Saturday, January 5, 2008

Chicago Near Police Torture Settlement


Chicago Near Police Torture Settlement

CHICAGO (AP) — The city is near approval of a $20 million settlement that would end lawsuits brought by four former death-row inmates whose claims of police torture led to a re-examination of capital punishment.

Final paperwork has been approved, and the City Council can vote on the settlement next week, city law department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle said Friday.

The council was supposed to vote last month, but paperwork problems postponed the action.

The four inmates — Aaron Patterson, Leroy Orange, Stanley Howard and Madison Hobley — claim they were tortured by police and wrongly convicted. George Ryan, governor at the time, pardoned them in 2003 and commuted the sentences of every death row inmate in the state.

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