‘Confession’ Frees Teen in Murder Case

A judge has freed a teenager who confessed to fatally stabbing a woman who, it turns out, was never stabbed at all. The case has stoked the debate over whether Chicago police are bullying people into admitting to crimes they didn’t commit.

Eddie Huggins, 16, had spent more than a year behind bars awaiting trial. He was acquitted by a judge Thursday after a medical expert testified that the victim, 26-year-old Lorraine Gates, was beaten and strangled, not stabbed.

It was one of four murder cases whose unraveling has proved a major embarrassment to Chicago-area law enforcement authorities in the last three years. The cases have prompted demands from defense attorneys for an investigation of police conduct.

“The police have a saying: ‘Let’s make him talk,’ ” Huggins’ attorney, Andre Grant, said Friday. “Unfortunately, that means, ‘Let’s make him admit things that the physical evidence tells us simply could not have happened.’ ”

Prosecutors said they accept the decision of Circuit Judge Thomas Sumner to free Huggins. But they still say Huggins was the killer.

Bob Benjamin, a spokesman for the state attorney’s office, noted that Huggins in his statement said he stabbed and punched the woman.

In his decision, the judge suggested that the zeal of police and prosecutors to solve the case clouded their judgment.