Ronald Kitchen, 50, and Marvin Reeves, 43, will be freed in Illinois after prosecutors decided not to pursue a new trial. Cook County Circuit Judge Stanley Sacks granted them retrials on their convictions. Kitchen and Reeves had allegedly been erroneously convicted more than 18 years ago for the 1988 slayings of two women and three children in a Southwest Side home.
Both of their convictions involved alleged torture by discredited former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge. Kitchen, who has been in prison since 1990, long has contended that he confessed only because he was tortured. Kitchen originally was sentenced to death but was granted clemency along with other Death Row inmates by former Gov. George Ryan in 2003. Reeves was sentenced to five life terms in prison without parole.
Today, Illinois Assistant Atty. Gen. Richard Schwind told Judge Paul Biebel that after reviewing both cases, his office had decided that it could not prove burden of proof and the state was dropping charges against both men.
Burge, who had served as commander of detectives in what is now the Calumet Area headquarters, is awaiting trial in federal court in Chicago on charges that he lied in a civil lawsuit to cover up alleged torture. He is now living in Florida.
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