Well, well, well. Will wonders never cease?
Retired Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge was arrested at his home near Tampa, Fla., today on charges of lying in a civil case about whether he and other officers under his command tortured and physically abused suspects in police custody dating back to the 1980s, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
Burge was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury in a three-count indictment unsealed today following his arrest. The charges alleged that Burge lied and impeded court proceedings in November 2003 when he provided false written answers to questions in a civil lawsuit alleging that he and others engaged in torture and abuse of suspects. Burge, 60, now living in Apollo Beach, Fla., near Tampa, was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Tampa at 1 p.m. Chicago time.
"There is no place for torture and abuse in a police station," said U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald in a news release. "There is no place for perjury and false statements in federal lawsuits. No person is above the law, and nobody--even a suspected murderer--is beneath its protection." The investigation is continuing, authorities said.
A special prosecutors' report paid for by Cook County and released in 2006 concluded that dozens of suspects had been tortured by Chicago police but that no one could be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out. Today's indictment gets around that legal problem by charging Burge with perjury, not with any instances of actual torture....
I really thought that nothing would happen in this case. After all, if you can't arrest for the torture, how can you arrest for the perjury about the torture? But apparently the alleged perjury counts as a separate crime, committed 17 years later so that the statute of limitations that bars the torture charges doesn't apply to the perjury charges.
What is going to be really fascinating to see is when and where this goes to trial. In theory, given that the arrest comes out of Fitzgerald's office, even though Burge is in Tampa, the trial should take place here. However, there's a real question about whether or not Burge could get a fair trial in the area where he's alleged to have committed his crimes. Given that the perjury is about the crimes, they're clearly going to be brought into the case, so they'll finally get a hearing. And that's what's going to be really fascinating. Once the trial begins, will Fitzgerald or whoever the prosecutor is be subpoenaing hizzoner da mayor Richard Daley to testify? I don't see how you conduct the trial without him; surely they're going to want the then-states attorney to testify as to how he was bringing cases and getting convictions against people who had obviously been tortured, who his staff had serious reservations about proceeding against. I should think there will be subpoenas-a-go-go, counter motions, attempts to quash, and so on. It'll probably be a few years before it comes to trial, and perhaps by then, hizzoner da mayor will decide that maybe perhaps he should retire.
I do feel somewhat sorry for the current Chicago police department people. After all, most of the current officers and staff had nothing to do with the torture allegations; 22 years ago, a few of them weren't even born yet. The department does have its problems, true; it certainly has its share of police brutality allegations and lawsuits flying. Nonetheless, they tend to be odd, isolated incidents, as they should be. Nobody seems to be alleging the sort of systematic, focused brutality of the Burge era today. Thing is, trials like this tend to make people notice the present in a way that doesn't necessarily distinguish from the past. And that's all going to make their jobs much more difficult in a city that's never entirely decided to trust them. (Though, heaven knows, it could be worse. The situation could be as bad as New Orleans or Cincinnati.)
Yes, there are definitely some interesting times ahead.
See also:Posted by iain at October 21, 2008 12:17 PMChicago police torture case rolls on, sort of (June 11, 2008)
Chicago's police vs Chicago (April 23, 2007)
Chicago Reader: Police Torture Archive, articles by John Conroy and Reader staff
