From [HERE] CHICAGO – As a former Chicago police commander reported to federal prison Wednesday for lying about the torture of murder suspects decades ago, a man his detectives allegedly beat into confessing learned he was being freed after spending 25 years in prison.

Jon Burge, whose name in Chicago is synonymous with police brutality and racism, turned himself in Wednesday morning to begin a 4 1/2-year sentence at Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina. Hours later in Chicago, a judge ordered 45-year-old Eric Caine released from Menard Correctional Center after prosecutors conceded that they didn't have enough evidence to convict Caine of murder again without the suspect confession he gave police in 1986.

"On the day that Jon Burge is headed for prison, Eric Caine got word he is coming home," said Caine's attorney, Russell Ainsworth.

Caine was serving a life sentence after being convicted with another man in the 1986 stabbing a couple on Chicago's South Side. Caine was convicted largely on the basis of his confession and statements made during police questioning by his co-defendant, Aaron Patterson, who also alleged his confession was coerced and who was sentenced to death.

Both men claim Burge's "Midnight Crew" of detectives tortured them into confessing. After allegations surfaced that the white commander and his detectives were coercing black suspects into confessing to crimes, prosecutors began reviewing past convictions involving Burge's squad. Just before leaving office in 2003, Gov. George Ryan, who had put a moratorium on capital punishment after several condemned inmates were exonerated, cleared Death Row and pardoned four condemned inmates, including Patterson.