In one of the first glimpses into how the new state’s attorney handles alleged wrongful convictions, a Cook County judge on Friday heard closing arguments and said she will decide next month whether to vacate convictions for a defendant who said he was framed by Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara.
If Judge Carol Howard rules in his favor, Tyrece Williams, 57, would be the 50th person to have an overturned murder conviction in a case investigated by the infamous detective, who has been accused of fabricating evidence to frame defendants for crimes they did not commit throughout his career with the Chicago Police Department. The ruling would also mark the first Guevara-related case to resolve under the administration of State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke.
During an at-times heated evidentiary hearing earlier this month, defense attorneys argued that the administration had already demonstrated a stark change in tone.
Attorney Jennifer Bonjean, who represents a witness who testified against Williams 33 years ago, told the judge that prosecutors threatened her client with perjury charges when he came forward to say that he did not actually see Williams kill 15-year-old Peter Cruz in 1990.
“This is political retribution,” Bonjean said at the Jan. 6 hearing.
Assistant State’s Attorney Linda Walls denied that the state threatened him “directly or indirectly.”
The state’s attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
On Friday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, the defense attorneys made their final pleas to Howard, arguing that Williams has maintained his innocence from the beginning. Williams has already completed his sentence after serving about 20 years.
“The weight of a wrongful conviction doesn’t end just because a person has served his entire sentence,” Lyla Wasz-Piper, one of Williams’ attorneys, said.
Walls, though, told the judge that this case is not a wrongful conviction.
“Wrongful convictions should never stand,” she said. “As officers of the court, as members of the criminal justice system, nobody wants that. But this is not that case.”
On April 20, 1990, in the 2200 block of North Drake Avenue on the Northwest Side, Cruz, a Clemente High School student, was shot to death and also attacked by a pit bull, according to court records and Tribune archives.
Cruz’s friend, Wilfredo Torres, 15 at the time of the shooting, testified during a bench trial that he saw Williams shoot his friend.
Now, more than three decades later, Torres, 50, suggested during the Jan. 6 hearing that someone other than Williams killed his friend.
“They were tussling,” Torres said, growing tearful as he testified. “When I got there, my friend looked at me … from the floor. He said help.”
According to Torres, Cruz, while being attacked, said: “Anthony, why are you doing this to me?”
“Is Anthony the same person as Tyrece Williams?” Williams’s attorney Joshua Tepfer asked.
“No,” Torres replied.
Torres, though, periodically refrained from answering questions, referencing his Fifth Amendment constitutional right against self-incrimination due to what he said was the threat of perjury charges.
“I’d like to answer the question truthfully but because the state’s attorney threatens to charge me with perjury, I invoke my Fifth Amendment right,” he said in response to a question about if Williams shot Cruz.
Bonjean, Torres’ attorney, took prosecutors to task before her client took the stand, arguing that the state’s attorney’s office began shifting its position on Guevara cases during the tenure of Anita Alvarez. Under then-State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, the office overturned hundreds of convictions in cases investigated by Guevara as well as others.
“Frankly, it’s outstanding we’re even here for an evidentiary hearing,” Bonjean said. “The state’s attorney wants to signal that there’s a new sheriff in town. This isn’t the way to do it.”
Walls, though, contested that, telling the judge: “Mr. Torres has every right to testify, and we don’t know what he is going to say.”
On the stand, Torres said Guevara coerced him into implicating Williams.
“Your testimony today is that Detective Guervara beat you and threatened you in order to identify Tyrece Williams?” Walls asked earlier this month.
“Correct,” Torres said.
“In 33 years, did you ever come forward to anybody?” she followed up.
“I did not,” he said.
Walls pointed to this lag during her closing arguments.
“Only now do we hear that,” she said.
Tepfer, though, questioned why Torres would travel in from his home state of Michigan to spend a day testifying if it wasn’t to tell the truth.
Howard took the matter under advisement and said she would rule on Feb. 24.
With tears in his eyes, Williams said after the hearing that — regardless of Howard’s ultimate decision — it was gratifying to hear witnesses take the stand and tell the public that he didn’t do it.
