[url]http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/01/10/illinois.death.row/index.html[/url]

Illinois governor to pardon 4 death row inmates
From Jeff Flock

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Illinois Gov. George Ryan plans to announce Friday pardons for four of the state's death row inmates, CNN has learned.

Ryan will make the announcement during a 1 p.m. speech at DePaul University Law School in Chicago.

Sources close to the clemency process said the four men are Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley, Leroy Orange and Stanley Howard.

All four are part of the so-called "Burge Ten," 10 death row inmates who say they had confessions tortured out of them by police under the direction of Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge. The commander was fired after internal police investigators found systemic evidence of physical abuse of suspects.

Police said Patterson, 38, confessed to the April 1986 stabbing of an elderly couple in Chicago. Patterson never signed the confession and, during his interrogation, scrawled "I lie about murders, police threaten me with violence," into a bench with a paper clip.

Hobley, 42, was convicted of killing seven people in an arson fire in 1987. Private investigators later developed evidence that a metal gas can found at the scene used to connect Hobley to the arson was planted. He long contended he was a police torture victim, too.

Orange, 52, in prison for 19 years after being convicted of four murders along with his half-brother in 1985, told CNN in an exclusive interview last October that police used an electric probe to force him to confess though he was unable to prove it.

"Electric shock don't leave no marks," said Orange.

Howard, 40, was convicted in a 1987 murder and also contended he had been tortured.

The pardons mean the four men will be released from prison although it is unclear exactly when. Officials with the governor's office had recently contacted lawyers for the inmates to inquire about their prospects for employment were they to be released.

Patterson and Hobley are now on death row at the Illinois State Correctional Center at Pontiac. Howard is at a state prison in Menard, and Orange is at Cook County Jail in Chicago.

Ryan has another speech scheduled for Saturday at Northwestern University Law School, which has been at the center of the fight to free wrongfully convicted death row inmates. At that time, Ryan is expected to announce his decision on commuting death sentences of other death row inmates to life in prison. Ryan said it is possible he would grant blanket commutations to all of the 160 men and women on the state's death row.

Victims' families and prosecutors have strongly urged him to look at individual cases.

Ryan halted executions in Illinois in January of 2000, expressing concern that there may be innocent people on death row. This came after 13 inmates in Illinois were set free after being sent to death row.


Imagine that...a bunch of guys get away with murder and its NOT in CA!!  I don't know if there's meritt to their claims that they had the confessions tortured out of them, but they were convicted by a jury of their peers.  That means the jury followed the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard.  Don't you think the defense lawyer brought up a coerced admission defense and they still convicted?

What a load of crap.  The lying POS should be thrown in prison.  I am so glad I moved out of that state.  Of course, I now live in MA, which isn't all that great either.

Jon Burge is a POS as well.  Some of the people being pardoned have been released after it was proven that they weren't guilty.  Of course they should be pardoned.

Another point.  If we are to be so worried that "there are innocent men on Death Row", and commute their sentances, are we now supposed to be happy that there are now "innocent men serving life in prison"?

Ryan is a POS, and I hate him with a passion.  He had 4 years to fix the situation, but did nothing.  Now he is in deep doo-doo, and trying to buy favor with the Nobel Peace Prize comittee.

I'm not leaving the state, I'm staying and fighting!  (Unless we sell our business)  I guess you could say I have tenuous ties to the state.

CA just shortens sentences due to overcrowding and 'loses' sex offenders because they 'refuse to voluntarily register themselves'... [rolleyes]

Just heard on the radio (KNX (CBS) in LA)that he did it.  There's also talk that he may commute the sentences of EVERYONE on death row tommorow.

I don't know about the rest of you, but you can't beat confessions out of people. Period. Jon Burge was fired for physical abuse of suspects, so looks like the aligations are true.
Executing people with questionable evidence is wrong. We're no better than the goddamn Taliban if do that crap.

If the police deliberately introduced falsified evidence, the convictions should be thrown out.  (Presumably the accused could be retried, if appropriate, without that evidence.)

The police can frame ANYBODY.

Coerced confessions, planted evidence, perjured testimony - the police can do all this if they want.

I have no problem seeing a guilty man strapped into an electric chair; I have enormous problems seeing an innocent man spending even a day in jail!!

I don't see the relationship to Calfornia either.