Above the Law, Beyond the Gavel: A Prophecy or Peril Exposé

by Liz Franklin

In 1987, as Charles Reynard stepped into his role as McLean County State's Attorney, a prescient article landed on desks across Illinois' legal community. Its title read like a warning shot: "The Epidemic of Prosecutorial Courtroom Misconduct in Illinois: Is It Time to Start Prosecuting the Prosecutors?"

The timing wasn't just coincidental—it was prophetic.

The article's authors laid bare a system already in crisis: "Illinois courts have become alarmed at repeated instances of prosecutorial misconduct," they wrote. "Frustrated by the recurrences of prosecutorial misconduct, the Illinois Appellate Court has repeatedly asserted that such impropriety should be handled in disciplinary proceedings regardless of whether it prompts reversal."

The problem was so glaring that, according to the article, even the United States Supreme Court weighed in, stating that "…rather than reversing a defendant's conviction, a court should address prosecutorial misconduct by instituting disciplinary proceedings or by chastising the guilty prosecutor through identification in a published opinion."

Yet despite these extraordinary calls for accountability, Illinois' disciplinary bodies have almost universally failed to act. The state could point to only one published opinion ever addressing prosecutorial misconduct in a disciplinary context—a damning indictment of a system that simply refuses to police itself.

For Charles Reynard, these warnings were not a call to reform but an invitation to double down. Despite the documented epidemic of misconduct in Illinois, Reynard not only remained undeterred but was rewarded for his approach—rising to become a Circuit-Court judge in 2002, where he presided over cases until his retirement in 2015. This progression from prosecutor to judge exemplifies how the legal system often rewards, rather than scrutinizes, those who prioritize convictions over justice.

The Human Cost: Two Cases That Demand Justice

Nearly four decades after the article was published, the cost in human lives continues to mount. The toll of this systemic failure is perhaps best illustrated by two McLean County cases that continue to haunt the Illinois justice system: those of Barton McNeil and Jamie Snow.

Bart McNeil's case defies logic from the start—he was the one who insisted police return to investigate his daughter's death, an action no guilty person would take.

For 26 years, he's maintained that his ex-girlfriend, Misook Nowlin, murdered his daughter. Misook would later kill her mother-in-law in a chillingly similar manner—a tragedy that might have been prevented had authorities properly investigated her connection to Christina McNeil's death. New DNA testing has revealed multiple hairs matching Misook's profile at the crime scene, yet the system continues to resist acknowledging what appears to be a catastrophic failure of justice. Despite overwhelming evidence of innocence, Bart remains behind bars.

Jamie Snow's case stands as a textbook example of how wrongful convictions are manufactured through coerced testimony. His conviction relied on jailhouse informants who traded testimony for reduced sentences—many of whom have since recanted in sworn affidavits, admitting they lied under pressure from investigators. Despite Jamie passing a polygraph, and new evidence discrediting key testimony, he has remained imprisoned for over two decades.

In March 2025, both McNeil and Snow's cases reached a critical juncture as the Fourth District Appellate Court heard their appeals at Illinois State University, marking a rare instance of two high-profile wrongful conviction cases being heard back-to-back. The appellate arguments centered on the circuit court's controversial decisions to deny both men new trials, despite mounting evidence suggesting their innocence. The two men now await the court's ruling.

The Pattern of Misconduct

The picture painted by the numbers is stark. Between 1989 and 2024, Illinois has seen over 200 exonerations, with prosecutorial misconduct playing a role in approximately 30% of these cases. McLean County's per capita wrongful conviction rate exceeds the state average by 40%, yet it remains one of the few major jurisdictions without a formal review mechanism for questionable convictions.

Recent investigations reveal an even more troubling pattern: the very units designed to prevent wrongful convictions are themselves part of the problem. A February 2025 investigation by Injustice Watch found that Cook County's Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) repeatedly denied freedom to prisoners who were later proven innocent. The investigation identified 21 people—20 men and one woman—convicted of murder who were either rejected or left in limbo by the unit, only to be exonerated later through other means. In March 2025, the Illinois Innocence Project identified seventeen cases across the state where prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence—the exact pattern present in both McNeil and Snow's cases. This isn't coincidental; it's correlational, pointing to a systemic failure that transcends county lines and spans decades.