page_title: Jon Burge
section_title: Abuse-related legal decisions
hierarchical_section_title: Jon Burge / Abuse-related legal decisions
caption_attribution_description: English: Former w:Illinois Governor w:George Ryan
context_page_description: Jon Graham Burge was an American police detective and commander in the Chicago Police Department who was accused of torturing more than 200 innocent men between 1972 and 1991 in order to force confessions.
  A United States Army veteran, Burge had served tours in South Korea and Vietnam. When he returned to the South Side of Chicago, he began a career as a city police officer, ending it as a commander. Following the shooting of several Chicago law enforcement officials in 1982, the police obtained confessions that contributed to convictions of two people. One filed a civil suit in 1989 against Burge, other officers, and the city, for police torture and cover-up; Burge was acquitted in 1989 because of a hung jury. He was suspended from the Chicago Police Department in 1991 and fired in 1993.
  In 2002, a four-year review revealed numerous indictable crimes and other improprieties, but no indictment was made against Burge or his officers, as the statute of limitations for the crimes had expired. In 2003, Governor George Ryan pardoned four of Burge's victims who were on death row and whose convictions were based on coerced confessions.
context_section_description: As more information about Burge's reign was published, activists worked on behalf of Chicago inmates on death row who claimed to have been wrongfully convicted. In 1998, representatives from the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Chicago Law School, the London-based International Center for Criminal Law and Human Rights, law professor Anthony Amsterdam, former federal judges George N. Leighton and Abner Mikva, Illinois judge R. Eugene Pincham, and activist Bianca Jagger, called for a stay of execution for Aaron Patterson, a death row inmate from Chicago. His conviction for murder was based primarily on a confession which he claimed was coerced by torture from Burge and his officers.
  In 1999, lawyers for several death row inmates began to call for a special review of convictions that were based on evidence and confessions extracted by Burge and his colleagues. These inmates: Aaron Patterson; Madison Hobley; Stanley Howard; Leonard Kidd; Derrick King; Ronald Kitchen; Reginald Mahaffey; Jerry Mahaffey; Andrew Maxwell, and Leroy Orange, became known as the "Death Row 10".
  In the 1990 Goldston Report, the City of Chicago listed 50 alleged instances of police brutality and abuse by Burge and other officers. Chicago had struggled for decades with the issue of coerced confessions; in the 1990s it quietly reopened several controversial brutality cases. Despite an extensive investigation into the actions by a number of police employees, few others but Burge were sanctioned.
  Several politicians, including US Representative Bobby Rush, requested that State's Attorney Richard A. Devine seek new trials for the Death Row 10 who were allegedly tortured by Burge into making coerced confessions. Devine met with representatives and supporters of the inmates and was convinced to request that the Illinois Supreme Court stay proceedings against three of the inmates. However, the Illinois Supreme Court denied Devine's request. Rush sought out Attorney General Janet Reno to pursue federal intervention.
  In February 1999, David Protess, a Northwestern University journalism professor, and his students were studying cases of people on death row. They discovered evidence related to death row inmate Anthony Porter that might help exonerate him.
  The students produced four affidavits and a videotaped statement that attributed guilt for the crime to another suspect. They obtained recantations by some witnesses of their testimony at trial. One witness claimed that he named Porter as a suspect only after police officers threatened, harassed and intimidated him into doing so.
  In 2000, Governor Ryan placed a moratorium on executions in Illinois after courts exonerated and freed 13 death row inmates who had been wrongfully convicted. Ryan also promised to review the cases of all Illinois death row inmates.
  Given the number of cases of alleged brutality to be investigated, inmates who claimed to have been abused and gave coerced confessions were offered reduced sentences in exchange for dropping charges. A plea agreement was reached with one convicted victim. Aaron Patterson rejected the plea deal.
  On January 11, 2003, having lost confidence in the state's death penalty system, the outgoing Governor Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 prisoners on Illinois' death row. He granted clemency by converting their death sentences to sentences of life without parole in most cases, while reducing some sentences.
  In addition, Ryan had already pardoned four death row inmates: Madison Hobley, Aaron Patterson, Leroy Orange and Stanley Howard, who were among the ten who claimed they were coerced into confessing by Burge and his officers and had been wrongfully convicted.
  Daley, at the time the Cook County State's Attorney, has been accused by the Illinois General Assembly of failing to act on information he possessed on the conduct of Burge and others. Daley acknowledged his responsibility to be proactive in stopping torture, but denies any knowledge which could have made him responsible.
  On July 19, 2006, Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. issued a press relea
caption: Former Illinois Governor George Ryan
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