Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke is fighting innocence claims more often, hiring outside counsel to help

Kevin Jackson spent more than two decades fighting to get out of prison. Now, that he's free, he's in the midst of another legal battle that he didn't expect. He's been trying for more than a year to officially clear his name and be declared innocent by the court. The Cook County State's Attorney's office is challenging that effort. 

The office contests those types of petitions under State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke more often than under her predecessor, Kim Foxx, according to court records reviewed by the CBS News Chicago Investigators.

Wrongful conviction

In 2001 at the age of 19, Kevin Jackson was arrested for murder and attempted murder. Crimes he told police then he did not commit.

But there were witnesses who pointed a finger at him as the shooter.

"I can't tell you how much I cried in that interrogation room. Just couldn't believe it," he said.

In 2003, he was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections.

The witnesses later recanted, and a surviving victim told prosecutors during a reinvestigation of the case that Jackson was not the shooter.

He was exonerated by the Illinois Supreme Court in 2024. It took another few months for him to be released from state custody.

In April 2025, he finally walked out of a downstate prison at the age of 43 and was finally able to take the first steps toward realizing his dream of becoming a landscaper.

"I just love being out in nature, because being incarcerated so long, you appreciate nature," said Jackson.

Over the past year, he started that landscaping business.  

"It's slowly coming to fruition. This is what I wanted to do and to see it happening right now, like that's the greatest gift from God to me," he said.

Now, he dreams of expanding the business and hiring a team. But he worries about background checks and the wrongful conviction that remains on his record.

"When they type me in, I'm a convicted murderer until I get my record expunged," Jackson said. 

Battle for Certificates of Innocence

Soon after exoneration, Jackson's lawyers filed a petition for a Certificate of Innocence (COI), which exonerees need before their wrongful conviction can be expunged — essentially erased from court databases. 

An expungement would clear the path not only for business opportunities, but for traveling, owning a home, and buying a car.

"Getting a passport, getting a mortgage, getting a car loan, getting a job, anything that requires a background check to explain away a first degree murder conviction for a crime you didn't commit," said Elizabeth Bacon, one of Jackson's attorneys.

"There's no reason to still be having this fight," said Brandon Clark, another of Jackson's attorneys.

In the COI petition Jackson's attorneys point to the State's Attorney's Office's own reinvestigation findings that there was significant evidence "pointing to someone else as the shooter" in the 2001 murder. And an appeals court ruling that threw out Jackson's conviction which said, "There now remains no doubt under Illinois' law that Mr. Jackson was wrongfully convicted in 2003 of crimes he simply did not commit."

Yet, in September 2025, in the State's Attorney's Office's response filing, the state wrote, the "petitioner has not met his burden of proving his innocence by a preponderance of the evidence. This Court should deny the petition."

That document was submitted by O'Neill Burke and three attorneys from an outside law firm hired to help fight COIs like Jackson's.

According to invoices the CBS News Chicago Investigators received through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office paid that law firm more than $50,000 during a four month period from June to October 2025 just to contest Jackson's innocence petition.

"It's surprising to me that this would be a case where the State's Attorney would feel that it is so important to fight that the office would choose to hire outside counsel at great expense to do so," said Bacon.

Jackson's attorneys believe under O'Neill Burke, this is part of a larger pattern. Attorneys, like Jennifer Blagg who represents another exoneree also fighting for a COI, agrees with Bacon and Clark that this administration is challenging COIs on a more routine basis compared to the previous one.

"It's like an earthquake. The change is so seismic that you could have gotten whiplash from it," said Blagg.

Blagg stressed the importance of a COI. 

"It's the only acknowledgement, really, that they were wronged," she said. 

Austin Segal with the fair courts advocacy organization Chicago Appleseed explained that the Certificate of Innocence statute says that all evidence should point to a person's innocence. But O'Neill Burke, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, said she believes there needs to be "concrete, irrefutable evidence" that the individual is innocent, like DNA evidence.

"So, not only is it unnecessary and harmful, but it doesn't even actually follow what the statute is saying should be the standard of proof in these cases," said Segal.

Blagg agrees the new state's attorney is using a much stricter, nearly impossible threshold for exonerees to meet. 

"You can present circumstantial evidence. We can point a finger to who did it. Every witness says 'I didn't see that person do it. The cops coerced me.' All the evidence points to innocence, but it's sort of akin to saying to someone, prove Santa Claus doesn't exist," she said.

But is O'Neill Burke contesting COI petitions more than Kim Foxx did during her tenure from 2016 to 2024?

CBS News Chicago Investigators used data from the National Registry of Exonerations to find people who were wrongfully convicted of murder and attempted murder and exonerated in Cook County during the two administrations. We then searched through court records for each of the 137 names. We found 115 with case records still available who petitioned for COIs.

Our analysis revealed for those 115 cases: 95 COIs were granted; 9 were denied; 11 were still pending at the time of our analysis.

Eighty-eight of those cases occurred solely during Foxx's administration. Her office contested COIs in 20 cases, or about 23% of the time. For another 25 cases, the court record wasn't clear whether the petition was initially contested or not.

Sixteen cases have had COI petitions filed solely under O'Neill Burke's administration. Her office contested 14 of those, or 88%. Her office was still deciding whether or not to contest one case at the time of our analysis. And in the final case, we were unable to determine whether her office contested it initially or not.

We asked O'Neill Burke's office to comment on the apparent change in policy when it comes to contesting COI petitions.

Here is the response in full:

The Cook County State's Attorney's Office is responsible for ensuring that justice is served in every case, including post-conviction claims and righting the wrongs of the past.

We hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards and will always follow the facts and the law to protect the people of Cook County. In addition, our Conviction Integrity Unit is dedicated to addressing the most serious miscarriages of justice.

We carefully evaluate each Certificate of Innocence petition and assess the totality of the evidence on an individual basis. There is no blanket policy that informs our decisions in these matters. We believe our approach is consistent with the Illinois Certificate of Innocence statute (735 ILCS 5/2-702), which requires petitioners to prove a claim of actual innocence by a preponderance of evidence.

"Obviously they're attorneys. They represent their clients just like we are. But ultimately their client is justice, and it does not feel like that's what they're seeking here," Clark said.

It feels unfair for Jackson too. He said he's "Disappointed in the system 'cause I shouldn't even have this murder conviction on my background. I shouldn't."

Yet he remains hopeful because he defeated a miscarriage of justice once before.

 "The day I stepped in prison … I had hope that one day I was gonna walk out of prison. And I got that same hope that I'm gonna get that Certificate of Innocence," he said. "So it's coming. It's just a matter of time."