Chicago, IL – The struggle for justice for survivors of police torture continues in Chicago. June 18 saw another defeat for Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen Burke, who is notoriously known for working hand-in-glove with the Chicago Police Department.

In 1991, Johnny Plummer was just 15 years old when he was beaten into a confession for a murder he didn’t commit. His torturers were Detectives Kenneth Boudreau and Michael Kill. Boudreau has 70 convictions to his name where survivors have accused him of torture; 28 of those men have since been exonerated for successfully proving they had been forced into confessions.

Plummer’s defense has always been that he was beaten into signing a confession by Kill and Boudreau, beaten in the abdomen with fists and a flashlight. He has declared this since the first moment his family came to the Area 3 police station after his two days in police custody. When Plummer saw a doctor at the Audy Juvenile Home, he told the doctor he had been beaten into signing the false confession. The medical examiner recorded Johnny’s account in his notes and, for 35 years, Plummer has been saying that he reported his torture to the doctor.

At his multiple trials since he was wrongfully convicted, that medical report did not surface.

Attorney Karl Leonard with the Exoneration Project explained to the presiding judge for Plummer’s case, Judge Tyria B. Walton, that a special prosecutor took this case in 2022 and requested all medical records from the state’s attorney’s office. “This year (2026) we received those files and finally saw the medical report from August 22, 1991,” Leonard stated.

Judge Walton’s opening question for counsel was to identify the issue at hand before the court. In his opening statement, Assistant State’s Attorney Miles O’Rourke claimed there was no Brady violation in 1991 and spent time showing that in the early years of trials and appeals, Plummer and his attorneys said nothing in court about not receiving medical records.

A Brady violation is when prosecutors fail to disclose impeaching evidence to the defense.

Judge Walton had previously been giving more support to the prosecutors, but as the defense brought out more information, Judge Walton reminded the court of the three things that are needed to establish a Brady claim: One, the evidence must be favorable to the accused because it is exculpatory (tends to prove innocence). Two, the prosecution suppressed or failed to turn over the evidence, even if the suppression was unintentional. And three, the evidence was “material,” meaning there is reason to think that the outcome of the trial would have been different.

State’s Attorney O’Rourke argued a number of times that there was no Brady violation and claimed that the defense had all the medical records. In the dramatic high point of the proceeding, Judge Walton identified that there was a first subpoena filed in 1991 and a second subpoena filed in 2022, and stated that the court was advised by the petitioner that they didn’t have the medical records.

O’Rourke interjected, “We didn’t have it either.”

Judge Walton continued, “Then in 2026, the records surfaced in a file review.”

Addressing O’Rourke’s outburst, Walton explained that the Brady language is unyielding: whether the withholding was intentional or not, there was definite cause for a Brady violation.

She went on to say that with the surfacing of the medical records earlier this year, she concluded the state’s attorney’s office had already been in possession of those records, though it may not have been in the possession of this particular counsel present at court.

After this, the state stopped arguing there was no basis for a Brady finding.

In response to the developments in court, Frank Chapman of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression stated, “When do facts matter? How can it be that something that happened 35 years ago is just now getting in front of a judge?”

Chapman recalled the words of Johnny’s mother, Jeanette Plummer, who died in May never seeing her son on this side of freedom. She had spoken out against injustice ever since he was wrongfully convicted. In 2012, at a forum on police crimes organized by the Chicago Alliance, she challenged the system of racist policing.

“How could they torture a 15-year-old child?” Chapman said, “Clearly we can’t trust the court system to bring justice. We must trust the movement to do this. Without the movement, we wouldn’t even be getting a hearing and keeping up his hopes for freedom.”

The next hearing for Johnny Plummer will be on Tuesday, June 23 at 1 p.m. at the George Leighton Courthouse (2650 S California Avenue) in room 304.

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Chicago, IL – Survivors of police torture, family members and supporters of Johnny Plummer packed a Cook County Courtroom on Tuesday, May 26 to witness the cross examination of the former Chicago Police Department detective who Plummer says beat him into confessing to a murder he had nothing to do with.

Plummer was 15 years old when detectives came to his house in the middle of the night to bring him in for questioning. Starting at 4 a.m., Plummer was held for two hours before being seen by detectives. Over 20 hours later, he signed a confession that was used to convict him for murder.

Plummer has been in prison for over 34 years and has maintained that he only signed the confession after being beaten by Detective Boudreau and another, Michael Kill, with fists and with a flashlight on his face and body.

In a previous trial regarding Plummer’s wrongful conviction, his lawyers had requested medical records from CPD showing that Johnny had been injured while held at Area 3. CPD responded by saying that no such records existed. Recently, those same medical records were recently sent to Plummer’s lawyers from CPD, apparently by accident, according to the lawyers.

Although the doctor who had examined Plummer and recorded the injuries is now deceased, the release of the medical records prompted the judge in Plummer’s case to allow for new evidentiary hearings to go forward. In addition to Tuesday’s hearing, the judge agreed to two more hearing dates in June.

Supporters watched as the detective, Kenneth Boudreau, was shown photos of the Area 3 Violent Crimes building that he led in the 1990s. The first of the photos depicted a holding cell called “the cage” with what appear to be Black mannequin heads with dreadlocks hanging from the wire fencing. Another photo showed two black hands in handcuffs with the phrase, “Another happy ending” written beneath them.

When Plummer’s attorney asked Boudreau if he ever objected to these props being displayed in his building, Boudreau said he never did. “In Chicago, cops have a term ‘head’ to describe suspects,” he said. “The doll heads could have been dark humor.”

Plummer’s brother, Coston Plummer, was present at the hearing and said he wants the world to know the extent of this corruption and injustice within CPD.

“They tortured so many Black and brown men for decades,” Plummer said. “This should go down as one of the darkest points in Chicago history.”

Boudreau was the head of Area 3 violent crimes in the 90s, where he worked under disgraced police commander Jon Burge to torture and wrongfully convict hundreds of Black men on the South Side of Chicago. In 2005, Boudreau, Burge and several other police detectives who worked under Burge all pled the 5th in a federal grand jury investigating claims of widespread police torture under Burge’s command.

“Boudreau has 75 people who don’t even know each other saying the exact same story about the way they were tortured by him,” Coston Plummer said. “And now he’s enjoying his life and getting a pension. I think that’s unjust.”

Leaders of the Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture (CFIST), held a rally outside the courthouse after the proceedings, demanding freedom for Plummer and all survivors of police torture, and that Boudreau, Kill, and all the complicit CPD detectives and states attorneys be held accountable for their crimes.

“We are in a system where justice is always delayed,” said Jasmine Smith, a co-chair of CFIST, which is a campaign of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR). “But we are going to continue to fight until justice will no longer be denied for any of our survivors.”

Every step of the way since he was 15, the system has failed him,” Coston Plummer said. “They can never make it whole, but they can acknowledge what has happened and let him and countless others go.”

Coston and Johnny Plummer lost their mother, Jeanette Plummer, earlier this month. Jeanette Plummer fought for her son’s freedom since he was kidnapped nearly 35 years ago. In the past ten years, she has also been active in the movement to stop police crimes and pass legislation to create an all-elected civilian police-accountability body.

In her final days, their mother was still fighting to free Johnny, Coston Plummer said. “Johnny had called her and she was dying, trying to lift up her arms to grab the phone and speak words,” he said. “She died fighting for her son and believing in her son.”

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