CHICAGO _ Jackie Wilson, one of two brothers convicted of killing two Chicago police officers, walked out of Cook County Jail, a free man for the first time in more than 36 years.
The sudden freedom for Wilson, 57, came after Cook County Circuit Judge William Hooks ordered his release a few hours earlier. The judge had tossed out Wilson's murder conviction after finding that Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge and detectives under his command had physically coerced his confession.
Saying that nearly four decades in prison had aged Wilson "far beyond his chronological age," Hooks held Friday that he did not pose a danger to the community or a risk to flee _ factors in whether he could be released.
The judge also said special prosecutors "utterly failed" in their arguments to keep Wilson in jail. They appeared to want him to view the case "through the lens of a court sitting in 1982 or 1988 without considering the revelations that have come to light over the last three decades," he said.
Scores of African-American men have accused Burge, who is white, and his colleagues of torturing or abusing them during the 1970s and 1980s at a South Side police station. The scandal has stained the city's reputation and cost taxpayers at least $115 million so far in lawsuit settlements, judgments and other compensation to victims.
Relatives of slain Officers Richard O'Brien and William Fahey left the Leighton Criminal Court Building without comment after Hooks' ruling. Special prosecutor Michael O'Rourke said they were understandably upset by the decision.
Kevin Graham, president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, who attended the hearing, called Hooks' ruling "disgraceful."
"I'm very disappointed that a man that is responsible, who was at the scene, that has admitted to being there when two honored police officers of the Chicago Police Department were murdered, gunned down, and he walks out," Graham said.
As he left the jail, Wilson said he was "happy to be a member of society again."
"Being a victim of one of a number of Jon Burge's brutalities," he said as his voice trailed off and he sighed heavily. "Oh Lord, it's just, it's been a rocky ride."
As Wilson walked toward a waiting car, a nearby woman cried out, "Thank God you're free." Wilson stepped toward her, grasped her hand and kissed it before departing.
The woman, Ilicea Barnes, 51, said she just happened to be nearby and was moved when she heard an inmate would be walking free after being locked up so long.
"Just imagine all he has missed and lost," she said.
Wilson's attorneys said they have arranged for a social worker and a psychologist to help ease his transition from prison. Citing fears for his safety, they declined to say where he planned to live.
G. Flint Taylor, a Wilson lawyer who has represented numerous alleged victims of Burge over the years, called on the special prosecutors to drop the murder charges, saying they had no viable case now that the confession had been thrown out
"Any self-respecting prosecutor would dismiss this case," Taylor said.
But O'Rourke, who leads the special prosecution team, said he would pursue the prosecution, maintaining that there is enough evidence besides the tainted confession to prove Wilson's guilt.
"Jon Burge has no effect on the evidence to prove the actual criminal conduct, which is separate and apart from anything Burge-related," he said. "We have witnesses and we have testimony that's completely non-Burge-related that will set out this case and set it out in convincing fashion."
The ruling to free Wilson came as special prosecutors filed paperwork indicating they will ask an appeals court to reverse Hooks' decision to throw out the conviction and order a retrial.
Neither side in this decades-old court battle disputes that Wilson's now-dead brother, Andrew, fatally shot the two officers during a traffic stop or that Jackie Wilson was present. What will be at issue in a retrial is whether Jackie Wilson played an active role in the killing.
His lawyers assert that at least one witness says Wilson appeared to be in a "state of shock" during the shooting. But prosecutors contend that Wilson was hardly an innocent figure, arguing that both brothers were on the way to try to break out another man accused of killing a police officer from custody when they were pulled over by O'Brien and Fahey.
Wilson's first conviction was tossed out after an appeals court ruled that he should not have been tried simultaneously with his brother. At a retrial in 1989, a jury acquitted him of Fahey's murder but convicted him of O'Brien's. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Burge was convicted in federal court of perjury and obstruction of justice in 2010 after jurors found he lied when he denied witnessing torture or abusing suspects in connection with a lawsuit. While he was not charged with torture, prosecutors had to prove allegations of abuse to support the other counts. Burge spent 4 { years in prison and on home confinement.
