Burge Effect: Cortez Brown Gets New Trial

By Marcus Gilmer in News on May 24, 2009 5:45PM

The effects of former police commander Jon Burge's arrest last fall in connection with torture charges is now being felt. On Friday, a Cook County Judge ruled that Victor Safforld, a.k.a. Cortez Brown, will get a new trial after he determined a trio of officers under Burge's command - James O'Brien, Anthony Maslanka and John Paladino - tortured Brown into confessing. If a new trial is pursued against Brown, his alleged confession will most likely not be admitted. Brown was convicted of two murders in 1990 and sentenced to death though that sentence was later commuted to life. While Brown admitted he was a gang member, he said he had been beaten into confessing, claiming, according to the Trib, "the detectives punched him, beat his legs and hands with a metal flashlight and slapped him in the head for a half hour until his will was broken."

Circuit Judge Clayton J. Crane noted that the trio used their 5th Amendment rights to duck testifying in the original trial. But Crane had the benefit of reviewing the disciplinary history of all three. Said Crane, "... I have a more complete history of the behavior of these detectives. That evidence is staggering. That evidence is damning." Brown's attorney, Locke Bowman, said, "When you have confessions extorted from individuals by terror and physical abuse, you corrupt the system and you make it impossible to sort the guilty from the innocent." It's not know yet whether or not the attorney general's office will seek a new trial against Brown.