Earlier this month, Injustice Watch celebrated its 10th birthday. For the past decade, our reporting has shed light on systemic injustices in the court system, leading to official investigations, changes to state laws, freedom for people who were wrongfully convicted, and increased participation in judicial elections.
The work our team produced this year was emblematic of the deep, person-centered, data-driven investigative reporting Injustice Watch has been doing since our founding. We continued to hold power to account and report on parts of the court system that have been chronically undercovered. Our reporters continued to battle recalcitrant public officials and the judiciary’s exclusion from state public records laws to unearth documents and data that exposed systemic inequities. And we continued to practice journalism as a public service, sharing our reporting — and, whenever possible, resources — with the people who are most directly impacted by the issues we cover.
Here are some of the best stories we published in 2025:
Denying innocence
Cook County prosecutors have long touted the accomplishments of the Conviction Integrity Unit, a small group in the state’s attorney’s office tasked with reviewing old cases and freeing people who have been wrongfully convicted. But in an investigation published in February, senior reporter Dan Hinkel found at least 21 people convicted of murder who either had their cases rejected by the unit or were left to wait years in prison despite cases so flawed they later won their freedom. He also dug into the office’s multiple potential conflicts of interest, including a marriage between an attorney in the unit and Brian Forberg, a former Chicago police detective who has been named in numerous alleged wrongful convictions.
In September, we published the second part of Dan’s investigation, in collaboration with Bolts magazine, which explored how new Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke had further weakened the unit during her first 10 months in office. By that point, the unit had just three attorneys — half as many as it had in 2021. Burke had also enacted rules that make it harder for people in prison to use the CIU. The result: The CIU had not exonerated a single person in a year. Dan also found two dozen cases — many of which had received little public exposure — involving allegations of Forberg or his partners coercing witnesses or defendants, which Burke has continued handling one by one in court, rather than systematically investigating their glaring similarities.
To make sure our findings reached the people most directly affected, we mailed Dan’s stories to more than 200 people in two dozen prisons throughout the state — including people whose cases had been rejected or disregarded by the CIU or whose convictions were tied to Forberg.
Tyler Technologies’ costly contracts
In April, senior reporter David Jackson and Chicago Tribune reporter A.D. Quig exposed major problems with three Illinois contracts with Tyler Technologies Inc. to update critical government databases related to the court system and property tax records. Our investigation found that the initial $75 million price tag for the three contracts climbed to more than $185 million. In addition, Cook County spent $80 million on upkeep to its old mainframe and to watchdog the troubled Tyler contract, bringing the total taxpayer cost so far to $265 million for all three deals. A follow-up investigation explored the close ties between Tyler and well-connected lobbyist Jay Doherty, who was later convicted of conspiracy for his role in the ComEd-Michael Madigan corruption scandal.
Following our reporting, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle publicly acknowledged problems with Tyler’s tech overhauls and launched a series of public reports on the progress of Tyler’s contract for property tax records. The Better Government Association renewed its call for open access to judicial branch records under the Freedom of Information Act, citing our reporting. A Michigan nonprofit also cited our reporting in a lengthy piece calling for Tyler’s contracts in that state to be terminated.
Property tax foreclosures
In May, we published the first investigation in an ongoing series on Illinois’ tax foreclosure system with the Investigative Project on Race and Equity. Senior reporter Carlos Ballesteros and the Investigative Project’s Emeline Posner uncovered how Black seniors have been disproportionately impacted by a system that allows the county to sell the right to someone’s home over as little as a few hundred dollars in unpaid property taxes. The system violates a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision mandating that local governments give homeowners any money that’s left over after their homes are sold to pay off their tax debt. Our first-of-its-kind data analysis found more than 1,000 owner-occupied Cook County homes had been taken through property tax foreclosure since 2019, transferring as much as $108 million in equity from homeowners to tax buyers.
In response, Illinois legislators passed a stopgap measure allowing Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas to postpone this year’s tax sale. The state legislature, which failed to act to reform the system this year, is expected to pick up the issue again in January, following a federal judge’s decision this month finding the current tax foreclosure system unconstitutional.
We also sent key findings from our reporting and a list of resources for people who are behind on their property taxes to more than 4,000 Cook County homeowners who are at risk of losing their homes to tax foreclosure, based on data we obtained in our reporting. We’ve received a number of responses to this mailing, including from people who didn’t even know they were behind on their taxes until we reached out.
ICE detention at an O’Hare hotel
In her first investigation for Injustice Watch, senior reporter Aura Bogado found an Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractor had detained an immigrant mother and her 7-month-old U.S. citizen son at a hotel near O’Hare International Airport for five days in June. The detention came as federal immigration authorities rounded up more than 100,000 immigrants nationwide in an effort to meet arrest targets set by the Trump administration. Advocates said the detention raised concerns about the types of facilities being turned into de facto detention centers and highlighted the limits of state and local sanctuary policies to stop ICE detention in Illinois.
Following our reporting, which was published with The Intercept and republished by the Chicago Sun-Times and Block Club Chicago, U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, a Chicago Democrat, called for the Illinois Attorney General’s Office “to consider what legal action must be taken in the state of Illinois” against the hotel and the private contractor.
Forensic failures
In a nine-month investigation published in August, senior reporter Maya Dukmasova uncovered how a forensic toxicology lab at the University of Illinois Chicago relied on scientifically discredited methods to test urine samples and faulty machinery to test blood samples in more than 2,000 DUI-cannabis cases. Through more than 45 Freedom of Information Act requests, 100 interviews, and 8,000 pages of records, Maya showed that lab leaders knew its machines were not producing reliable results for THC blood tests, yet for years failed to notify law enforcement or fix their testing methods. At least 18 convictions tied to the lab have been vacated so far, and defense attorneys say there could be hundreds more wrongful convictions out there. The university fought our records request until we filed a lawsuit challenging its refusal to provide reports produced by the lab. The investigation, published in the Chicago Reader, South Side Weekly, and Block Club Chicago, found Illinois has no meaningful forensic science oversight, meaning there’s no system in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Juvenile detention center
Reporter Kelly Garcia has focused this year on the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, one of the nation’s largest juvenile jails. Outside experts have long criticized the detention center for its punitive practices, including prolonged room confinement, unnecessary strip searches, and excessive restraint. In September, Kelly uncovered records suggesting the longtime superintendent of the detention center may not even live in Chicago. She found a trail of public records tying Superintendent Leonard Dixon to a suburb outside Detroit, where he claims a homeowners’ property tax exemption and has voted in every election since 2012. Kelly also spoke with nine current and former employees of the detention center who said Dixon is rarely seen there. Our questions prompted then-Chief Judge Timothy Evans to hire an outside law firm to investigate Dixon’s residency; it found evidence he resided in Chicago. In response to our reporting, the Chicago Tribune published an editorial calling on Evans to provide answers about where Dixon lives.
Then, in late October, Kelly reported on the rare trial of a former detention center staffer accused of physically harming a 15-year-old at the facility, leaving him bruised and unconscious. It was the first time in more than a decade that a current or former staff member at the facility had been criminally charged. Kelly obtained a slew of incident reports and other records, despite the fact that the detention center falls outside the state’s Freedom of Information Act. Her reporting found inconsistencies between the account of the accused officer, Kevin Walker, and those of other witnesses, as well as previous allegations of abuse against Walker that had not been sustained.
In a 2½-hour bench trial on Oct. 31, Cook County Circuit Judge Kenneth J. Wadas acquitted Walker of all charges. After the trial, Kelly obtained video footage of the incident, which experts called “horrific” and which they said appeared to contradict the judge’s findings. The day we published the video, Dixon submitted his resignation as superintendent.
A court in transition
The Cook County Circuit Court enters 2026 under new leadership for the first time in nearly a quarter-century. In September, Timothy Evans lost his eighth race for reelection as Cook County chief judge to newcomer Charles Beach.
As a publication with a mandate to investigate the court system Evans led, we’ve written numerous stories about him over the years. This time, senior reporter Maya Dukmasova wrote the definitive account of Evans’ rise to power and his leadership of the court. Maya interviewed more than 50 people — including Evans — and reviewed hundreds of pages of archival news stories to show his impact on the court system. Her story, published in partnership with Chicago magazine, looked at how Evans was able to endure as chief judge for so long and what his tenure might tell us about the future of the court.
Waiting for payday
Senior reporter Alejandra Cancino spent months investigating how Illinois’ labor laws actually work for the thousands of people who file wage theft claims with the state each year. She found a system that, while strong on paper, has left hundreds of mostly low-wage workers waiting years — sometimes more than a decade — to recoup stolen wages. Her investigation, published with Crain’s Chicago Business, was based on an analysis of more than 3,000 cases filed in Cook County court against employers who the Illinois Department of Labor had already determined had failed to properly pay their workers. Despite some efforts to improve wage-theft collection, she found the state Attorney General’s Office is not using every tool available to compel employers to pay up.
Workshops and resources
In an effort to share what we learned from “The Tenant Trap,” our multipart investigation last year into housing and eviction court, senior reporters Alejandra Cancino and Maya Dukmasova led three in-person workshops at libraries across the city. The goal was to provide people with the tools to research whether a building has been cited for code violations and to uncover who really owns a building — even if the landlord uses an LLC or corporation to mask their identity. Our workshops were so successful that we created a digital version and print pamphlets that we distributed to libraries, so the information will be accessible for years to come. We also spoke to a housing attorney to answer some of the most common questions we got from renters during our workshop series.
As the Trump administration ramped up immigration enforcement this spring and began detaining and deporting people in immigration court, reporter Kelly Garcia created a guide in English and Spanish to help people navigate the complex immigration court system.
Other reporting
Senior reporter Alejandra Cancino reported in June on a group of tenants in Pilsen who alleged retaliation by their landlord after they withheld rent in response to his failure to conduct timely repairs. Although the tenants followed the process laid out in Chicago’s landlord-tenant ordinance, the landlord raised their rents and ultimately filed eviction cases against them. The case highlights the uneven playing field between landlords and tenants in Cook County, a major finding of “The Tenant Trap.”
We also reported on allegations of misconduct against Cook County judges. In January, senior reporter Maya Dukmasova got a tip about a judge who had allegedly shared a racist image in a text message. After we began asking questions, the judge was temporarily reassigned and referred to the state Judicial Inquiry Board. In September, Maya reported on battery allegations against a different judge who had previously been accused of unwanted touching. Although the Cook County Sheriff’s Office determined the allegations were unfounded, the judge was reassigned from her courtroom to a “floater” role in the Markham courthouse.
Partnerships
We’re proud to be part of a vibrant Chicago news ecosystem that understands that collaboration is better than competition. This year we reported and co-published stories with more than a dozen local and national news organizations — both longtime partners and first-time collaborators. Thanks to our partners this year: Block Club Chicago, Bolts magazine, Chicago magazine, the Chicago Reader, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, Cicero Independiente, Crain’s Chicago Business, The Intercept, the Investigative Project on Race and Equity, Invisible Institute, South Side Weekly, La Voz, and WBEZ.
We have big plans for 2026, including more investigations into the court system and two judicial election guides. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get our reporting on the Cook County court system delivered to your inbox every Friday. We’ll be back in January. Have a happy new year!
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