Ex-Death Row inmate files $30 million suit
Chicago Tribune By Steve Mills; June 27, 2003

Former Death Row inmate Aaron Patterson, who was pardoned by Gov. George Ryan in January, filed a federal lawsuit seeking $30 million Thursday alleging he was tortured by Chicago police and Cook County prosecutors covered it up.

Patterson alleged he was tortured or threatened by former Cmdr. Jon Burge and officers he commanded as they investigated the 1986 murders of Vincent and Rafaela Sanchez in their South Chicago home.

Patterson said detectives placed a plastic typewriter cover over his head to simulate suffocation as they sought to get him to confess. He alleged Burge placed his handgun on a table and then threatened him.

Patterson also charged that top police officials and Cook County State's Atty. Richard Devine covered up evidence of systematic torture.

"The anger and frustration you see in me is true and authentic," Patterson said at a news conference in the office of his lawyer, Flint Taylor, who revealed the amount of money being sought. "It's a nightmare being locked up for something that you didn't do ...."

Burge declined to comment Thursday, as did a spokeswoman for the Police Department, which has a policy of not commenting on pending litigation. A spokesman for Devine said the allegations are unfounded and that the office would vigorously defend itself.

The spokesman, John Gorman, said in a statement that Patterson "has been making these same unfounded allegations ever since his conviction in 1989 for these brutal murders. In all those years, every court and jury that heard his case found him guilty.

"He was freed not by a court of law," Gorman added, "but by a governor who specifically refused to decide the cases for clemency on their individual merits."

Beside Burge and Devine, the lawsuit names as defendants seven police officers--many of them retired--and current and former top police officials. It also names a current prosecutor and a former prosecutor.

The Chicago Police Board fired Burge in 1993 for the torture of Andrew Wilson while he was being questioned in the murders of two police officers. Wilson was convicted of those murders and is serving a life sentence.

Patterson is the second of four pardoned Death Row prisoners to file a suit alleging they were tortured or framed by police or prosecutors.

Madison Hobley, who was convicted of setting a 1987 fire that killed seven people, including his wife and infant son, filed a lawsuit last month.

Taylor said Patterson's case illustrates one of the biggest police scandals in the city's history.

"This lawsuit is a road map for people who want to understand the police scandal and torture" that has occurred for the last 30 years, he said.

Last year, former prosecutor and Illinois Appellate Court Judge Edward Egan was named a special prosecutor to investigate the torture allegations. He said in a recent interview that he hoped to complete the investigation by the end of the year.