Man wrongfully imprisoned 25 years due to police torture sues Chicago
Eric Caine announced the lawsuit yesterday at a press conference at the office of Loevy & Loevy Attorneys at LawÂ
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Chicago, IL – Released in March following his exoneration for a murder/robbery that he did not commit, Eric Caine is now suing the notorious former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge, four other former officers and the City of Chicago for torture and several other civil rights violations.Â
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Caine is represented by Loevy & Loevy Attorneys at Law and appeared with his attorneys at a 2:30 p.m. press conference yesterday at 312 N. May Street in Chicago, to discuss the case.
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Caine was a co-defendant with Aaron Patterson in the April 1986 murder of Rafaela and Vincent Sanchez, and along with Patterson was repeatedly tortured by officers under Burge’s direct supervision until he signed a false confession. As a result of police violence, Caine suffered a ruptured ear drum that Dr. Ross Romine, a physician at Cook County Jail, determined was consistent with the torture that Caine described as having endured.
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But police officers illegally withheld this and other exculpatory evidence, resulting in his sentencing to life in prison in 1989. Aside from the torture-induced “confessions,” no evidence linked Caine to the crimes. Indeed, finger print evidence from the crime scene matched neither defendant nor the victims, and another man, Willie Washington, soon emerged as a likely suspect. When Mack Ray, a witness to Washington’s admission of the crime, attempted to go to police with the information, he was threatened with death by some of the officers.
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While Caine and Patterson rotted in prison for crimes they did not commit, Washington went on to commit other brutal crimes. As the suit notes, “Washington has since been convicted of separate incidents of felony residential burglary and home invasion. Washington is currently serving a 30-year sentence for home invasion in which he invaded the home of his neighbor, Colleen Hamling, and stabbed her nine times in the neck, seven times in the upper spine, eight times in the chest, and once in the hand.”  Notably, Washington lived next door to the Sanchezes, who were stabbed to death.
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Going into prison at age 20 and finally emerging at age 45, Caine eventually lost his parents, a grandparent, a sister and brother to death during his quarter century of incarceration.
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Loevy & Loevy Attorneys at Law is the largest civil rights firm in the Midwest. Over the past decade, Loevy & Loevy has won more in jury verdicts against law enforcement abuses than any other firm in the region.
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