'I am undaunted': Despite Illinois Supreme Court ruling, Chicago man fights for misconduct and torture files
CHICAGO (CBS) -- One attorney's fight to expose Chicago police torture, abuse and misconduct has been dealt a big blow by the state's highest court.
But he's not giving up.
CBS 2 Political Investigator Dana Kozlov found he's already taken new steps to get years of misconduct files released and is waiting to see if the city pushes back again.
"The wall has got to come down because it is still hurting people."
That wall, according to attorney Jared Kosoglad, is 50 years of Chicago Police Department (CPD) misconduct records he's been fighting to get released for years.
In May, that fight ended up in the Illinois Supreme Court, where he told justices why he thinks they should be made public.
"This case is about a public body's decision to evade transparency...about police misconduct."
Kosoglad submitted a public records request for those files in 2015 on behalf of his client Charles Green, who said he wants them to help prove his innocence in connection to a 1985 quadruple murder on the city's West Side.
But city attorneys have been fighting against the records release from the beginning, ultimately winning an appeal before the supreme court agreed to take it up.
On September 22, the state's justices sided with the city, ruling Kosoglad should have resubmitted his FOIA request after an earlier injunction in the case had been lifted.
But justices kept the door open about releasing those misconduct files in the future.
"I am undaunted."
Which is why he's filed another FOIA request for those same records, minus those that have already been made public. City attorneys have argued releasing them would be too expensive.
"There's going to be transparency on some level or another, and they can work with me to make that happen," Kosoglad said. "Or they can continue to expend taxpayer funds to pay lawyers to fight this in court for them."
It all started when the city ignored Kosoglad's initial FOIA request. City attorneys said they're please with the Illinois Supreme Court's ruling.
So far, there's been no response from CPD on when or what its response will be.