Freed by governor, Gerald Reed now faces retrial in 1990 double murder. 'It’s a very weird legal situation.'

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times file

Three years ago, Gov. J.B. Pritzker commuted Gerald Reed’s life sentence for a double murder, allowing him to walk out of Stateville Correctional Center a free man after serving nearly three decades in prison.

But Reed’s roller coaster case isn’t over.

A special Cook County prosecutor is preparing to retry him for the fatal shootings of Pamela Powers and Willie Williams in 1990 on the South Side.

“It’s a very weird legal situation,” said Reed’s attorney, Elliot Zinger.

In 2018, a Cook County judge threw out Reed’s oral confession, vacated his conviction and granted him a new trial. Reed said his confession was coerced by detectives working for disgraced Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge.

In 2020, another judge took over the case and reinstated the confession and Reed’s murder conviction.

Then in May 2021, the Illinois Supreme Court tossed out Reed’s oral and written confessions and granted him a new trial again.

Meantime, in April 2021, Pritzker commuted Reed’s life sentence to “time served” because of the health risks he faced in prison during the coronavirus pandemic.

But the governor’s commutation doesn’t prevent prosecutors from retrying Reed, Zinger said.

“A commutation of a sentence is not a pardon,” Zinger said. “His sentence was terminated and he was allowed to go free. But it does not make him a non-convicted person.”

Reed is scheduled to go on trial April 15 before Cook County Judge Steven Watkins.

In a strange twist, according to Zinger, Reed can’t be sentenced to prison even if he’s convicted again of the murders.

“He can’t do one more day in prison because the governor already pronounced he did the time for the crime,” Zinger said.

Preparations for the upcoming trial have included a request by the Cook County special prosecutor, Robert Milan, to bar any mention of Burge or officers under his command — along with the word “torture.”

Burge isn't relevant because Reed’s confessions — which Reed said were obtained through torture — have been barred from being mentioned by prosecutors in the trial, Milan said in a court filing.

But Zinger is asking the judge to allow him to mention Burge and his legacy of torture at trial.

Reed says a detective kicked him so hard he broke a rod put in his leg by doctors after he suffered an unrelated bullet wound — an allegation the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission found credible.

Zinger said two witnesses have recanted their original testimony against Reed.

A relative of Reed's co-defendant persuaded them to give a false statement saying Reed was involved in the killing of Powers and Williams, according to Zinger.

Another witness is dead but Zinger said he intends to put her daughter on the witness stand to say her mother was manipulated by Burge’s detectives into testifying against Reed.

David Turner also was convicted of the killings. Turner never accused detectives of torture and is serving a life sentence.