> PREFACE TO THE LEGAL ARCHIVE

From 1972 to 1991, former Cmdr. Jon Burge and a ring of white detectives under his command tortured over 110 Black men and women at Area 2 and 3 Police Headquarters on Chicago’s South Side. The torture techniques included electrically shocking people with an electric shock box; suffocating individuals with plastic bags; threatening people with firearms; and beatings with telephone books. In addition to inflicting excruciating physical pain, the detectives also routinely tormented the survivors with racist epithets and slurs throughout their interrogations.

These acts of torture and racist abuse were deployed by Burge and his crew to terrorize, dehumanize and break the will of the survivors to extract confessions. These confessions were then introduced as powerful pieces of incriminating evidence at the survivors’ criminal trials to secure their convictions and, in the case of 11, their death sentences.

The vast majority of survivors complained about the torture they endured at the hands of Burge and his men, seeking to suppress their confessions on the basis that they were physically coerced in violation of their constitutional rights. In so doing, they courageously testified at hearings before judges and later before juries, laying bare the details of their painful, terrifying, humiliating and degrading interrogations. At each of these proceedings, the detectives routinely and cavalierly denied under oath that any torture or coercion occurred. Judges and juries routinely credited the word of white detectives over those of Black and Latinx torture survivors, facilitating the admission of these confessions in their criminal proceedings.

After decades of litigation, independent journalism and organizing by survivors, their family members, activists, artists and educators, a wealth of evidence was developed proving a racist pattern and practice of torture. This digital archive contains much of this evidence, collected by the People’s Law Office (PLO), over a 30-year period when representing police torture survivors in their criminal cases and civil rights cases, and advocating they receive reparations from the city of Chicago.

The archive contains a wide range of evidence, including hundreds of transcripts of testimony derived from criminal and civil trials and proceedings given by the survivors, corroborating witnesses, medical professionals, attorneys, and acquaintances of Burge. It also includes the testimony of Burge, other Area 2 and 3 Detectives, and the depositions and statements provided by Burge and over two dozen Area 2 and 3 detectives, Mayor Richard M. Daley, and former Cook County Prosecutor Richard (Dick) Devine, both of whom were responsible for prosecuting torture survivors and who have been accused of suppressing the evidence regarding the torture.

The archive includes the letters sent by the anonymous police source Deep Badge to the PLO. These letters were critical to exposing Burge’s reign of torture, with Deep Badge identifying the name of another survivor that led the PLO on a path to uncovering other survivors. The letters also provide further corroboration of Burge’s anti-Black racism and a list of “Burge’s ass kickers,” and expose the depth of the code of silence, with Deep Badge indicating that high-ranking members of the city of Chicago and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, including Daley and Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne, were aware of the torture and did nothing to stop it or hold Burge and others responsible.

In addition to testimony and letters, the archive contains reports and underlying materials collected by governmental agencies who investigated the torture, including several investigations completed by the Office of Professional Standards (OPS) and the Office of the Special State’s Attorney who were appointed to investigate Burge’ crimes of torture in response to a grassroots campaign.

Other materials include graphic photographs of Andrew Wilson’s injuries after he was electrically shocked, beaten and burned on a hot radiator at Area 2 Police Headquarters. There are also pictures of the etchings made by Aaron Patterson on a bench with a paper clip in an interrogation room at Area 2 after he was tortured. These etchings served as his outcry in real time that he had been suffocated with a plastic bag and slapped to give a false confession.

The archive also contains the transcripts of historic hearings held in Chicago’s City Council and before the Cook County Board documenting the demands for justice made by torture survivors, their family members, organizers and activists. These hearings provide snapshots of some of the grassroots campaigns, that over time, led to Burge’s termination from the CPD in 1993; the exoneration of over 20 torture survivors and the release of dozens more from prison; the prosecution and conviction of Burge for perjury and obstruction of justice in 2010; and the passage of unprecedented legislation providing reparations to the Burge torture survivors on May 6, 2015.

Decades ago, when the survivors were tortured, they were unaware that scores of others were tortured. They did not have the benefit of others’ experiences or this wealth of evidence to support their torture allegations in their criminal cases. By digitally sharing these materials, making them more accessible to the public, we hope it will help other police torture survivors, many of whom continue to languish behind bars because of convictions based in whole, or in part, on their coerced confessions. They, too, should have the benefit of this evidence to support their claims for relief. Moreover, the materials in this archive provide several lessons that can be gleaned from the torture cases and the steps people can take to ending police and other forms of state violence.

-Joey L. Mogul, December 2020

Joey Mogul, a partner at the People’s Law Office and organizer of the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials (CTJM), has successfully represented several Chicago police torture survivors in criminal post-conviction proceedings and in federal civil rights cases since 1997. Mogul served as co-lead counsel in litigation securing legal representation for the Burge torture survivors who remain behind bars in post-conviction proceedings in 2014. Mogul also successfully presented the cases to the U.N. Committee against Torture (CAT), obtaining a specific finding from the CAT calling for the prosecution of the perpetrators in May of 2006. Mogul drafted the original City Council ordinance providing reparations for the Chicago police (Burge) torture survivors filed in October 2013 on behalf of CTJM.

> TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Torture Victims and Witnesses who Support Torture Claims
   This folder contains testimonies, depositions and exhibitions of each of the victims of the Chicago police torture and other witnesses, including expert witness Anthony Bouza.

2. Torture Findings: Admissions, Decisions, Docs, Opinions, Pleadings
   This folder contains memos and statements regarding the various torture cases. Opinions by Drs. Robert Kirschner and Antonio Martinez, as well as the city of Chicago’s admissions of a pattern of torture, are also included.

3. Police: SAO, City, Testimonies, Statements, Docs, Photos
   This folder contains testimonies and other documents of each of the police officers sued for Area 2 and 3 torture. It also includes depositions and statements of other witnesses, interrogations and complaint answers of the police officers, and photos of Areas 1, 2 and 3, and Jon Burge’s Florida property.

4. OPS Goldston Sanders: Police Foundation Reports
   This folder contains analyses and reports written by the Office of Professional Standards investigators (OPS) Goldston and Sanders. Also included are OPS investigative reports, summaries and press releases.

5. Media: Torture Articles. This folder contains various articles from the media, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, covering the torture cases and final decisions. Blogs, articles and other works by John Conroy are also included.

   5A. Daley and Devine
   This folder contains statements and depositions of then-State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley and his first assistant Richard Devine. Also included are articles covering this aspect of the cases.

6. Special Prosecutor Reports and Evidence
   This folder contains special reports, including the Report of the Special State’s Attorney by Special Prosecutor Edward Egan, and working documents on the tried police officers and other witnesses.

7. Shadow Torture Reports
   This folder contains supplementary and final reports, such as the 2007 “Report on the Failure of Special Prosecutors Edward J. Egan and Robert D. Boyle to Fairly Investigate Police Torture in Chicago,” made to U.S. Attorney (N.D. IL) Patrick Fitzgerald, City Council Members, and U.S. Congressmen. Also included is testimony of Special Prosecutor Edward Egan.

8. Summaries of Evidence
   This folder contains documents on the torture evidence, as well as documents and lists on the torture victims and timelines on the pattern of Chicago police torture.

9. City Council Hearings, Resolutions and Ordinance
   This folder contains transcripts of the 2007 City Council Police Torture hearing, as well as later statements on the resolutions and early reparations from October 16, 2013. It also includes condemnations of police torture, press releases and other proposed anti-torture ordinances.

10. County Board Hearing
    This folder contains statements, exhibits and resolutions on the Cook County Board Hearing of 2007.

11. Defense Payments, Pensions
    This folder contains information on defense fees and finance committee reports. Also included is information on Jon Burge’s pension.

12. Torture Statutes
    This folder contains torture statutes and bills, including the Law Enforcement Torture Prevention Act of 2011, proposed to the U.S. House of Representatives.

13. US v Burge
    This folder contains court orders, testimony, trial notes and other documents related to the U.S. v. Burge case (U.S. District Court, N.D. ILO 2008, No. 08 CR00846). Jon Burge was tried and convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury for lying about the use of torture.

14. Street Files Evidence
    This folder contains hearing transcripts and depositions regarding the street files litigation from 1982 to 1986. The “street files” refer to the secret police files in which evidence favorable to the criminal defendants was systematically hidden.

15. Reports
    This folder contains the Wickersham Commission Reports of 1931 and the North Carolina Connection to Extraordinary Rendition and Torture Report of 2012.

16. Videos
    This folder contains clips from various media coverage of the Chicago police torture cases.

17. Torture Photos and Documents
    This folder contains photos of torture victims Andrew Wilson and Aaron Patterson, as well as miscellaneous memos, receipts and other papers.

18. 1992 Police Board Transcript
    This folder contains four volumes of transcripts on Police Board cases against Cmdr. Jon Burge, Detective Patrick O’Hara and Detective John Yucaitis in 1992 (No. 1856, 1857, 1858).

19. Patterson Court Pleadings 2003 to 2006
    This folder contains motions, exhibits and responses from the Aaron Patterson court pleadings (U.S. District Court, N.D. ILO, No. 03 C4433)

20. States Attorneys, Judges
    This folder contains information on the Assistant State’s Attorney (ASA) command structure and on the judges who sat on the various cases.