Quote Originally Posted by mike
Well, some people are beaten for a confession. Look at the four men (I can't remember their names, I'll look them up) recently released from death row in Illinois because their confessions were obtained after they were physically tortured by the police.

Here it is: Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard and Leroy Orange. This is an excerpt from a CNN article:

The four pardoned men are part of the so-called "Burge 10" death row inmates who say they had confessions tortured out of them by police under the direction of Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge. He was fired after internal police investigators found systemic evidence of physical abuse of suspects.

The four men "were tortured," the governor said. "There isn't any question about that."

[Governor Ryan] discussed their cases in his speech.

• Police said Patterson, 38, confessed to the April 1986 stabbing of an elderly couple in Chicago. Patterson never signed the confession and during his interrogation scrawled, "I lie about murders, police threaten me with violence," into a bench with a paper clip.

• Hobley, 42, was convicted of killing seven people in an arson fire in 1987. Private investigators later developed evidence that a metal gas can found at the scene used to connect Hobley to the arson was planted. He long contended he was a torture victim, too.

• Orange, 52, was sentenced to die for taking part in the stabbing of his former girlfriend, her 10-year-old son and two others. The conviction came despite Orange's description of torture and testimony that his half brother, Leonard Kidd, was the one who stabbed the victims. Kidd, also on death row, claims he too was tortured into confessing.

• Howard, 40, was convicted in a 1987 murder and also contended he had been tortured.

They "four men did not know each other," Ryan said, "all getting beaten and tortured and convicted on the same basis of the confessions that they allegedly provided. They are perfect examples of what is so terribly broken about our system."

"The four pardoned men are part of the so-called "Burge 10" death row inmates who say they had confessions tortured out of them by police under the direction of Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge. He was fired after internal police investigators found systemic evidence of physical abuse of suspects. "


That's the whole point of our system: the law protects you from abuse. Burge committed a crime himself, and was fired from his job. In many non-western countries, Burge would have been promoted.