Qtec
01-23-2011, 05:38 AM
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Ex-Chicago policeman jailed for lying about torture
Fri, Jan 21 2011
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday sentenced former Chicago police commander Jon Burge to 4 1/2 years in prison for lying about the use of police torture to gain confessions.
Burge, 63 and suffering from prostate cancer, was convicted in June of two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury for lying in a 2003 civil lawsuit brought by a victim of police torture.
Burge was dismissed from the police department in 1993, but was never convicted of actually torturing suspects before the statute of limitations expired. Instead, he was charged and convicted of lying under questioning in civil suits brought by victims.
Burge and detectives under his command were suspected of forcing confessions from black suspects by using electric shocks delivered with a homemade device, suffocation with plastic typewriter covers, and mock executions.
<span style='font-size: 20pt'>"Jon Burge shocked me and suffocated me and forced me into confessing to a murder I did not do," </span>said Anthony Holmes, one of Burge's alleged victims, testifying during the two-day hearing.
"Why did you do this?" asked Holmes. "Why did he take a false statement? He was supposed to be the law."
Police torture in Chicago has drawn condemnation from the United Nations, led to increased scrutiny of the death penalty for confessed murderers, cast a cloud over the police department and cost the city of Chicago tens of millions of dollars in settlements. </div></div>
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> His fall from grace can be traced to Feb. 9, 1982, when two police officers, 34-year-old William Fahey and 33-year-old Richard O'Brien, pulled over a Chevrolet Impala for a traffic stop.
One of the two men in the car stripped Fahey of his weapon and shot him in the head and O'Brien in the chest. The shootings brought to four the number of officers fatally shot in Chicago that month. Emotions ran hot.
Five days after the shootings, police brought Andrew Wilson in for questioning.
Thirteen hours later, he confessed. He emerged from the interrogation with severe bruising and cuts on his head, a torn retina, burns on his chest and thighs and U-shaped marks on his body. Officers at the jail refused to accept him for fear they would be blamed.
He was convicted and sentenced to death, but the Illinois Supreme Court threw out his confession and ordered a new trial, ruling: "The evidence here shows clearly that when the defendant was arrested at 5:15 a.m. on Feb. 14, he may have received a cut above his right eye but that he had no other injuries.
"It is equally clear that when the defendant was taken by police officers to Mercy Hospital sometime after ten o'clock that night he had about fifteen separate injuries on his head, chest and leg. The inescapable conclusion is that the defendant suffered his injuries while in police custody that day."
<u>Convicted at retrial, Wilson was sentenced to life without parole</u></div></div>
He should be hanged,............ slowly.
How can you put an innocent man in prison for the rest of his life and still aleep at night?
Q.......... link (http://truthinjustice.org/jon-burge.htm)
link (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70K7MJ20110121)
Fri, Jan 21 2011
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday sentenced former Chicago police commander Jon Burge to 4 1/2 years in prison for lying about the use of police torture to gain confessions.
Burge, 63 and suffering from prostate cancer, was convicted in June of two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury for lying in a 2003 civil lawsuit brought by a victim of police torture.
Burge was dismissed from the police department in 1993, but was never convicted of actually torturing suspects before the statute of limitations expired. Instead, he was charged and convicted of lying under questioning in civil suits brought by victims.
Burge and detectives under his command were suspected of forcing confessions from black suspects by using electric shocks delivered with a homemade device, suffocation with plastic typewriter covers, and mock executions.
<span style='font-size: 20pt'>"Jon Burge shocked me and suffocated me and forced me into confessing to a murder I did not do," </span>said Anthony Holmes, one of Burge's alleged victims, testifying during the two-day hearing.
"Why did you do this?" asked Holmes. "Why did he take a false statement? He was supposed to be the law."
Police torture in Chicago has drawn condemnation from the United Nations, led to increased scrutiny of the death penalty for confessed murderers, cast a cloud over the police department and cost the city of Chicago tens of millions of dollars in settlements. </div></div>
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> His fall from grace can be traced to Feb. 9, 1982, when two police officers, 34-year-old William Fahey and 33-year-old Richard O'Brien, pulled over a Chevrolet Impala for a traffic stop.
One of the two men in the car stripped Fahey of his weapon and shot him in the head and O'Brien in the chest. The shootings brought to four the number of officers fatally shot in Chicago that month. Emotions ran hot.
Five days after the shootings, police brought Andrew Wilson in for questioning.
Thirteen hours later, he confessed. He emerged from the interrogation with severe bruising and cuts on his head, a torn retina, burns on his chest and thighs and U-shaped marks on his body. Officers at the jail refused to accept him for fear they would be blamed.
He was convicted and sentenced to death, but the Illinois Supreme Court threw out his confession and ordered a new trial, ruling: "The evidence here shows clearly that when the defendant was arrested at 5:15 a.m. on Feb. 14, he may have received a cut above his right eye but that he had no other injuries.
"It is equally clear that when the defendant was taken by police officers to Mercy Hospital sometime after ten o'clock that night he had about fifteen separate injuries on his head, chest and leg. The inescapable conclusion is that the defendant suffered his injuries while in police custody that day."
<u>Convicted at retrial, Wilson was sentenced to life without parole</u></div></div>
He should be hanged,............ slowly.
How can you put an innocent man in prison for the rest of his life and still aleep at night?
Q.......... link (http://truthinjustice.org/jon-burge.htm)
link (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70K7MJ20110121)