Review cases of tortured suspects

We’d like to say the sorry saga of Police Cmdr. Jon Burge and his torture crew is behind us, but it’s not.

While some men who were tortured have been freed, 19 others remain behind bars though they say that Burge and his associates coerced their confessions. And there may be even more tortured inmates whose cases have yet to come to light.

We can’t say exactly what should be done about this, but we know it cannot be ignored. By means of evidentiary hearings or some other judicial undertaking, each of these cases must be re-examined. We can’t take the chance that even one innocent man remains behind bars simply because incriminating statements were beaten out of him.

Last June, a federal jury found Burge guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying when he denied that he had tortured suspects at Area 2 Police headquarters or had seen others commit torture. That verdict — and the voluminous evidence that emerged in the long legal battle leading up to it — established beyond doubt that suspects were subjected to such outrages as electric shocks to the genitals, suffocation and loaded guns to the head to get them to say what the police wanted to hear.

If only for the sake of the integrity of our criminal justice system, we can’t allow such extracted confessions to be the last word in any case.

Four men who had been tortured testified against Burge at his trial. Others have been granted new hearings. But still others who long have said they were tortured into confessing remain behind, unable to get their stories told before a judge.

It’s important to note that these are not opportunists who suddenly came forward after Burge was convicted. They complained to authorities or their lawyers or raised the issue in court many years ago.

Normally, it would be too late to review some of these complaints. Filing deadlines and other requirements are built into the system to prevent interminable appeals. But wise judges and prosecutors could agree to sweep away these obstacles so that justice can proceed.

We say this knowing how difficult it may be to sort out the truth in each instance.

In some cases, police officers may plead the Fifth Amendment, for fear of incriminating themselves, rather than testify as to the circumstances surrounding the confessions. In others, a judge may be left with no evidence other than the unrebutted claims of the defendant.

And in those cases where a new trial looks justified, witnesses and evidence may long ago have disappeared.

These are serious concerns. If in fact some of the inmates are guilty, as seems likely, nobody wants to see them set loose. But the whole record of recent wrongful convictions in Illinois suggests that others might well be innocent, and every effort must be made to ensure they get their day in court.

The legal concept of “harmless error” holds that a conviction may be upheld even if mistakes were made, provided the rest of the evidence is sufficient. But a confession extracted through torture is never a harmless error, and a conviction based even in part on such a confession cannot be allowed to stand.