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The American Civil Liberties Union is leading the call for an end to the way the Illinois State Police conducts some routine traffic stops. The organization says officers unfairly search minorities.

The ACLU points to a new study by Northwestern University. In it, researchers find that state officers ask to search the cars of minorities three times more often than the cars of whites. The suspects don't have to agree to the search, but frequently allow it. Of those who are searched, it's whites who are typically caught with something illegal. Harvey Grossman, with the ACLU, says the practice victimizes minorities.

Dozens of convicted criminals say they were tortured by Chicago police officers. [Illinois] Attorney General Lisa Madigan is supposed to be re-examining those cases. She got that charge after a judge decided the Cook County State’s Attorney is too wrapped up in the cases to review them. That was five years ago – and yet many are still serving long sentences based on evidence they say was extracted through beatings, suffocation and electric shocks.

Chicago Public Radio contributor John Conroy has been covering this story for many years and joins Eight Forty-Eight with the latest.

Clergy and immigration advocates protested conditions at an immigration center in a Chicago suburb. About a hundred people marched to the center and held a vigil.

They say Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unreasonably limits inmates’ medical care and their communication with family members. The protesters are also calling for the Illinois Senate to pass a bill that would expand detainee access to clergy.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald says there's no place for torture in a police station and there's no place for perjury in federal lawsuits.

CHICAGO, Oct. 21 - Retired Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge was arrested at his home near Tampa, Fla., today on charges of lying in a civil case about whether he and other officers under his command tortured and physically abused suspects in police custody dating back to the 1980s, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Burge was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury in a three-count indictment unsealed today following his arrest.