By Rummana Hussain
The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO -- Abusive Chicago cop who’d do anything to get a confession? Or a hard-working officer falsely accused by convicted criminals?
A federal jury is expected to begin deliberating former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge’s fate Thursday after prosecutors and defense attorneys present their closing arguments in Burge’s perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial.
The final witnesses finished testifying Tuesday, and the jury was told they’d be back this morning to listen to the final arguments and jury instructions. But late Tuesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow told reporters that closing arguments were pushed to Thursday due to an “undisclosed emergency among the lawyers.”
Lefkow would not elaborate.
Burge, 62, is accused of beating suspects at Area 2 in the 1970s and 1980s and then denying he tortured them in a statement he made in 2003 as a part of a civil case. During 13 days of testimony, Burge took the stand for several hours and again denied that he or his colleagues tortured citizens while in police custody.
Four men -- Anthony Holmes, Melvin Jones, Gregory Banks and Shadeed Mu’min -- testified that they were punched, electroshocked and suffocated by either Burge or his underlings. Accusations from a fifth man, deceased convicted cop killer Andrew Wilson, were also entered into evidence from prosecutors. Wilson said he was beaten, electroshocked and burned as he was pressed across a burning radiator and forced to confess to the murders of Officers William Fahey and Richard O’Brien.
Burge has maintained that Wilson only received “superficial” wounds after he left Area 2 and admitted he laughed when he heard Wilson had been beaten.
On Tuesday, former court reporter Mike Hartnett said Wilson had mostly old wounds on his face and looked like he’d been “popped” near his right eye when Hartnett typed up Wilson’s statement at Area 2 on Feb. 14, 1982.
Wilson never complained about being abused by detectives, Hartnett said
Hartnett admitted he once testified he really “didn’t give a damn” about Wilson’s well-being because of his involvement in the murders.
“You weren’t concerned about him being roughed up?” Justice Department prosecutor Betsy Biffl asked during the cross examination.
“No, not after what he told me,” said Hartnett, one of the defense’s final witnesses.
“He [Wilson] doesn’t speak up, you keep your head down and do your job, don’t you?” Biffl later asked.
“Yes,” Hartnett said.
THE BURGE JURY
There are 17 jurors: 12 who will decide Jon Burge’s fate and five alternates. It’s unclear at this point who the alternates are.
Here’s the racial/gender breakdown of the 17 people listening to the case:
- Eight white men (many are middle aged)
- One man who appears to be Hispanic
- One older African-American man
- Four white women (three are older, one is young)
- One woman who appears to be Hispanic
- Two African-American women
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