Michael Tillman says that he was suffocated, had 7-Up poured up his nose, was beaten until the blood formed a pool on the interrogation room floor and was the target of a mock execution while in the custody of Chicago police officers. The torture didn’t stop, he says, until he uttered a confession to a murder he didn’t commit. Today, exactly, 23 years after his arrest, lawyers with the People’s Law Office and Northwestern University’s MacArthur Justice Center filed a petition seeking a new hearing in his case, claiming that the use of torture by the detectives at Area 2, where the alleged incidents occurred, is now common knowledge.
“In 1986, Michael Tillman didn’t have any of the evidence that we have here today. It is a veritable mountain of evidence… that not only has convinced courts, special prosecutors, the federal government and many others that there was a systemic pattern of torture at Area 2 under Jon Burge and John Byrne,” said Flint Taylor, co-counsel in the case. “We are asking this court today, in a 55-page petition, to reopen Michael Tillman’s case, to give him some modicum of justice, 23 years after he was brought in for questioning.” http://watchtowerreport.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/alleged-police-torture-victim-seeks-new-trial-after-23-years-in-prison/