The Fatal Flaw in Conviction Integrity Units: When Foxes Guard the Henhouse

by Liz Franklin

In what might be the most predictable plot twist in criminal justice reform, a groundbreaking

investigation has revealed that Cook County's Conviction Integrity Unit—a group tasked with investigating wrongful convictions—repeatedly failed to free innocent people, sometimes keeping them behind bars for additional decades. The shocking part isn't that this happened; the shocking part is that anyone expected a different outcome.

The very concept of Conviction Integrity Units (CIUs) is built on a premise so fundamentally flawed it borders on absurd: asking prosecutors to investigate and admit to their own office's mistakes, and on the dime of the tax-payer. It's like letting a kid grade their own test and making their parents pay for the tutor when they fail. Or better yet, it's like asking cigarette companies to study the health effects of smoking, or oil executives to investigate their own spills. The inherent conflict of interest isn't just present—it's the foundation of the entire system.

Since Dallas County established the first permanent CIU in 2007, these units have spread across the country, doubling in number over the past five years to 96 units as of 2023. Yet, out of more than 2,300 prosecutor's offices nationwide, less than 5% have bothered to create them. Even more telling? According to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI, 2023), only 44% of existing CIUs have ever recorded an exoneration.

The Cook County investigation, published by Injustice Watch (Injustice Watch, 2025), reads like a masterclass in institutional self-preservation. In one particularly egregious case, a prosecutor in the CIU was married to a detective who had built one of the cases under review. In another, a unit supervisor was tasked with reviewing a conviction that hinged on a confession she herself had taken years earlier. You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.

To be fair, Cook County's unit has posted impressive numbers, exonerating 248 people under former State's Attorney Kim Foxx's eight-year tenure—more than any similar unit nationwide. However, dig deeper, and you'll find that 226 of these exonerations came from a single police corruption scandal centered on convicted former Chicago police Sgt. Ronald Watts. Defense attorneys characterized these as "low-hanging fruit"—cases that were obvious to overturn once federal investigators had already exposed the corruption.

Meanwhile, the unit's handling of more complex murder cases tells a darker story. The investigation found 21 people—all people of color—who were either rejected by the CIU or left to languish for years before eventually being exonerated through other means. Collectively, these individuals spent about 120 additional years in prison after the CIU first took note of their cases. Let that sink in: a unit created to free innocent people effectively extended their imprisonment.

The fundamental problem isn't just about individual conflicts of interest; it's about institutional DNA. Career prosecutors, steeped in a culture that prizes convictions and finality, are asked to suddenly become skeptical of their colleagues' work. They're expected to question the very system that shaped their professional identity. It's like asking a fish to critique water.

"I think if you take somebody from inside the office, it's just too difficult to expect, really, anyone to be able to objectively, truly evaluate their colleagues' work," says Rachel Barkow of NYU Law School. This might be the understatement of the century.

The tragic irony is that these units were created in response to a wave of DNA exonerations that exposed deep flaws in our criminal justice system. The courts were (and remain) frustratingly slow at handling wrongful conviction claims. CIUs were supposed to provide a faster path to justice. Instead, in many cases, they've become yet another roadblock.

On an up note, North Carolina offers a radical alternative that exposes just how fundamentally broken the current CIU model is. In 2006, the state created the nation's first and only statewide Innocence Inquiry Commission—an entirely independent agency specifically designed to investigate post-conviction claims of actual innocence. Wrongful convictions and criminal justice reform advocate Jennifer Thompson, whose own powerful story illuminated the critical flaws in eyewitness testimony and led to best practices changes nationwide, served as a Commissioner from 2013 to 2018, bringing a uniquely personal perspective to the commission's work. 

Unlike the prosecutor-run units that investigate themselves, this commission operates as a true truth-seeking forum, staffed by professionals dedicated to uncovering wrongful convictions rather than defending existing ones. It's not embedded within the prosecutor's office, doesn't rely on career prosecutors investigating their own colleagues, and focuses singularly on determining factual innocence. The commission has become a model of what accountability could look like: an impartial review process that prioritizes justice over conviction rates. That such a model remains unique 18 years after its creation speaks volumes about the systemic resistance to genuine reform.

Why this wasn't the model they ran with in the first place is beyond me. Probably because it had potential, and it seems to me that the current CIU model is operating exactly as intended. This isn't a system that's failing; it's a system performing precisely as its architects designed it. It creates an illusion of accountability while maintaining the existing power structures, allowing prosecutors to appear responsive without actually disrupting their core institutional practices. Sometimes, the most obvious conflicts of interest are the ones we choose to ignore.