Ill. Supreme Court allows torture case to proceed

CHICAGO – An inmate who says Chicago Police officers tortured him into confessing to a brutal rape can present evidence of coercion that was denied at trial, the Illinois Supreme Court decided Thursday in a ruling that could have implications for more than a dozen other inmates seeking similar appeals.

Justices ruled Stanley Wrice should be appointed counsel and that his post-conviction case should be allowed to continue. Wrice, 57, is among dozens of men – almost all of them black – who have claimed since the 1970s that former Chicago Police Lt. Jon Burge and his officers used torture to secure confessions in crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder. Allegations persisted until the 1990s at police stations on the city’s South and West sides.

While several of the incarcerated men with torture claims have been released, Wrice’s case could have a far-reaching impact on how Illinois deals with such cases in the future. Wrice, who is serving a 100-year sentence, insists he’s innocent.

Allegations of abuse and torture have plagued the department in the nation’s third-largest city for decades and were a factor in former Gov. George Ryan’s decision to institute a moratorium on the death penalty in 2000. Gov. Pat Quinn abolished the death penalty in Illinois last year.