Man falsely convicted of killing 2 cops is freed after 36 years in prison

[Judi Lynn]

Source: UPI


By Ray Downs | June 24, 2018 at 9:30 PM

June 24 (UPI) -- A Chicago man has been freed after 36 years in prison for the murder of two police officers after a judge ruled police tortured him to get a confession.

Jackie Wilson, 57, walked out of the Cook County Jail on Friday after Cook County Circuit Judge William Hooks threw out his conviction for the murders of Chicago police officers Richard O'Brien and William Fahey in 1982. Hooks said police tortured Wilson to get the confession and prosecutors "utterly failed" to make a convincing argument to keep Wilson locked up as he awaits a new trial.

"[I'm] happy to be a member of society again after 36 years of incarceration for a crime I didn't commit," Wilson told reporters shortly after he was released. "It's been a rocky ride. I'd just like to move forward with my life barring any further complications and I'd like to make my contribution to society."

Wilson was one of several young black people who were allegedly tortured by ex-Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge and detectives under his command during the 70s and 80s at Chicago's South Side Police Station. The scandal has resulted in at least $115 million in settlement payouts and at least one false conviction.

Read more: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/06/24/3191529888301/

---

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_jtZM_i2fSV8/TCo3WtqqqEI/AAAAAAAACaQ/5BAgdOfzptc/s1600/Sun-Times+cover+6-29-10.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rToabVydLgM/Ul7-Z8Qtj4I/AAAAAAAASeI/K5SV1qp1G0s/s1600/jon+burge+1.png

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[raging moderate]

2. I remember this. JACKIE WILSON: COURAGE! HOORAY FOR YOU!

IT'S A WILD NEW WORLD NOW! YOU WILL MAKE IT! GOOD LUCK.

[canetoad]

3. K&R

Whenever Chicago Police commander Jon Burge needed a confession, he would walk into the interrogation room and set down a little black box, his alleged victims would later tell prosecutors. The box had two wires and a crank. Burge, they alleged, would attach one wire to the suspect’s handcuffed ankles and the other to his manacled hands. Then, they said, Burge would place a plastic bag over the suspect’s head. Finally, he would crank his little black box and listen to the screams of pain as electricity coursed through the suspect’s body.

“When he hit me with the voltage, that’s when I started gritting, crying, hollering. … It [felt] like a thousand needles going through my body,” Anthony Holmes told prosecutors during a 2006 investigation into Burge. “And then after that, it just [felt] like, you know—it [felt] like something just burning me from the inside, and, um, I shook, I gritted, I hollered, then I passed out.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/15/closing-the-book-on-jon-burge-chicago-cop-accused-of-brutally-torturing-african-american-suspects/?noredirect=on

[Archae]

4. Whatever happened to Burge?

[regnaD kciN]

5. "...as he awaits a new trial..."

Have they decided to retry him? I don’t want to be pessimistic, but I remember all too well “Hurricane” Carter’s first retrial, where the prosecutors opted to redouble their efforts to play the Scary Black Man card, and Carter wound up getting reconvicted, with it taking almost a decade more before justice was finally done.

[lunasun]

6. Here is a picture of Jackie Wilson