Over the last several years, we have heard more and more about people (too many of them black) being released after decades in prison when it was discovered that they could not have committed the crimes for which they were convicted. Too often, this was do to crooked cops forcing confessions out of people in order to closes cases as opposed to actually solving crimes.

It appears that we should be seeing more overturned convictions in the near future after it has been revealed that Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will be investigating claims of the torture of suspects by Chicago police in the 1980s.

A four-year study by two special prosecutors appointed by a Cook County judge, released in July 2006, found that Chicago police beat, kicked and shocked scores of black suspects in the 1970s and 1980s to get confessions. The report said it was impossible to file charges because the incidents were so old that the statute of limitations had long since run out.

On Wednesday, however, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced the federal government was stepping into the torture case, saying it would seek evidence of “perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice by members of the Chicago police department.”

“It’s political, it’s cultural, it’s systemic,” said attorney G. Flint Taylor, who represents several former death row inmates now suing Burge and city officials.

Attorney Richard Sikes, who represents Burge in the five civil suits, said after Fitzgerald’s announcement that allegations against his client “have been fairly investigated by the special prosecutors who found that charges were not appropriate.”

All this is being announced in the midst of other investigation of the Chicago special operations officer Jerome Finnigan, who federal prosecutors say plotted to kill another member of this unit to keep him from testifying about about a shakedown scheme in which this unit was allegedly involved.

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