Burge To Be Called As Witness In Wrongful Conviction Trial
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Jon Burge, the disgraced former Chicago police commander convicted of lying about torture by his detectives, is expected to testify this week at the trial of a man wrongfully convicted of murder.
The Associated Press reports Burge is expected to invoke his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to incriminate himself, but he will appear via videoconferencing at the trial stemming from a lawsuit filed by Alton Logan, who spent 26 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.
Logan was released from prison in 2008 after new evidence revealed he wasn't responsible for killing a security guard at a McDonald's restaurant in Chicago in 1982.
Logan has sued the city, Burge, and several other police officers. However, he has not alleged he was tortured by police, rather that Burge and the other officers concealed evidence that would have exonerated him. Burge is serving a 4 1/2-year sentence in federal prison, after he was convicted in 2010 of lying under oath when he testified in a separate lawsuit that he never witnessed or participated in the torture of suspects.
The trial for Logan's lawsuit was scheduled to begin Monday morning with jury selection.
