Progress on Chicago's Police Torture Case

This week saw several developments in disturbing criminal and civil cases against former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and his "midnight crew" — a group of officers that spent much of the 1970s and 1980s torturing innocent people into confessing to crimes they didn't commit.

The allegations against Burge and the "midnight crew" are disturbing, to put it mildly. A deep pool of evidence shows that this group of officers tortured more than 100 people over two decades. They asphyxiated suspects by putting their heads in plastic bags, they electrocuted their testicles, beat them with hammers — the list goes on. The defendants were almost always African American.

These crimes are an extreme example of police misconduct, and the pending criminal charges have been too long in coming — the Chicago Police Department, city officials and federal and state prosecutors knew about the abuse as it was happening, though they didn't act to stop it. The allegations were investigated in the 1990s, while Burge's wrongfully convicted victims sat in prison — still no action. It's taken until 2010 to we're finally seeing some motion.

Burge, who has denied allegations that he led a group of rogue officers in torturing suspects on Chicago's South Side, faces federal charges for perjury and obstruction of justice for lying about his role under oath during questioning in a civil case against him (which Chicago settled with wrongfully convicted defendants for $19.8 million).

A federal judge this week pushed Burge's trial date back to May 24, granting a request from the defense, which appears to be getting nervous about his chances at trial. But that trial will eventually come, though it's been a long time in the works. (It took some creative lawyering for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to bring these perjury charges, as Burge was previously seen as protected by statute of limitation for the torture he oversaw.)

Momentum is also building in a parallel case that may lead to charges against other officers under Burge's command, possibly also for lying under oath. A new federal grand jury has been empaneled in that case.

In still another development this week, another wrongfully convicted man filed a civil suit against Burge. Marvin Reeves spent 21 years in prison for five murders evidence shows he didn't commit. Reeves was convicted in part based on testimony of another man who says he was tortured by Burge for hours before he offered false testimony against Reeves.

Though it's satisfying to see some momentum on these cases, we should also be careful not to let the Burge scandal obscure less-overt misconduct still happening across the country, or blind us even to unintentional injustices caused by flawed police practices. Jon Burge was a bad, bad apple, and he doesn't represent the culture of police forces today — I hope that better training, vetting and oversight means that our police departments have fewer bad apples than we did in the 1970s and 80s.

That doesn't mean false confessions and suggestive interrogations aren't happening, however. It's critical that we have protections in place both to stop monsters like Jon Burge, but also to protect against honest mistakes made by well-meaning officers (for example: accidentally offering confidential information during interviews, or leading a mentally disabled suspect toward a false confessions). Recording of all police interrogations is the only way to prevent these injustices.

Jon Burge should be held accountable for his horrible crimes. But his legacy should leave us with more than one pathetic old man in prison. With Burge in mind, we need to build a better system.

Photo Credit: Daniel Schwen