$5.25 million settlement adds to legal tally from Burge-era police torture cases

Chicagoans may never know what former Mayor Richard M. Daley had to say in his only sworn deposition about the role he played in the Jon Burge torture era.

But one thing is certain: the only Burge case thus far to produce a Daley deposition will cost beleaguered Chicago taxpayers $5.25 million.

The settlement, expected to be approved Monday by the City Council's Finance Committee, goes to Alonzo Smith. Smith claims Area 2 detectives Peter Dignan and John Byrne tortured him into confessing to a 1983 murder he did not commit.

Based on that confession, Smith spent 20 years in prison, only to have prosecutors dismiss the conviction in 2015 after a judge declared there was enough evidence Smith had been tortured to grant him a new trial.

A certificate of innocence for Smith is still pending.

Daley was a defendant in Smith's lawsuit.

Unlike prior Burge cases where the city settled just in time to keep Daley from testifying under oath, Smith's case was not settled in time.

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