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Derrick Searcy
Framed by police and drug dealers and wrongfully convicted
Ordered released by appeals court but still in prison years later
Edward Bowman was Derrick Searcy’s best friend. He was murdered on June 6th 1994 in an alleyway behind Searcy’s house on the West Side of Chicago. He had $1,574 in cash in his pockets and a pager. One year later, Michael “County” Brooks and Clarence “Lakefront” Johnson accused Searcy of this murder.
The only evidence against Searcy was the testimony of Brooks and Johnson. No murder weapon was found. No fingerprints, no fibers - no tangible evidence was found linking Searcy to this crime. Searcy was convicted of Bowman’s murder solely on their testimony, and sentenced to 42 years in prison.
Bowman was a confidential police informant, and he was informing on Brooks at the time he was murdered. Evidence of Bowman’s informer role was barred from Searcy’s trial because the defense could not prove that Brooks and Johnson knew about it, even though the policeman who negotiated this role with Bowman did so in the presence of a close friend of Johnson’s.
On appeal, the U. S. District Court for the Eastern Division of Northern Illinois held this was a reversible error, and ordered a new trial for Searcy. The state failed to set a date for the new trial, and the court ordered Searcy released.
Not a happy ending
Searcy was ready to leave prison. But that was not the end of this story. The state made, and was granted, an emergency motion for a stay in the order releasing Searcy, and filed an appeal of the District Court’s decision. The 7th Circuit Court, in a split decision, reversed the reversal of Searcy’s conviction. He filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U. S. Supreme Court, which denied the Petition, refusing to hear the case. So he stays in prison today.
Derrick Searcy was denied a fair trial and the right to fully confront the witnesses against him. Judge Richard D. Cudahy stated in his dissent with the majority of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, ”Brooks and Johnson were not merely central to the prosecution’s case, they were the case!” To have excluded this evidence was a violation of the U. S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment, which states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to be confronted with the witnesses against him; [and] to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.”
Derrick Searcy has now exhausted all his direct appeals. He filed a petition for Executive Clemency in 2004, which has also been denied.
Additional Facts of the Case:
At trial Clarence Johnson testified that he saw Searcy wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying a gun the day of the murder. He said he saw Searcy threaten Bowman and strike him on the left side of his head. Next, he testified, he saw Searcy take a gun from his shoe, and saw Searcy chase Bowman through the west gangway of Searcy’s house that led to the alley. He said there was no gate in the gangway blocking entry to the back yard. Johnson said he heard 2 shots, followed by 5 more shots. He ran to the alley, where he saw Michael Brooks standing over Bowman looking directly at him.
Johnson said he did not tell police what he had seen that day. He said he called Bowman’s son, Marlonn Boyd, that day and told him that Searcy had murdered his father. The trial judge ordered the jury to disregard this statement because it was hearsay.
The medical examiner testified that there was no evidence that Bowman had been struck on the side of his head prior to death. Photographs of the house, yard and alley taken more than a year after the crime was committed were submitted into evidence, but according to Searcy’s wife, Janet, at the time of the crime there was a gate blocking entry to the back yard that was no longer there and not in the photographs.
Tonita Mills testified that she had bought drugs from both Brooks and Johnson. She said that on the day of the murder she saw Brooks arguing in the alleyway with Bowman, and turned away. She heard gunshots, and saw Johnson driving in a car into the alley immediately afterwards. She said that she did not see Derrick Searcy at any time.
Johnson testified that when he ran to the sound of the shots he had heard, he saw Bowman lying in the alley and Brooks standing over him. Brooks testified that Bowman spoke to him.
Chicago Police Detective Hugh Conwell testified that the victim was lying with his feet next to the fence and head in the middle of the alley. This is how he would have been had he been trying to climb over the fence from the alley into the yard trying to escape his assailant when he was first shot. The medical examiner, Nancy Jones, testified that Bowman had been shot 6 times directly in the face, where it appeared the gunman had emptied the gun directly over him. Jones stated that the 4th shot would have lacerated his brain stem and that Bowman would have died instantly, and would not have been able to speak, contradicting Brooks’ testimony that Bowman had spoken to him.
Three months before Bowman’s murder, Chicago Police Detective Donald Washington had arrested Bowman on a narcotics charge. Bowman told Det. Washington in the presence of Clinton Boyd, a neighbor and friend of Johnson, that Washington had the wrong man and that it was Brooks who should be arrested instead. In front of Boyd a deal was struck between Washington and Bowman, who would become a police informer against Brooks.
Searcy’s defense was not permitted to bring in testimony from Boyd or Washington regarding this vitally important fact. The court ruled that a prerequisite for introducing this testimony was an admission by Johnson and Brooks that they were dealing drugs and knew that Bowman was informing against them, both of which they denied at a hearing with the jury absent. The refusal to allow Searcy’s defense to confront these two witnesses about their knowledge of Bowman’s role as an informer is a violation of the 6th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, guaranteeing a right to effective cross-examination of witnesses.
Demand a new trial for Derrick Searcy
Derrick Searcy’s mother, Mrs. Nellie Searcy, is in her 90s. She and her family have lived in the same place on the West Side just past Pulaski for over 40 years. Derrick Searcy was born December 26th 1950. The last of four children, he was raised for 4 years in Atlanta, Georgia and then on Chicago’s West Side. He attended Presentation, Our Lady of Lourdes and Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic grammar schools, located in Chicago and South Dakota. He went to St. Mel's Catholic HS and Augustana Academy in South Dakota, from which he graduated in 1968.
In high school Searcy was on the basketball and track teams, despite congenital problems with his feet, ankles and knees. He was rejected by the U. S. Army because of these physical problems. As a youth Searcy had several jobs, working as a handyman while still at school, cutting grass, painting houses, working as a construction laborer with various companies. He worked part-time at Walgreen’s in his neighborhood.
A few years after graduating high school Searcy went to work at the General Motors Willow Springs Stamping Plant. He worked there for 13 years, until the plant closed down in 1989. He was in training to become a Manager at the time the plant closed.
Letters to Searcy can be addressed to him to at Pontiac Correctional Center, 700 W. Lincoln St., P.O. Box 99, Pontiac, Il 61764. His ID Number is K65372. Anyone with information that might help exonerate Searcy should write to the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression-Chicago, 1325 S. Wabash Ave. Suite 105, Chicago IL 60605, 312-939-2750.
People are urged to write, call and email Cook County State’s Attorney Richard Devine, 2650 S. California, Chicago, Il. 60608, (773) 869-2700, stateattorney@cookcountygov.com. and demand that the case of Derrick Searcy be re-opened and that he be granted a new trial.
