Special prosecutor will re-try Gerald Reed for 1990 double-murder

Flanked by lawyers for her son, Gerald Reed, Armanda Shackleford addresses reporters after a hearing Friday at which prosecutors said they would re-try her son for a 1990 double murder. Reed on Wednesday was granted a new trial after a judge ruled that his confession to the killings was the result of a beating he suffered during his interrogation by detectives under the command of Jon Burge. | Andy Grimm for the Sun-Times

Special Cook County prosecutors will re-try a South Side man whose conviction for a 1990 double-murder was overturned earlier this week.

After spending 28 years in prison, Gerald Reed was granted a new trial on Wednesday for the murders of Pamela Powers and Willie Williams. Judge Thomas V. Gainer ruled that Reed’s confession was likely the result of a beating he sustained at the hands of detectives working under the late disgraced former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge.

But at a hearing on Friday, Special Prosecutor Robert Milan said that his team would press forward with the case against Reed. Reed will remain jailed while awaiting a Jan. 9 bond hearing.

Gainer is expected to retire early next year, so a different judge will inherit the case.

Reed on Wednesday scowled as Milan announced that Reed would be tried again. In the courtroom gallery, Reed’s mother, Armanda Shackleford slumped forward in her seat, leaning on her walker.

On Wednesday, she gleefully told reporters that Gainer’s ruling was the “happiest day of my life,” and said she was planning an elaborate party for her son’s birthday Saturday, as well as a Christmas celebration.

Before Reed was rolled out of the courtroom in a wheelchair, Reed called out to the courtroom gallery.

“Merry Christmas, everyone. Happy New Year,” Reed said.

Shackleford left the courtroom before the hearing ended, escorted by Mark Clements, a community activist who spent nearly three decades in prison based on a forced confession he made to Area 3 detectives. In the hallway, Shackleford wept and shouted, and as Assistant Special prosecutor Lawrence Rosen passed her on the way to the elevators, she jeered, “you’re sorry.”

“When I told you all on Wednesday that that was the happiest day of my life, but I’m sad again,” Shackleford told reporters in the lobby of the Leighton Criminal Courthouse. “That’s not going to last, though. I’m gonna be fine — I’m going to be fine — and my son is going be out of prison… He’s coming home. Might not be today, but he’s coming home.”

Reed is in a wheelchair from an injury that has dogged him since his arrest for the murders and subsequent interrogation by detectives Victor Breska and Michael Kill. Reed said Breska kicked a chair out from under him and kicked him in the right leg, dislodging a metal rod that had been implanted in his leg after he suffered a gunshot wound years earlier. Medical records showing that Reed suffered the injury after his arrest did not surface until more than 20 years later.

Reed’s lawyer, Larry Dreyfus, said without Reed’s confession as evidence, the special prosecution team has only “a very weak circumstantial case.” Reed’s lawyers on Friday filed a motion to grant bond, which Rosen said he would fight.

Another of Reed’s lawyers, Elliot Zinger, questioned why the special prosecution team — private attorneys hired by the county to handle Burge-related cases, due to conflicts of interest with the State’s Attorney’s office — would continue to try prosecute Reed.

“I’m not surprised by the decision of the special prosecutor, because they are in the litigation business,” Zinger said.