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Chicago death row case reopened
Aaron Patterson is a death
row inmate who claims police punched
him and suffocated him
with a plastic typewriter cover 15 years ago
to extract a false confession
in the killings of an elderly couple.
A few years ago, Patterson's claims might have been dismissed.
But beginning Monday,
his claims will get a new hearing under orders from
the Illinois Supreme
Court. With the hearing comes pressing questions
into allegations of systematic
torture at a Chicago police unit in 1980s,
mounting calls for an
outside investigator and growing doubts about the
convictions of as many
as 10 Illinois death row inmates.
"It's our point of view
that there's been a concerted effort to keep this
secret within the police
department for many years," said Locke Bowman,
an attorney at the University
of Chicago law school.
Bowman is 1 of 2 lawyers
asking for the appointment of a special
prosecutor to investigate
what happened at the Area 2 detective
headquarters during the
1980s and decide whether charges should are
warranted.
At the heart of the scandal
is a violent crimes unit in the far southern
end of Chicago in the
1980s commanded by former police Lt. Jon Burge.
Burge was fired in 1993
after a death row inmate, Andrew Wilson, won a
$1.1 million civil suit
against the department, claiming he was tortured
with electric shocks
and handcuffed to a hot radiator at Burge's
precinct.
A police board found that
Wilson was indeed abused while in Burge's
custody. A subsequent
investigation by the police department found that
abuse occurred and was
systematic.
A federal judge in 1999
also painted a damning picture of Burge and his
precinct.
"It is now common knowledge
that in the early to mid-1980s Jon Burge and
many officers working
under him regularly engaged in the physical abuse
and torture of prisoners
to extract confessions," U.S. District Judge
Milton Shadur said in
the case of another suspect who claimed he was
tortured.
Burge, who now lives in
Florida, continues to deny that he tortured
anyone. His former attorney,
William Kunkle, called the department's
report "garbage."
In calling for an outside
investigator to look into allegations of police
torture, Bowman and others
point to the fact that prosecutors have tried
to cut deals with inmates,
like Patterson, to get them to drop their
claims against police.
Cook County State's Attorney
Dick Devine agreed in January to an early
release for another defendant,
Darrell Cannon, who has served 17 years of
a life term for murder,
as part of a deal that includes him dropping
claims that Burge put
a shotgun barrel to his mouth and used an electric
cattle prod to shock
his genitals.
Bowman and others also
say Devine and Cook County prosecutors have too
many conflicts of interest.
Devine was an assistant
state's attorney when Richard M. Daley, now
Chicago's mayor, was
the county's top prosecutor. At the same time, a
number of the criminal
cases that involved Burge's unit went to trial.
The city also paid Devine's
former law firm more than $850,000 to
represent Burge and three
others in the Andrew Wilson civil lawsuit.
That's irrelevant, said
Assistant State's Attorney Gerald E. Nora, who is
representing Devine in
the case to decide whether a special prosecutor is
needed.
Nora said the statute
of limitations on any crimes that officers may have
committed ran out. Even
if a conspiracy had existed, he said, it would
have been over long ago.
There is nothing to prosecute, he said.
The calls for an outside
investigator comes at a time when the fairness
of Illinois' entire criminal
justice system is under increasing scrutiny.
13 death row inmates have
been freed due to wrongful convictions since
capital punishment was
restored in 1977, prompting Gov. George Ryan to
declare a moratorium
on executions and establish a panel to review the
death penalty process.
Earlier this month, 3
men who served 14 years of their life sentences in
prison for the rape and
murder of a college student were set free after
Cook County prosecutors
said there was no evidence they had anything to
do with the crime.
(source: Associated Press)
Death Row inmate takes deal
Cop
torture case will be dropped; life will be spared
Death row inmate Andrew
Maxwell, who has long claimed that police
tortured him into confessing
the 1986 murder of a cabdriver, pleaded
guilty Friday in a deal
that spares his life in exchange for dropping
those allegations.
Maxwell, 35, and a handful
of other death row inmates are among those who
have alleged Chicago
Police Cmdr. Jon Burge and other officers in the
former Burnside Area
beat and tortured them until they confessed.
Under the plea agreement
Friday, Circuit Judge Themis Karnezis sentenced
Maxwell to 75 years for
the murder of Adrian Bracy as well as attempted
murder of a mail carrier
and several armed robberies in Cook County.
Maxwell could be released
in about 27 years, said John Gorman, spokesman
for State's Atty. Richard
Devine. The sentence includes 10 additional
years Maxwell must serve
for beating a prison guard, Gorman said.
Maxwell's attorneys, Gary
Ravitz and Eric Palles, said their client got
what he wanted out of
the deal: his life and a chance at freedom.
"Our pitch was--why is
this a death penalty case--he was 19," Palles
said, noting that Maxwell
shouldn't have been sentenced to death because
of his age at the time
of the murder.
3 other death row inmates,
Aaron Patterson, Derrick King and Stanley
Howard, also have had
plea discussions with Devine's office. Those
discussions are related
to charges that Burge tortured them into
confessing to their crimes.
Maxwell is the only one to have reached a plea agreement.
A judge will hear arguments
next week on whether Patterson deserves a new
trial. Patterson has
said he wouldn't agree to any deal that would
require him to plead
guilty.
The state was satisfied with the outcome of Maxwell's case, Gorman said.
"We got justice for the
victim, and we think this is a proper sentence
for him to do," he said.
Burge was fired by the
Chicago Police Board in 1993 for his role in the
torture of Andrew Wilson
while Wilson was being questioned in the murders
of two police officers,
officials have said. Wilson was convicted and
sentenced to death, but
his conviction was overturned. He was convicted
again and received a
life sentence.
Because of Burge's history,
U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur granted
Maxwell a hearing on
his torture and brutality charges earlier this year.
Though Shadur gave Maxwell's
attorneys the power to investigate the
torture charges, they
said they took the plea agreement to ensure their
client wasn't executed.
(source: Chicago Tribune)
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