Former Death-Row Prisoner Exonerated in Illinois, Seized by ICE

Former Illinois death-row pris­on­er Gabriel Solache (pic­tured), a Mexican nation­al whose death sen­tence was one of 157 com­mut­ed by Governor George Ryan in January 2003, was exon­er­at­ed on December 21, 2017 after twen­ty years of wrong­ful impris­on­ment, but imme­di­ate­ly seized by agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

Cook County pros­e­cu­tors dropped charges against Solache and his co-defen­dant Arturo DeLeon-Reyes after Circuit Court Judge James Obbish over­turned their con­vic­tions, find­ing that dis­graced Chicago detec­tive Reynaldo Guevara had told ​“bald-faced lies” under oath when he tes­ti­fied to hav­ing no mem­o­ry of inter­ro­gat­ing Solache and DeLeon-Reyes and denied hav­ing beat­en false con­fes­sions out of the men. DeLeon-Reyes also was imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed by ICE agents. 

Solache and DeLeon-Reyes were con­vict­ed in sep­a­rate tri­als, and Solache was sen­tenced to death, for the 1998 stab­bing deaths of Jacinta and Mariano Soto dur­ing a home rob­bery. No phys­i­cal or bio­log­i­cal evi­dence linked either man to the mur­der, but they were con­vict­ed based upon con­fes­sions they have long said were coerced by Guevara over the course of three days of inter­ro­ga­tion in which they were denied their right to con­sular assis­tance by the Mexican gov­ern­ment, deprived of sleep, and giv­en lit­tle food or drink until they false­ly implicated themselves. 

Solache’s pur­port­ed con­fes­sion was writ­ten entire­ly in English by an assis­tant state attor­ney who did not speak Spanish. Solache did not speak or read English and said that Guevara nev­er trans­lat­ed the writ­ten state­ment for Solache before get­ting him to sign it. 

Guevera has been accused of fram­ing defen­dants of mur­der in 51 cas­es. According to Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, Solache and DeLeon-Reyes are the sixth and sev­enth defen­dants freed in the last two years as a result of mis­con­duct by Guevara. To date, nine defen­dants have been released in cas­es in which Guevara was alleged to have beat­en them or coerced wit­ness­es into pro­vid­ing false testimony.

Solache is the 161^st per­son wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in the United States to have been exon­er­at­ed since 1973, and the twen­ty-first in Illinois. At least a dozen of those exon­er­a­tions have involved mis­con­duct by Chicago police, includ­ing five cas­es in which the noto­ri­ous ​“Burge Squad” beat or tor­tured con­fes­sions out of inno­cent defen­dants. Aaron Patterson, Leroy Orange, Madison Hobley, and Stanley Howard—mem­bers of the ​“Death Row Ten,” who assert­ed that their con­vic­tions were the prod­uct of false con­fes­sions obtained as a result of police tor­ture at the hands of noto­ri­ous Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge — received full par­dons by Governor Ryan. Ronald Kitchen, anoth­er mem­ber of the Death Row Ten, was exon­er­at­ed in July 2009. Among the tac­tics the ​“Burge Squad” employed to elic­it con­fes­sions were shock­ing sus­pects in the gen­i­tals with cat­tle prods, beat­ing sus­pects over the head with phone­books, and point­ing guns in the faces of minors.