Cook County Circuit Judge William Hooks Frees Accused Cop Killer Jackie Wilson from Prison

After more than 36 years in custody, an accused cop killer who alleges notorious ex-Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge tortured him into confessing was ordered freed Friday while awaiting his third trial on the charges.

Jackie Wilson, 57, was granted a recognizance bond by Cook County Circuit Judge William Hooks, who last week tossed out Wilson’s murder conviction after finding that Burge and detectives under his command had physically coerced his confession to the 1982 slaying of two Chicago officers.

The judge said special prosecutors “utterly failed” in their arguments to keep Wilson in prison, adding that they appeared to want him to view the case “through the lens of a court sitting in 1982 or 1988 without considering the revelations that have come to light over the last three decades.”

Wilson is likely to walk out of Cook County Jail as soon as later Friday.

The ruling to free Wilson comes as special prosecutors filed paperwork earlier this week indicating they will ask an appeals court to reverse Hooks’ decision to toss the conviction and order a retrial.

Wilson has twice been convicted of teaming up with his now-dead brother, Andrew, who prosecutors say fatally shot Officers Richard O’Brien and William Fahey during a traffic stop in 1982. His first conviction was tossed out after an appeals court ruled that he should not have been tried simultaneously with his brother. At the retrial in 1989, a jury acquitted him of Fahey’s murder but convicted him of O’Brien’s. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Hooks held a lengthy hearing Thursday at which a team of special prosecutors laid out their case for keeping Wilson in custody pending a third trial. Prosecutors summarized the expected testimony of several witnesses, including eyewitnesses who implicated Wilson as well as correctional officers who allegedly heard him take credit for the slayings while in custody.

Thanks to Megan Crepeau.

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Chicago Cop Examines Connections Between The @Innocence Project and Convicted Killers in #CrookedCity

In his second collection of connected essays, Chicago cop Martin Preib takes on seemingly unrelated murder cases, all dating from one year, 1982, including some in which offenders were released as part of the wrongful conviction movement.

The murder case against James Ealy haunts Preib. Ealy, a 17-year-old in the west side projects, is convicted of strangling a family of four, but later released on appeal. Ealy eventually strikes again. As Preib researches the case, he struggles to understand how and why the city released Ealy from the original conviction.

The Ealy case leads Preib into the grisly underground of other 1982 murders, especially the case against Anthony Porter, sent to death row for killing a couple in a park and then 16 years later released, with the help of The Innocence Project at Northwestern University, when another man was said to have confessed to the crime. The media frenzy attending Porter’s release did not follow him into his civil case for damages against the city, a case the police officers pressed to have tried, and which Porter lost after the defense convinced the jury that the case for Porter’s innocence was, at best, fatally flawed.

In Crooked City, Preib always walks a tightrope between self-deprecating humor and stark revelations told in powerful language as he takes readers along on his journey through incredulity and doubt to conviction that killers are being turned loose on the streets of Chicago, and ultimately to his sense of the disturbing way the city works, and why.

This book shatters reader assumptions—about the workings of justice, the objectivity of the media, and the role of the police in the city of Chicago, even calling into question allegations of police torture in the notorious cases against Jon Burge. Told in the gripping tension of a crime novel, Preib strives for the highest language as he wanders these brutal, controversial killings.

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Former Chicago Police Officer Jon Burge Sentenced for Lying about Police Torture

The Justice Department announced last week that former Chicago Police Department Commander Jon Burge, 63, of Apollo Beach, Fla., was sentenced to 54 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for lying in a deposition in a civil case about torture and abuse of suspects by Chicago Police Department officers. Burge’s sentence was an upward departure from the recommended Guidelines’ sentence.

Burge was convicted last June of two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury stemming from false answers he gave in a civil case in 2003. In those answers, Burge denied ever using, or being aware of other officers using, any type of improper coercion, physical abuse or torture with suspects who were in custody at Chicago Police Department’s Area Two. However, evidence at trial showed that Burge abused multiple victims in Area Two, suffocating them with plastic bags; shocking them with electrical devices; and placing a loaded gun to their heads.

In a 23-year career with the Chicago Police Department, Burge rose through the ranks to commander before being fired in 1993 over allegations of abuse. Special prosecutors were appointed in 2002 to investigate claims of abuse by Burge and others. A four-year investigation concluded that the abuse was outside the statute of limitations. It was a pending civil suit that was the basis for the federal charges in this case.

“Burge abused his power and betrayed the public trust by abusing suspects in his custody, and then by lying under oath to cover up what he and other officers had done,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The department will aggressively prosecute any officer who violates the Constitution.”

“Today, we put to rest the decades of denials that torture of suspects in police custody occurred,” said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. “This sentence delivers a measure of justice, which Burge obstructed for so long.”

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Weisman and April Perry from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois and Trial Attorney Betsy Biffl from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Jon Burge Compared to Al Capone by Jury Prospect?

A prospective juror accused of likening former Chicago Police Commander. Jon Burge to infamous mob boss Al Capone told a federal judge she did not recall saying that.

The juror was called in early this morning after another juror told the court Tuesday that the woman said that Burge, who is on trial for lying about the torturing suspects during the 70s and 80s, was like Capone because "he got away with a lot of stuff and now they're trying to hang him."

When asked about the alleged statement, the juror told U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lefkow, "I do not recall that."

Lefkow conferred privately with both sides and sent the woman back to the pool of prospective jurors.

Prior to questioning the juror, Burge attorney Marc Martin asked Lefkow to individually question each of the 43 prospective jurors about whether they had seen any news reports on the trial since Tuesday, saying the the alleged Capone statement was widely reported and was prejudicial to his client.

Lefkow agreed to question the panel as a group, and said she and the attorneys could later decide what to do with any prospective jurors who admitted to seeing or hearing news accounts of Tuesday's proceedings.

Opening statements are expected today in the trial. Jury selection is slated to wrap up earlier in the day.

Burge is charged with obstruction of justice and perjury for lying about torture that allegedly occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. He faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted on all
counts.

The trial is expected to take six weeks.

Thanks to Matthew Walberg

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