Barry Latzer on Robert Nixon and Police Torture in Chicago

Elizabeth Dale. Robert Nixon and Police Torture in Chicago, 1871-1972. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2016. 184 pp. $32.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-87580-739-3. Reviewed by Barry Latzer Published on H-Law (September, 2016) Commissioned by Michael J. Pfeifer (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York) The aim of Elizabeth Dale’s short and com‐ Probably not. Or that the Chicago Police Depart‐ pelling book is to show that the long list of abuses ment has a culture of “torturing” suspects, which of suspects by Chicago police detective Jon Burge, is why Burge cannot be explained merely by which took place between 1972 and 1991, were lapsed supervision (p. 2)? Perhaps. not anomalies. Burge, it will be recalled, ended up Another unresolved issue involves the word in prison and the City of Chicago apologized for “torture,” used matter-of-factly throughout the his abuses, paying out $100,000 in damages to his book. Unlike Dale, I don’t think torture is a self-ex‐ victims, expected to number between ffty and planatory term, though it certainly is an inflam‐ eighty-eight people. Dale intends to prove that it matory one. The United Nations Convention did not start with Burge, that he was just the most Against Torture, which Dale does not reference recent and notorious illustration of a systematic until p. 114 of her book, states that the term effort by Chicago police to “torture” suspects means “any act by which severe pain or suffering, stretching back to the nineteenth century. Her whether physical or mental, is intentionally in‐ goal, she says, is to recapture the history of these flicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining abuses. To do this, Dale collected public records from him or a third person information or a con‐ on police mistreatment claims going back to 1869. fession, punishing him for an act he or a third These cases are briefly referenced laundry-list person has committed or is suspected of having style in the frst twenty-seven pages of the book. committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a Then comes the heart and soul of the work: a de‐ third person, or for any reason based on discrimi‐ tailed account of the case of Robert Nixon, a nation of any kind, when such pain or suffering is young black man condemned for a series of mur‐ inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the con‐ ders of women and executed on June 15, 1939. sent or acquiescence of a public official or other This book is the story of Nixon’s crimes, his arrest person acting in an official capacity.” and physical abuse by the Chicago police, his trial, The operative phrase here is “severe pain or and his unsuccessful appeal. suffering,” and the severity of the discomfort is Dale successfully shows that Burge is not un‐ the measure. Whether all or most of the police precedented. The implications of her work, how‐ abuse cases Dale considers involve “torture” is, ever, are not clear. Is she implying that police are for me, an open question. For her, it is not an is‐ just as abusive now as in the pre-1960s period? sue worth discussing. H-Net Reviews Robert Nixon’s case began with the vicious weak. Chicago had a state-of-the-art police lab, murder of a woman, Florence Johnson, in her which by the 1930s could run all sorts of scientific ground-floor apartment in Depression-era Chica‐ tests, including analyses to determine whether go. Florence’s sister, Margaret Whitton, lived with blood stains were of human origin and, if so, the her, Florence’s husband, Elmer, a Chicago fre‐ blood type of the individual. Yet, the chemist testi‐ fighter, and their two young children. Elmer had fying in Nixon’s case said only that he found that gone off to work early that day--May 27, 1938. the stain on the defendant’s shirt was human Awakened by a noise, Whitton put on her robe, blood (thus contradicting Nixon’s chicken claim). stepped out of her bedroom, and saw a brown- He did not say that that it matched the blood on skinned man walk past and into the children’s the brick, nor that of the victim. More astonishing, room. She then went to the doorway of the chil‐ he testified that he never even determined dren’s room and watched as the stranger climbed Nixon’s or Florence Johnson’s blood types. Dale out a window. The children remained sound suggests that the test results must have “failed to asleep. Whitton then went to the sun room shared support the prosecution’s case” (p. 58), but I think by her sister and brother-in-law. There she saw she might have gone further. It is difficult to be‐ Florence sprawled across the bed, blood gushing lieve that no tests were made of Nixon’s or the vic‐ from her head. Relying on her training as a nurse, tim’s blood; a failure to do so would have been Margaret administered what aid she could. It was gross nonfeasance. And if tests had been conduct‐ too late. At 5:40 am Whitton phoned the police, ed then the chemist must have perjured himself. who arrived within minutes. They soon found the The fngerprint evidence was just as fraught. murder weapon: a brick with blood on it was re‐ Although apparently there were prints obtained covered from Mrs. Johnson’s bed. from the Johnson apartment (they were shared A radio bulletin was broadcast almost imme‐ with Los Angeles police, where, as discussed be‐ diately and a detective speeding to the crime low, Nixon was a suspect in other murders), the scene (by the 1930s American police were thor‐ prosecution never suggested that they matched oughly motorized) saw a young black man walk‐ Nixon’s prints. Indeed, there was no evidence that ing quickly in the other direction. Stopping, the Nixon’s prints matched any of those found in the detective approached, noticed a cut on the young apartment (p. 80). man’s fnger and what appeared to be blood And yet, fngerprints implicated Nixon in stains on his hands and clothes. Asked for an ex‐ crimes of a similar nature. In 1937, Los Angeles planation, the man said he was Thomas Crosby, was shocked by lethal assaults on two women and that he had cut his hand in a fght, and that the the 12-year-old daughter of one of the victims, blood on his shirt was from a job skinning chick‐ Edna Worden--all committed with bricks. One ens. Unpersuaded, the detective took Crosby--ac‐ year later, a California newspaper reported the tually Robert Nixon--to the murder scene. There brick murder of Florence Johnson followed by the he was viewed by Margaret Whitton, who initially arrest of Nixon, alias Thomas Crosby, in Chicago. identified him as the man she had seen, but then A search by Los Angeles detectives of their fnger‐ expressed doubts about his height. Later that day, print fles uncovered a juvenile named Thomas at the stationhouse, Whitton made two more posi‐ Crosby, arrested for burglary, whose prints, it tive identifications of Nixon, both equivocal. turned out, matched one from the scene of the Not only was the identification evidence (of‐ Worden slaying. This, of course, strongly implicat‐ ten a problematic area of proof) less than ideal, ed Crosby/Nixon in the Worden murder, but even but the forensic evidence also proved surprisingly more, seeing that the attacks were home inva‐ 2 H-Net Reviews sions followed by bludgeoning with bricks, it nationalize the Bill of Rights. Moreover, the feder‐ pointed to Nixon as Johnson’s killer. Moreover, a al Wickersham Commission (1931) had devoted brick was used in the fatal attacks on two other an entire volume of its highly publicized report to Chicago women, Florence Castle, murdered in her the “third degree,” as it was called, singling out hotel room in 1936, and Anne Kuchta, a nursing Chicago for condemnation. Dale relates all of this, student killed in the Chicago Hospital in 1937 (p. but observes that the effect was to drive the abuse 39). underground; police kept suspects incommunica‐ Given the common modus operandi in all do until the bruises started to fade. these killings, and the fngerprint proof of “Cros‐ During the hearing Nixon testified at length by’s” involvement in the Worden case, one can about his mistreatment; this portion of the trial understand why the police and prosecution were transcript ran nearly eighty pages. He told how on convinced that Nixon was their man, but given May 27, his frst full day in custody, teams of po‐ the weakness of the evidence, one can also appre‐ lice beat him, hung him by his arms, dangled him ciate why they felt that a confession was essential. out of a window and threatened to drop him, Here is where the story of the investigation be‐ shined hot lights in his face, and questioned him comes disturbing, and here is the reason Dale for hours. He testified that the beating stopped made Nixon’s case the focal point of her book. only when he agreed to confess to killing Florence During Nixon’s trial, the prosecution offered Johnson. The next day he was beaten again and the defendant’s incriminating statements into evi‐ questioned about another Chicago brick murder dence. Nixon’s attorneys objected on the grounds as well as burglaries in California. On May 29, he that they were a product of duress, beatings, and said, he was struck again when at frst he refused improper promises.

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