Vol. 76/No. 46      December 17, 2012

Appearing before Cook County Criminal Court Chief Judge Paul Biebel, lawyers filed a class-action petition seeking new hearings for the incarcerated victims.

In June 2010, police Lt. Jon Burge was convicted on federal charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying about the torture in a civil lawsuit. In January 2011 he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

In the original trials or appeals of the more than 100 inmates subjected to cop torture and coercion, attempts to have their confessions thrown out were rejected.

The class-action petition argues that new trials, which include another look at the use of defendants’ statements to convict them, is legally warranted in light of court rulings that show cops systematically tortured African-American men during interrogations.

About 20 demonstrators greeted attorneys as they made their way into the Cook County Criminal Court Building. Among them was Jeanette Plummer, the mother of Johnnie Plummer, one of the plaintiffs named in the petition. “My son was 15 years old at the time of his arrest and he’s been in jail for 21 years,” she said. “Jon Burge beat and tortured him. Anyone connected with Burge should be out of jail already.”

“Four and a half years is not long enough for what Burge did,” Tiffany Johnson, whose brother Stanley Howard is among the 100 prisoners, told the Militant before going into the hearing. “In fact all the officers working with Burge should be prosecuted. My brother’s out date is 2023. While he was on death row Governor Ryan pardoned him, but he’s still in prison. He needs to be out now.”

At the brief hearing Judge Biebel set a court date for Jan. 15.

Following the hearing, protesters gathered in the hallway outside the courtroom where Joey Mogul, a plaintiff attorney, thanked them for coming out to show their support.

“Cook County should do what other jurisdictions have done when faced with overwhelming proof of systematic falsification of evidence or coerced confessions and deal with this in its totality,” Mogul said. “Mayor Emanuel says he wants to put this shameful episode in Chicago’s history behind us. The way to do that is to grant all the Burge-era torture survivors new hearings.”
 
 
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