Chicago Tribune | Coercive and illegal tactics torpedo scores of Cook County murder cases: Substituting interrogation for thorough investigation, police in Chicago and Cook County have repeatedly closed murder cases with dubious confessions that imprison the innocent while killers go free.
In the first investigation of its kind, the Tribune examined thousands of murder cases filed in Cook County since 1991 and found at least 247 where police obtained incriminating statements that were thrown out by the courts as tainted or failed to secure a conviction.
Um ... excuse me? The Chicago Reader has been working on this for about a decade solidly. What is this "first investigation of its kind" crap? (The Reader finally did what I've been hoping they would do for some time now, and got themselves a content management system. Unfortunately, they then decided to put their entire archive behind a pay wall, so you can't see the work they've done on this. Dammit. ... although, that said, it turns out that the pages themselves haven't been removed from the site. Weird. Well, until they notice, there's an article from 1999; a summary of a lot of their research from Human Rights Watch; a collection of links and information from NetworkChicago (public broadcasting); an article from Mother Jones, citing the Reader series ... well, you get the drift.)
In any event, that bit of hubris doesn't undermine the investigation that the Tribune is undertaking, which is somewhat more comprehensive -- considering the major difference in available resources, it should be more comprehensive. And it does paint an interesting picture of the Chicago police force.
I do wonder why, as part of a consent decree resulting from one of the lawsuits, a federal judge doesn't force the city to accept videotaping of interrogations as part of the solution. I understand why the police department resists; they couldn't get away with half what they do, and even some of the stuff that is entirely legal would be viewed unfavorably by a jury. But I dont understand why the solution isn't simply imposed on them.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
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12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!