$20 million settles police torture suits

The city of Chicago has agreed to pay nearly $20 million to settle lawsuits filed by four former death row inmates who claimed they were tortured by Chicago police officers and wrongly convicted, a city alderman said Friday.

The settlement of lawsuits brought by Aaron Patterson, Leroy Orange, Stanley Howard and Madison Hobley mark the latest development in one of the darkest chapters of the history of the city's police force.

Alderman Ed Smith applauded the city's decision to settle the lawsuits, saying the allegations of torture by former Lt. Jon Burge and his officers is the first step in healing frayed relations between the police department and residents, particularly the black community.

"To have this case settled says the city has stepped up to try to amend what a bad police commander did to the general public," Smith said. "To bring this thing to fruition says to the general public that mistakes were made and we should try to clear it up and start trying to heal."

The settlements still must be approved by the city council's finance committee, which Smith expected to happen Monday.

Burge was fired by the police department in 1993.

The four were part of a story that made international headlines in January 2003 when then-Gov. George Ryan pardoned them and commuted the sentences of every death row inmate in the state in a stinging rebuke of capital punishment.

Since then, their accounts and those of more alleged victims of torture have dogged the city. Last year, two special prosecutors released a 300-page report that nearly 200 black men were tortured in Chicago police interrogation rooms in the 1970s and 1980s.

The $19.8 million settlement calls for Hobley to receive $7.5 million, Orange $5.5 million, Patterson $5 million and Howard $1.8 million, Smith said.

But Hobley has been identified as a subject of a federal arson and murder investigation, and Smith said under the terms of the settlement, he will receive $1 million when it receives final approval and the other $6.5 million at the end of 2009 if he has not been indicted.

Hobley and Orange have been out of custody since Ryan ordered them pardoned. Howard remained in prison on unrelated charges. Patterson was also released from prison, but in August he was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after being convicted of drug and weapon charges.

Earlier this year, attorneys for Hobley, Orange and Howard said the city had reached a $14.8 million settlement of their lawsuits but that it had failed to pay. At the time, Jennifer Hoyle, spokeswoman for the city's law department, said that no agreement had been reached.

Hoyle did not immediately return calls for comment on Friday.