Juan Hernandez and his brother Rosendo were victims of the familiar, yet abhorrent, misconduct of Detective Reynaldo Guevara. Guevara partnered with infamous former Chicago Police detective Joseph Miedzianowski to frame the brothers for the murder of Jorge Gonzalez.
On July 27, 1997, several assailants approached a group of teenagers after 11:00 p.m. on the 2200 block of North Mobile and fired multiple shots, killing Gonzalez. The entire incident took seconds and happened in the dark. The surviving victims did not recognize the perpetrators and could provide only limited descriptions of the assailants. Yet two days later, during identification procedures conducted by Reynaldo Guevara, most of the victims identified Petitioners. These victim-witnesses testified at each of the Petitioners’ respective trials consistent with their out-of-court identifications obtained by Guevara.
Upon their arrest two days after the shooting, both Rosendo and Juan Hernandez provided alibis to Guevara demonstrating they could not have committed the crime. The brothers’ alibi witnesses were also interviewed, and they corroborated the brothers’ statements. Guevara, however, purposefully fabricated reports documenting these alibi statements so that it would appear as though Petitioners were lying to him. Guevara would then be able to testify in rebuttal at their trials, making it appear as though they had no alibi and instead lied about it. At trial this is exactly what occurred only after Guevara’s girlfriend at the time was caught taking notes during Juan Hernandez’s testimony. Both brothers were convicted of murder and other felony charges and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Their appeals were unsuccessful for two decades.
At the behest of Juan and Rosendo’s indomitable mother, Esther Hernandez, the late CWC co-director Jane Raley agreed to take Juan’s case in 2012 and Dan Stohr and Exoneration Project attorney Tara Thompson agreed to represent Rosendo. After Jane’s death, CWC’s Greg Swygert inherited Juan’s case and soon thereafter filed a joint post-conviction petition.
After years of Covid 19 delays a three-day evidentiary hearing in June of 2022 was held before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Joanne Rosado. For the hearing, Dan Stohr, Exoneration Project attorney and former CWCer Josh Tepfer, and Loevy & Loevy attorney Anand Swaminathan represented Rosendo and CWC attorney Greg Swygert and CWC fellow Jianing Xie represented Juan. The evidence at the hearing included evidence that Guevara and Miedzanowski conspired to frame Juan and by extension his brother for the murder, evidence of who the actual killer was, the recantation of one of the witnesses on the porch, evidence of Guevara’s pattern and practice of manipulating eyewitness identifications and breaking alibis through false testimony and police reports, and Guevara pleading the Fifth to direct questions about his conspiracy to frame the brothers.
On July 14, 2022, the Honorable Judge Rosado granted post-conviction relief on all grounds, including on each of the actual innocence grounds. Judge Rosado credited all the Petitioners’ witnesses and found that the Petitioners “by far earned the right to a new trial.” Judge Rosado also apologized to Juan and Rosendo “for the misconduct that was done to you and how [they] suffered for the last 25 years.” The State immediately dismissed the charges and following the ruling, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office issued a statement saying it “agree[d] with the Judge’s decision.” The brothers were released the next day. They were granted a certificate of innocence in 2023.