dismissing the conviction.

Prosecutors long ago vowed to bring Reed, 58, to trial again, which they cannot do unless Reed’s conviction is thrown out.

And so the commutation prompted an interesting reversal: Prosecutors argued that Reed’s double-murder conviction should be formally dismissed. Reed’s attorneys wanted it to remain intact.

Since Reed’s sentence was commuted, Reed’s attorneys argued, the matter is closed. Prosecutors cannot try him again since the order to throw out his conviction was never technically signed, they said, and Reed’s sentence has been completed. Any further action would be in violation of Reed’s double jeopardy rights, they argued at a hearing in November.

But prosecutors noted that the higher court explicitly ruled Reed should be granted a new trial. And since his sentence is finished, they would not seek to put him back in custody if he’s convicted, they said.

“We can’t send him back to prison, we know that, but we’re not going to let him walk, we’re not going to pretend he didn’t kill these two people,” special prosecutor Robert Milan said in court last year.

Reed was convicted in a gruesome 1990 double murder and sentenced to life. In 2018, after extensive hearings about his allegations of police torture, Judge Thomas Gainer threw out his statement to police and his convictions. Prosecutors vowed to bring him to trial again, saying they had enough evidence to prove his guilt without the tainted confession, and Reed stayed in custody pending retrial.

After Gainer’s retirement, the case was assigned to Judge Thomas Hennelly, who in February 2020 threw a stunning curveball. After reviewing the record on his own, he determined that Reed was not entitled to a new trial after all, and reinstated the conviction and life sentence.

Reed’s attorneys took the matter to the state Supreme Court, which declined to dismiss the case or assign a new set of state’s attorneys like Reed’s attorneys had asked. But the court did rule that Gainer’s order throwing out Reed’s conviction should be reinstated, and the case went back to Cook County court.

Gainer had tossed Reed’s conviction after lengthy legal wrangling over allegations that two detectives under Burge beat him into confessing to the fatal shootings of Pamela Powers and Willie Williams on the South Side. Reed was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

Reed alleged that Detective Victor Breska kicked him so hard that he broke a rod that had been placed in Reed’s leg to aid in his healing from an earlier gunshot wound. Breska’s partner, Detective Michael Kill, who was repeatedly accused of abuse before his death in 2018, never reported the beating.

It was one in a litany of cases in which Burge and his “midnight crew” of detectives who worked under him have been accused of torturing or abusing dozens of mostly African American men into confessing to killings in the 1970s and ’80s. The scandal has stained the city’s reputation and cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in settlements, legal fees and other compensation to victims.

Prosecutors have maintained that they have enough evidence to prove Reed guilty without the tainted confession.

Two witnesses told authorities that they saw Reed and co-defendant David Turner one night in October 1990 with a terrified Powers “in their control,” barefoot and without her coat, prosecutors have said in a court filing.

Reed threatened Powers, asking her where the money was, while Turner ominously warned he would “drop this b—- behind Kennedy King,” prosecutors alleged.

Early the next morning, Powers was found under a viaduct near Kennedy-King College in the Englewood neighborhood, shot in the head and naked from the waist down. The same day, police found Williams shot to death in Powers’ ransacked apartment.

Prosecutors allege that the murder weapon was a Gangster Disciples “community gun” that one of the same witnesses — a woman — saw Reed and Turner carry on several occasions. Once, the witness said, she and Turner were handling the gun in the hallway, and it accidentally fired, lodging a bullet in the wall that later analysis showed was fired by the same weapon that killed Powers and Williams.

Turner, who never alleged he was beaten by police, is serving a life sentence.

mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com