Inmate who claimed torture gets released

CHESTER — A man who claimed Chicago police tortured him into confessing to killing a Chicago couple and spent more than 25 years in prison walked out a free man Thursday, eight years after his co-defendant was pardoned and freed from the state's death row by a former Illinois governor.

Eric Caine's release from southwestern Illinois' Menard Correctional Center followed a judge's dismissal Wednesday of charges that had landed him a life sentence.

"Let me breathe the air — I just want to enjoy this moment right now," Caine, 45, said after walking out of Menard, the maximum-security lockup near the Mississippi River, about 60 miles southeast of St. Louis..

Cook County Judge William H. Hooks' ruling had come the same day a former Chicago police commander Caine had accused of threatening him with a gun reported to a North Carolina federal prison to begin serving a 4 1/2-year sentence for lying about the torture of suspects.

Caine said he isn't bitter about his incarceration, but does plan to seek recourse. He said he hopes to marry his girlfriend and channel his efforts into a possible ministry.

Caine wore clothing and shoes provided by his attorney and carried a Bible and family pictures. He said what he's really been craving is oxtail stew.

"This is the first day of the rest of my life," Caine said, before letting out a loud, "Woo-hoo!"

Caine and co-defendant Aaron Patterson had claimed then-Chicago police Lt. Jon Burge and officers under him coerced them into implicating themselves in the 1986 killings of the elderly couple found stabbed 34 times.

Patterson was sentenced to death but was pardoned along with three other men on the state's death row in 2003 by then-Gov. George Ryan after the Republican said he had concluded Patterson's confession was coerced. All four inmates made similar torture claims and years after being pardoned reached a $20 million settlement with the city.

But until Thursday, Caine languished in prison as he pressed to get his case re-examined.

Hooks ruled in January that Caine was entitled to a post-conviction hearing based on his allegations of torture, and prosecutors decided to drop the case rather than proceed, said Stuart Nudelman, a former judge acting as the special prosecutor in Caine's case.

"We were left with, at this point, a questionable confession and really no other evidence," Nudelman said, adding that during any retrial it was unlikely prosecutors would not have been able to meet their burden of proving Caine's guilt.

Caine's 1989 conviction largely was on the basis of his confession and statements made during police questioning by Patterson. Both men have claimed Burge's "Midnight Crew" of detectives tortured them into confessing, with Caine insisting that Burge walked into the police station room where he was being held, put a gun on the table and told him he'd be worse off if he didn't confess.

Then one of the detectives cupped his hand and hit Caine so hard on the side of the head that he ruptured his eardrum, giving a false statement while "blinded by pain," his attorney, Russell Ainsworth, said this week.

Ainsworth said there was no other evidence of Caine's guilt, including fingerprints or DNA. At the time of the slaying, Caine testified, he was at his aunt's birthday party.

After allegations surfaced that the commander and his detectives were coercing black suspects into confessing to crimes, prosecutors began reviewing past convictions involving Burge's squad. Just before leaving office in 2003, Ryan — already having put a moratorium on capital punishment after several condemned inmates were exonerated — cleared the state's death row and pardoned Patterson and three other condemned men.

Ryan did not pardon Caine; Ainsworth speculates the former governor may have only freed Patterson because he was on death row and Caine wasn't, and that Ryan may not have known about Caine's case.

Ryan's 2003 pardons put a spotlight on Patterson, who in the wake of his release after 17 years in prison — most of it one death row — cast himself in the role of a community leader and was highly critical of the police.

But little more than a year after being freed, he was arrested and accused of dealing drugs as a ranking street gang leader. Patterson, 46, now serving a 30-year sentence at a federal prison in central Pennsylvania.