Patterson v. Former Chicago Police Lt. Jon Burger

328 F.Supp. 2d. 878 (2004)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

It was alleged that Police tried to get others to frame P and that they also tortured P in order to get him to confess to two murders. No physical evidence linking P to the murders was ever discovered, though a bloody fingerprint that was not P's was found at the scene and not introduced at trial. Patterson was convicted for the Sanchez murders on the basis of his false confession and the testimony of Marva Hall and defendants. After his conviction but before P filed his motion for a new trial, the Chicago Police Department's Office of Professional Standards ('OPS') completed an investigation into allegations that suspects held in custody at Area 2 had been tortured by the Area 2 Ds and others. In November of 1990, the OPS issued a secret report which was forwarded to then superintendent of the Chicago Police Department Leroy Martin. In the report, OPS found that from 1973 to 1985 there was a practice of systematic abuse of suspects at Area 2 and that certain Area 2 command personnel, including defendants Burge and Martin, were aware of such abuse and encouraged it, either by actively participating in it or by failing to take action to stop it. The report named both Burge and Byrne as major 'players' in the pattern and practice of torture and recommended that Burge be fired for his participation in Andrew Wilson's torture. P was sentenced to death, and after his conviction was affirmed on appeal, spent over 13 years incarcerated on death row until his pardon in January of 2003. P was convicted for the 1986 murders of Rafaela and Vincent Sanchez. P spent 13 years on death row. From 1988 to 1996 the City of Chicago hired defendant Richard Devine, then a private attorney, and his law firm to represent Burge, Byrne, and other Area 2 defendants against charges brought in federal court and Police Board Proceedings that they tortured Andrew Wilson and other criminal suspects. During his representation of Burge, Byrne, and other Area 2 defendants Devine was allegedly informed of a wealth of compelling evidence that his clients were centrally involved in a pattern and practice of torturing suspects, including Patterson, and made numerous litigation decisions designed to protect his clients from criminal, civil, and administrative liability in the face of that evidence. In 1994 Patterson filed a post-conviction petition which alleged that he was entitled to a new motion to suppress hearing and a new trial on the basis of newly discovered torture evidence that previously had been suppressed. In 1997 Devine became the State's Attorney of Cook County and acting in this capacity oversaw the post-conviction proceedings of numerous persons who allegedly had been tortured and abused by Area 2 defendants, some of whom were Devine's former clients. On January 10, 2003, the Governor granted P and three other death row victims allegedly tortured by Burge and other Area 2 detectives pardons on the basis of innocence. The evidence showed that the four men had been 'beaten and tortured and convicted on the basis of confessions they allegedly provided.' State's Attorney Devine publicly condemned the pardons of the four men, whom he referred to as 'evil' and 'convicted murderers,' as 'outrageous' and 'unconscionable.' Devine also threatened to challenge the validity of the pardons in court. Further, ASA Troy made defamatory statements about Patterson, including that he saw no evidence of torture at Area 2 and that Patterson was guilty of the murders. P filed this civil action asserting that Ds, individually and in conspiracy, violated his rights under the United States Constitution and Illinois state law when they knowingly filed false charges and framed him for the Sanchez murders, tortured and beat him at Police headquarters, fabricated his 'confession' and falsified inculpatory evidence, coerced witnesses to testify against him, gave perjured testimony, published defamatory statements regarding his guilt, and obstructed justice and suppressed exculpatory evidence throughout his suppression hearing, trial, and post-conviction proceedings. Ds moved to dismiss.