Judge bans Cook County prosecutors’ new Conviction Review Unit boss from courtroom, alleging conflict of interest
A judge has taken the unusual step of seeking to ban a Cook County prosecutor from his courtroom, alleging a business-related conflict of interest, according to a court order filed Thursday.
Judge Michael McHale, who presides over criminal cases at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, entered a court order that said Michelle Mbekeani, newly appointed head of the Conviction Review Unit, “is removed from this case as a representative of the People and shall also refrain from appearing as a representative of the People on any other case assigned to this courtroom.”
The order stemmed from a spat over Mbekeani’s connection to a business venture that connects defendants seeking to overturn their convictions with lawyers while serving as a prosecutor handling post-conviction cases for the state’s attorney’s office.
Mbekeani recently replaced Nancy Adduci as head of the Conviction Review Unit, previously called the Conviction Integrity Unit, under State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. Adduci’s role as head of a unit that reviews potential wrongful convictions had come under scrutiny in the past year due to her prosecution of defendants accused of shooting and killing Chicago police Officer Clifton Lewis in 2011.
The state’s attorney’s office in June dropped charges against two of the three suspects amid accusations from defense attorneys of misconduct on the part of the police and prosecutors who handled the case.
In a statement, the state’s attorney’s office said the complaints about Mbekeani are “unfounded and detract from our critical mission.”
“Casting doubt on Michelle’s commitment and integrity leads to significant delays in our work, which have severe consequences — not only prolonging the wrongful incarceration of innocent individuals but also impeding the healing and closure needed by victims and their families,” the office said in a statement.
The judge did not immediately respond to a message left at his chambers.
The issue came to a head during post-conviction proceedings for Dante Brown, who is asking a court for a new sentence in his double murder case. Brown, who was 19 at the time of the double homicide, is arguing that his life sentence for murder is unconstitutional given his status as a “a severely intellectually disabled teenager,” according to the petition.
Mbekeani, who represents the state in the case, launched a venture called Period, which offers legal help to people who are incarcerated, according to a description of the project by the University of Chicago Law School.
In a court order in Brown’s case, McHale wrote that he held a “conflicts hearing to determine if ASA (assistant state’s attorney) Mbekeani should remain on this case as a representative of the People” on Monday. The order said McHale asked Mbekeani questions about the project, to which she responded that it was a class project.
He wrote in the order that he finds that a conflict of interest exists for Mbekeani.
“Based on the testimony from the hearing of January 8th and in addition to her prior statements made in court and to the media, this court makes the following finding: that a per se conflict of interest exists on the part of ASA Mbekeani given her commitment and duty to represent the interests of victims of crime and their families while contemporaneously serving as the Registered Agent, Director, President and CEO of a corporation that works on behalf of defendants and defense attorneys on post-conviction cases,” he wrote. “In light of this per se conflict, ASA Mbekeani is hereby removed from this case.”
The prosecutor’s office pushed back on this finding, writing that Mbekeani’s “leadership of the Conviction Review Unit is anchored in her unparalleled experience, deep knowledge, and fervent dedication to justice reform.”
“Michelle’s academic project, which centers on due process for incarcerated individuals, underscores the crucial societal need to support and rehabilitate those unjustly affected by our justice system,” the statement said. “We are immensely proud to have Michelle, a professional so deeply committed to rectifying historical inequities, leading the charge against corruption and restoring trust in our legal processes.”
Mbekeani joined the office in 2018 as a legal and policy adviser and was previously an attorney at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law.
McHale, a former prosecutor, has been a judge since 2006.
