State’s attorney candidate rips opponent for prosecuting 11-year-old in murder case
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Backers of Cook County state’s attorney candidate Clayton Harris III are arguing his opponent’s “irresponsible and reckless lack of judgment” in prosecuting a young boy in 1993 gives voters a “clear choice” about who to elect in the March primary.
The Tribune reported last month about Eileen O’Neill Burke’s prosecution of an 11-year-old boy accused of killing his elderly neighbor, Anna Gilvis, in the early 1990s in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood.
“It certainly didn’t keep us safe when the wrong person is incarcerated and the individual that committed this heinous crime never was found,” said Harris, flanked by supporters during a Monday morning news conference at Quinn Chapel AME Church on the Near South Side.
“This was not justice for Ms. Gilvis’ family at all, it wasn’t justice for our community, and it certainly didn’t keep us safe.”
Joining Harris Monday, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said that while the detective who took the boy’s confession worked for the city, the county is also liable for bogus prosecutions.
“Cook County has paid out a significant amount of money to those who were wrongfully convicted in our criminal justice system because of the collaboration and collusion of state’s attorneys,” Preckwinkle said. “I think it’s fair to acknowledge that while law enforcement is the responsibility of local units of government — in this case the city of Chicago — the county bears a responsibility as well when prosecutions go awry.”
Harris and O’Neill Burke, a former Cook County prosecutor and recently retired judge, are running in the March Democratic primary to replace outgoing State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
The Cook County Democratic Party, chaired by Preckwinkle, endorsed Harris in the contest.
While the young boy confessed to Gilvis’ murder, there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime and details of his admission did not match up with evidence at the scene. The conviction, affirmed by a juvenile judge and higher appellate courts, was later thrown out by a federal judge who said the boy’s confession to police was coerced.
That boy, A.M., had no interaction with police or trouble at school before the conviction, but later cycled through the criminal justice system and was ultimately shot and killed in 2018. Both his murder and the 1993 murder he was convicted of are unsolved.
The officer who took A.M.’s confession was later linked to other false confessions, including in the infamous Ryan Harris case.
Since the A.M. prosecution became an issue in the race last month, O’Neill Burke has said the boy’s confession was “compelling evidence” and that she would “never prosecute any case if I doubted the evidence or there were ‘red flags.’ That was true then, and it is true now.”
A cadre of Black elected officials, including Preckwinkle; former U.S. Senators Carol Moseley Braun and Roland Burris; Rep. Robin Kelly; Cook County Commissioners Monica Gordon, Bill Lowry and Stanley Moore; as well as several state representatives and aldermen signed on to an open letter urging voters to back Harris in the March primary.
“There is much at stake,” the letter says, citing O’Neill Burke’s “deeply concerning record,” including her prosecution of A.M. roughly 30 years ago.
“Even today, with the benefit of hindsight, Burke has expressed no regret over her handling of that case. Voters of every background, especially voters of color, should find this irresponsible and reckless lack of judgment gravely concerning,” the letter says.
“Nationally, Black men make up less than 3% of elected prosecutors. Yet, here in Cook County Black men make up an overwhelming majority of those impacted by the criminal legal system,” the letter says, noting Harris would be the first Black man elected to run the office.
O’Neill Burke’s campaign released a statement Monday stressing that the Illinois appellate court initially upheld the conviction, while the detective in the case, James Cassidy, has since been linked to other high-profile instances of coerced confessions.
“It was only eight years later after the detective’s misconduct in other cases came to light that the case was appealed to federal court which found that the statement was coerced and the defense’s failure to file a motion to suppress the statement was ineffective counsel,” O’Neill Burke’s campaign said.
“The only time anyone has alleged that the state’s attorney’s office did anything wrong is Clayton Harris’ attempt to exploit and politicize this tragedy, which is exactly what Eileen is running against.”
