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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
Drug Related (Possession or sale) |
Sentence: |
1 year |
Years Imprisoned: |
0.5 |
Year Crime: |
2004 |
Year Convicted: |
2004 |
Year Cleared: |
2017 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
Illinois |
County or Region of Crime: |
Cook |
City of Crime: |
Chicago |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated |
Summary of Case: |
"Shaun James was one of fifteen people whose drug related convictions were based on arrests by Chicago Police Department Sergeant Ronald Watts and officers working under his command from 2003 to 2008 had their wrongful conviction vacated on November 16, 2017. The 15 people were involved in a total of 18 drug convictions -- with three of the people wrongly convicted twice. It was discovered after their convictions their prosecutions were based on unreliable evidence manufactured by Watts and his officers who planted drugs on them, framed them and then falsified police reports. Watts and his fellow Chicago PD District 2 officers were assigned to the Ida B. Wells public housing complex in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood. In addition to framing innocent people, Watts and his fellow officers were alleged to have run a drug operation. Watts and then-Officer Kallatt Mohammed were federally indicted in 2012 for stealing money from a drug suspect who was an FBI informant. Watts pled guilty in 2013 and Mohammed in 2012, and they were respectively sentenced to 22 months and 18 months in in federal prison. The Cook County State's Attorney's Office's Conviction Integrity Unit began an investigation of claims of wrongful convictions involving Watts and his fellow officers in narcotics arrests. That investigation "raise[ed] serious concerns about the validity of the resulting convictions" for 15 defendants. All the defendants had been released from prison. On September 12, 2017 a joint consolidated petition was filed to vacate the convictions of those 15 people. The Cook County State's Attorney's Office did not oppose the petition. On November 16, 2017 the petition was granted in Cook County Circuit Court and the 18 convictions of the 15 people were vacated. Leonard Gipson, who was exonerated of two separate prosecutions on the basis of false arrests by Watts -- with the second one after he had been released from two years of imprisonment for the first -- told CNN after his exonerations: "“They were skimming off people, and anyone who would get in their way, they would frame them. And anyone who tried to report them, they would frame them. ... I went to jail and did 2 years for Watts. I came home, and he put another case on me." Gipson's second false arrest by Watts occurred three after he filed a complaint against Gipson with the CPD's Office of Professional Standards -- which never investigated Gipson's complaint. In January 2018 the 15 defendants filed petitions for a Certificate of Innocence, which will permit them to file for wrongful imprisonment compensation from the State of Illinois. As of November 17, 2017 26 convictions related to an arrest by Watts and his fellow officers have been overturned. Watts and the other officers were involved in around 1,000 arrests and about 500 convictions -- so it is possible there are as many as about another 475 people whose conviction could be overturned because of tainted evidence. Lionel White Jr. was the son of Lionel White Sr. who was also wrongly convicted based on evidence by Sgt. Watts." |
Conviction Caused By: |
Chicago Police Department Sergeant Ronald Watts and officers under his command fabricated the charges. |
Innocence Proved By: |
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Defendant Aided By: |
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Compensation Awarded: |
"$97,075 (State of Illinois, 2019)" |
Was Perpetrator Identified? |
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Age When Imprisoned: |
23 |
Age When Released: |
24 |
Sex: |
Male |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
Black |
Information Source 1: |
"Shaun James, National Registry of Exonerations" |
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Comments About Case: |
Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org