Attorneys for a former death row inmate filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Jon Burge Wednesday night, just days after the former Chicago Police commander was convicted of lying about the torture of suspects.
The lawsuit also accuses Mayor Richard M. Daley of covering up torture while he was Cook County state’s attorney in the 1980′s.
The plaintiff, Ronald Kitchen, was released from prison in 2009. He said police tortured him into implicating himself in the July 26, 1988 killings of two women and three children at a Chicago Lawn bungalow. One of the women was the daughter of a Chicago cop.
Kitchen spent 21 years behind bars, including 13 years on death row. He was exonerated and released from prison in July 2009. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan found no basis to oppose his plea for release, and the Circuit Court of Cook County declared him innocent.
Retired civil rights attorney Larry Kennon said civil rights lawsuits will be easier to win against Burge now that a jury has found him guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice. That case established in a court that torture occurred, Kennon said.
The Kitchen lawsuit also names as defendants the City of Chicago, Cook County and other people who held positions during the 1980′s: two police superintendents, two assistant state’s attorneys, four police officers, the former head of the Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards and a superintendent’s aide.
Kitchen said Thursday the lawsuit is not about money, though his lawyer, Locke Bowman, said they are seeking “very substantial” damages. Instead, Kitchen said he wants to see those named in the lawsuit held responsible for what happened to him.
“It’s still unreal to me being free,” he said.