AREA 2 TORTURE – DEATH ROW INMATE SAYS CONFESSION WAS RESULT OF TORTURE
Nationally Prominent Activists Urge Hearing for Death Row Inmate Who Claims His Confession Was Coerced Through Torture
In 1998, a number of nationally known activists, attorneys, and death penalty opponents signed a brief that the MacArthur Justice Center submitted to the Illinois Supreme Court in support of the appeal of death row prisoner Aaron Patterson. Patterson claims that a confession he purportedly gave to Chicago police detectives at the Area 2 Chicago police headquarters was coerced through torture, including suffocation with a plastic typewriter cover. The amicus brief argued it would be unconscionable to send Patterson to his death without a full inquiry into the torture claim-including considering evidence of similar claims of torture made by several other suspects who were interrogated at Area 2 by the same detectives.
Download brief (pdf)
