A day after the release of a historic report on police torture, attorneys for four men who say their confessions were coerced served federal subpoenas on the special prosecutors Thursday, seeking records of Mayor Richard Daley’s testimony.
Attorney Flint Taylor, who represents pardoned Death Row inmate Leroy Orange and convicted murderer Darrell Cannon, said he is pursuing the information as a first step toward naming Daley as a co-defendant in ongoing federal lawsuits against the city, prosecutors and police officers.
Daley was Cook County state’s attorney during much of the period in which police torture took place, special prosecutor Edward Egan found. Egan’s team interviewed Daley, and the report devoted three of its 290 pages to what Daley knew and did not know about the allegations.
Taylor’s subpoena also focused on information obtained from Cook County State’s Atty. Richard Devine, former Mayor Jane Byrne, former Police Supt. Richard Brzeczek and Cook County Judge William Kunkle.
Egan’s long-awaited report found that for two decades, former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge and officers under him tortured criminal suspects into making confessions. The allegations have been the subject of lawsuits and led to Burge’s firing in 1993.
In 2003, Gov. George Ryan pardoned Orange and fellow Death Row inmates Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard and Aaron Patterson, citing evidence of torture and coerced confessions by officers under Burge.
Kurt Feuer, an attorney for Howard and Hobley, filed a similar subpoena Thursday and said Daley “ought to be” named as a defendant in their federal lawsuits. But he does not intend to add Daley as an individual defendant in his cases, he said–a decision made early on, in hopes the cases would progress more quickly.
Taylor said he believes the report shows Daley was aware that Brzeczek, then police superintendent, sent him a 1982 letter requesting direction on how to handle torture allegations against Burge and others.
Daley “never before admitted under oath or anywhere he was aware of that letter,” Taylor said.
Brzeczek’s letter related to claims that Andrew Wilson, later convicted in the murder of two police officers, was severely beaten, burned and given electric shocks while in police custody. The report is oblique, however, in its treatment of what Daley knew of Brzeczek’s letter regarding Wilson.
The report states that Daley “assumes that he was advised of the letter.” Daley also said the letter “was probably discussed with him and Devine,” the report states.
But it asserts that Daley “has no current memory of how the letter was processed.”
Daley has no comment
A spokeswoman for Daley declined comment but said the mayor might take questions at an event Friday.
Though Taylor said the report incriminated the mayor, he criticized the report as an attempt to whitewash Daley and Devine’s involvement in the torture scandal.
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Aside from Burge, the officials criticized most severely in the report are Brzeczek and Kunkle, then an assistant state’s attorney and now a Republican Cook County judge.
Brzeczek should have done more to investigate the Wilson case, and Kunkle attempted to explain away burns on Wilson’s legs, the report concluded.
“The only guy who ever did anything about this torture is the guy who got named,” Taylor said, referring to Brzeczek. “The only [former] assistant state’s attorney they’re decrying is a Republican.”
Taylor dismissed, meanwhile, the report’s finding that there was no evidence Orange was tortured into confessing.
While special prosecutors said they had reason to believe about half the 148 claims of abuse they investigated, they singled out Orange’s allegation as one that was not persuasive. The report also cited suspicions about claims from Hobley, Howard and Patterson.
The officers allegedly involved in the torture of Orange refused to testify before the special prosecutor, Taylor said.
Despite the report’s lengthy legal analysis resulting in the conclusion that it is too late to prosecute the officers for taking part in a conspiracy, one of Taylor’s partners, attorney Joey Mogul, called on the U.S. attorney’s office to pursue federal conspiracy charges. Mogul said conspiracy charges are founded because the officers acted in bad faith by refusing to testify before a grand jury convened by the special prosecutor.
Many invoked the 5th Amendment before that grand jury, Mogul said, but after it became clear that no indictments would be handed down, they testified under oath in federal lawsuits that no torture occurred.
“What we have seen are a manipulation of the courts by various officers and officials,” Mogul said.
2 new cases come in
Also Thursday, Robert Boyle, chief deputy special prosecutor, appeared before Cook County Chief Criminal Court Judge Paul Biebel Jr. to begin planning for how to conclude his office’s work. Boyle said the special prosecutor’s office had received two new cases to investigate just weeks ago.
Biebel said the special prosecutors had met his mandate and ordered them to make more copies of the report. “It’s in the public’s interest to make this available,” Biebel ordered.
After the hearing, Burge’s lawyer Richard Sikes Jr. told reporters his client had mixed emotions about the report.
“He’s pleased with what we thought all along–that the torture claims [involving Orange, Patterson, Hobley and Howard] were unfounded. As far as the other aspects of the report … he’s disappointed about it, but he’s in good spirits. It’s all based on allegations he has heard years ago,” Sikes said.
As for Boyle calling Burge a disgrace, Sikes said, “Nobody is happy to be treated in that light.”
At a meeting of the Police Board Thursday night, President Demetrius Carney said the board takes allegations of misconduct seriously. He pointed out that the board followed procedures in the Burge case, firing the police commander.
After Police Supt. Philip Cline reiterated his assertion that the department is much different now than 30 years ago, a dozen residents made complaints before the board, many of them comparing their allegations to those in the Burge report.
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