After 23 years behind bars, Chicago man set free as he appeals murder conviction

A Cook County judge on Monday appeared reluctant to release a man from prison while he continues to fight his murder conviction, but did anyway at the order of a state appellate court.

Judge Angela Petrone ordered Kevin Jackson, 43, released on electronic monitoring while he appeals her ruling earlier this summer that denied his bid to vacate his conviction in a 2001 gas station shooting on the South Side.

Jackson’s family and supporters were thrilled that they would finally be able to embrace him.

“We wanna go eat,” his sister Lakisha Jackson, 40, told reporters after the hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse. “I think he wants steak and rice.”

“Oxtails and rice with gravy,” his mother chimed in with a laugh.

Before setting the conditions of his release, Petrone gave a detailed summary of Jackson’s case, including his many unsuccessful appeals over the more than two decades since he was convicted by a jury in 2003.

“His conviction has been affirmed by every court that has reviewed it,” Petrone said during a hearing in her small third-floor courtroom at the courthouse in Little Village.

But Jackson has long maintained his innocence. And his motion to overturn his conviction was unopposed by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, with prosecutors telling Petrone they wouldn't seek to retry him.

Special prosecutors appointed by the state’s attorney office in 2022 to independently review the case found “powerful evidence that Jackson may be innocent." They reported that it was likely key evidence was "obtained by pressure, coercion, and overreaching by the police.”

In a lengthy ruling in June that denied Jackson's request for a new trial, Petrone said she believed the special prosecutors had “inappropriately assessed” the credibility of testimony by witnesses more than two decades after the murder. Petrone also noted that Jackson's defense team hadn't offered new evidence that wasn’t previously considered by his jury.

Jackson’s attorneys called that ruling “severely irrational and unjust” and filed a notice of appeal hours later.

A three-judge appellate panel heard arguments last week and ordered the case sent back to Petrone, telling her to “promptly” hold a hearing setting “appropriate and reasonable conditions” while they weigh his appeal.

Jackson’s attorneys argued that he should be released with only the mandatory conditions that all defendants are supposed to comply with in Illinois, mainly to show up for court hearings and not commit any new offenses.

But Petrone said Jackson’s case was “unique." Unlike people on pretrial release, the judge added, a jury had already found him guilty.

“He’s still convicted of first-degree murder, and society needs to be protected,” she said.