Court vacates convictions in 1995 murder case connected to disgraced CPD detective Reynaldo Guevara

Edwin Davila nervously waited about 90 minutes in court on Tuesday until an assistant state’s attorney arrived and made an announcement he’s awaited for more than two decades.

Cook County prosecutors said the office would not oppose Davila’s post-conviction relief petition asking a court to undo convictions for a 1995 murder, as the 48-year-old man long maintained that he was framed by disgraced former Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara.

A Cook County judge vacated the convictions and prosecutors dropped the charges during the hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court building, wiping Davila’s record of a crime he says he did not commit, according to Davila and court records.

But Davila was left with mixed feelings: He has long sought a reversal in his case, but it came too late — He finished serving his sentence in more than two years ago.

“I always thought I was going to come home sooner,” he said. “Why did it take so long?”

Davila argued in the petition that he was framed when he, at 21, was convicted of the 1995 killing of Jaime Alvarez. He had an alibi and no physical evidence connected him to the crime, the petition said.

Davila served nearly 25 years in prison and was released in 2020.

He is among dozens who have accused Guevara of fabricating evidence to frame them for crimes they did not commit throughout his career with the Chicago Police Department. Thirty-five murder convictions in cases investigated by Guevara have been vacated, according to Davila’s petition.

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Guevara joined CPD in 1973 and retired in 2006.

Davila’s son was born and raised without him, he said, and his grandmother died while he was in prison, leaving him no chance to bury her and say goodbye.

“I had to see my son being raised through pictures,” Davila said.

He was released from prison with convictions for murder and other related felonies on his record, making it difficult to get a job and find housing, he said.

For now, though, he is celebrating the turn of events, even as he still struggles to process it.

“It has not hit me,” he said. “Maybe I might cry to myself, maybe it will finally hit me.”

mabuckley@chicagotribune.com