Posted by Changes are expected when a new administration comes into office, whether it is along party lines or policy pursuits. New administrations may pursue objectives that are against the established norms and bring into question possible constitutional impacts to everyday life. These process changes can impact on how cases are managed, and which witnesses can be called.
One such change was made by the current Cook County State’s Attorney, Eileen O’Neill Burke, who was sworn into office on December 1, 2024. She was elected to the position, succeeding Kim Foxx who had been in office since 2016. SA O’Neill Burke stated that one of her goals was to ensure that criminals are kept off the street. [1] She intended on concentrating on gun crimes and juvenile justice. One of these initiatives by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (CCSAO) has already seen nonviolent gun cases that would have been eligible to the Restorative Justice Community Court system being diverted to the criminal justice system instead.[2]
Another initiative that SA O’Neill Burke has pursued is revision of the process and transparency as it relates to the Do-Not-Call list and Disclosure list. These are two lists that are maintained by the CCSAO.
What are the Lists? What are the Implications?
The Do-Not-Call is a list of officers who have current or past conduct allegations, investigations or misconduct as well as individuals who have been stripped of their police powers. The officers on this list are individuals whose credibility has been called into question and are therefore precluded from being called as witnesses or signing off on search warrants. The Disclosure list includes officers who have a history of disciplinary actions or complaints against them, have been arrested, charged or convicted or a judge has previously identified the officer’s testimony as not credible. Appearing on the Disclosure list does not automatically preclude the officers from being able to testify, but rather it triggers a constitutional question of whether the CCSAO must inform the defense of the officer’s background under U.S. v. Giglio (1972).
Under SA Foxx, the Do-Not-Call list had previously been released publicly while the Disclosure list was an internal database made available for ASAs to consult prior to calling an officer as a witness. Depending on the misconduct, an officer could be only placed on the Disclosure list but not rise to the level necessary to be placed on the Do-Not-Call list. This review process fell to the SAO’s Brady/Giglio Committee and Ethics officers. Because the CCSAO does not have the ability to check whether an officer has a mark on their record, under SA Foxx, ASAs were tasked with asking an officer whether there was anything in their background related to untruthfulness, bias or misconduct. ASAs would then relay the information to the group responsible for reviewing to determine whether the officer’s conduct and background rose to the level of addition to either list. [3] Officers could also be put on the Disclosure list if a judge made a ruling of “adverse credibility finding” when the testimony of an officer on the witness stand is neither credible, truthful or believable. [4]
Officers however are not without recourse, forever languishing on the list. Officers who are added to the Disclosure list previously had 90 days to appeal.
There are constitutional obligations as well as obligations to the community at large. The holdings in US Supreme Court cases Brady[5] and Giglio[6] have required prosecutors to disclose exculpatory evidence to the accused. Such evidence includes information that could impeach a witness, discredit the testimony or show a history of bias, violence or misconduct.
Cook County and Chicago has an extensive and sordid history of police misconduct, wrongful convictions and exonerations. According to the Chicago Appleseed report in 2023, a survey from 1992 “found that on average, ‘perjury occurs 20% of the time, with defense attorneys estimating it occurs 53% of the time in connection with Fourth Amendment issues,’ but, ‘the true frequency of police perjury is almost impossible to measure because officers are rarely caught or disciplined.’”[7] There have been 573 exonerations in Illinois since 1989, with 499 being related to official misconduct. [8] Officer perjury can erode a community’s trust in the police as well as their confidence that justice can be fair and balanced. Transparency increases community trust. Secrecy and limiting disclosure do not.
There are serious implications to the process related to the Disclosure List and Do-Not-Call list. Officers on these lists can lose out on career advancement, damaged reputations, and follow officers from job to job when they find out that they are on the list after the fact. These issues are present nationwide. No state has figured out how to adequately balance the rights of the people and community with the rights of officers without losing sight of justice. The creation and management of the lists often rests with the individual prosecutors and no overarching guidelines exist to determine how an officer may land on the list or subsequently get off the list.
In Illinois, there is no due process for officers to challenge their placement on the list by a prosecutor. There is an appeal process, and some have been successful in getting off specifically the Do-Not-Call list. In Madison, Wisconsin, an officer found out he was on the list only when he attempt to apply for another job.
Police stations are at a disadvantage, especially when they have a smaller staff. In a suburban Boston, MA police station, there was a widespread timesheet fraud that landed 27 officers on their list. However, given that removing police power from that many officers at once would have negatively impacted the policing of the community, the force had to find different consequences for the misconduct.
The stakeholders (police, legislators and prosecutors) all have the responsibility to ensure compliance and consistency as it relates to inclusions on these lists as well as discipline and identification of misconduct by officers. It is the responsibility of police departments to investigate and discipline misconduct by their officers as well as document and communicate those indiscretions to appropriate parties when required. Police departments are tasked with communicating Rule 14 violations. Rule 14 violations are making a false report, written or oral according to the Chicago Police Department’s Rules and Regulations. [9] It is the responsibility of police departments to communicate this information to prosecutors, as previously stated, as there is no way for ASAs to look up disciplinary actions against officers.
Some states, Iowa and Arizona for example, have taken steps to amend state law to address officers’ inclusion on the lists as well as ensuring that there is no retribution without due process to officers.
Iowa Section 80F.1 was amended to include the following: “23 a. An officer shall not be discharged, disciplined, or threatened with discharge or discipline by a state, county, or municipal law enforcement agency solely due to a prosecuting attorney making a determination or disclosure that exculpatory evidence exists concerning the officer.”
In 2021, Arizona amended state law to reflect a defined process related to the “rule 15 database”. It included a timeline of when an officer is notified in writing that there is a possible placement on the rule 15.1 database, the officer’s rights and any process of review.
There is no perfect template, but there are obligations to both Illinois and US Constitution to ensure justice and protection of the community at large. SA O’Neill Burke discontinued the lists in their previous forms and replaced the Do-Not-Call list with a shorter list that only includes officers who have been stripped of their police powers.[10] Additionally, there has been a Brady/Giglio questionnaire created that requests officers to disclose their own misconduct and dishonesty. [11] The rationale given by SA O’Neill Burke’s office was that “[t]here [were] no guidelines for how people got on that list. There was no opportunity to get off the list if you were put on the list in error,”[12] However, the appeals process did exist under former SA Foxx.
As previously stated, there is no clear-cut direction to appropriately create and maintain the two lists to ensure constitutionality, transparency and accountability by all parties. There are ways that other jurisdictions have proceeded and moved toward success. In order to get there, however, it appears that all stakeholders need to be vested. Without those three tenets however, justice loses, and confidence collapses. We all then fail.
[1] https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/oneill-burke-sworn-in
[2] https://news.wttw.com/2025/02/17/cook-county-state-s-attorney-will-no-longer-divert-nonviolent-gun-cases-restorative
[3] https://chicagoreader.com/news/cook-county-brady-cops/
[4] https://www.chicagoappleseed.org/2025/08/13/cook-county-states-attorneys-rollback-of-do-not-call-and-disclosure-lists-is-alarming-and-dangerous/
[5] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/373/83/
[6] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/405/150/
[7] https://www.chicagoappleseed.org/2025/08/13/cook-county-states-attorneys-rollback-of-do-not-call-and-disclosure-lists-is-alarming-and-dangerous/
[8] https://exonerationregistry.org/Exonerations-in-the-United-States-Map#crimeState
[9] https://www.chicago.gov/dam/city/depts/cpb/PoliceDiscipline/RulesofConduct.pdf
[10] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25964860-blaisdell-max-stripped-officer-and-disclosure-list-feb-2025/
[11] https://chicagoreader.com/news/reader-investigative-reports/brady-list-eileen-oneill-burke-cook-county/
[12] Id.
Christine “Chris” Drew is a graduate of the Part Time/Evening program at University of Illinois – Chicago Law school. Upon graduation, she transitioned to a law clerk position at her civil defense firm where she had been working as a paralegal prior to and all through law school. Upon bar passage, she will continue her work as an associate. She had previously worked for a criminal defense firm and plaintiff firm in the loop. Chris hopes to combine her JD from UIC Law and her Master’s in Public Service Management from DePaul University with her previous work experience in the corporate and political arena to develop policy and legislation to address concerns facing her community.