Weeding out Hudson fans who would do anything to rule “guilty” for her

Every criminal case has its own unique characteristics when it finally gets to court, and they’re usually more bizarre than anything that television can come up with in its attempts to portray courtroom drama.

Although I have to admit that reading about the preliminary actions leading up to the trial of a man facing criminal charges for the slayings of relatives of actor Jennifer Hudson has struck me as odd.

ALTHOUGH IT ALSO gives me a sense of déjà vu, because I recall the time I was called for jury duty at the Criminal Courts building. Because that was for a case with its own unique set of questions.

What prosecutors and defense attorneys are trying to do is find a pool of people who are, not quite ignorant, but not so inclined to be biased that they will give knee-jerk reactions in favor of one side.

In this case, the attorneys don’t want a jury of 12 fans of Jennifer Hudson who would be so eager to get on her good side that they’d rule “guilty” to any charge that gets put forth against William Balfour – the man whom prosecutors say killed Hudson’s mother and brother.

That’s why jurors are being asked if they have ever seen the films starring Hudson, or read the book about her, or have seen her on television or might be delusional enough to think that Weight Watchers’ diet program can give them Hudson’s body – just because she endorses their products.

SUCH QUESTIONS ARE unique to this case, and have gotten this jury selection process news coverage whereas most trials don’t get covered until opening arguments take place.

But it isn’t unique to try to weed people out. Because I still remember the day in September 2005 that I did jury duty and wound up being questioned by prosecutors and defense attorneys – before they ultimately settled on other people and let me go.

In that particular case, the attorneys were eager to weed out people with specialized medical knowledge, or anybody who might have close ties to medical people or might have enough contact with them that they would have picked up some of the medical knowledge for themselves.

For that particular case was an attempted murder. The neighborhood grocery store owner (who was working the cash register at the time) was shot, but survived.

ALTHOUGH HE DIDN’T come through the robbery attempt unscathed. The bullet wounds caused serious damage to his body and he now only breathes because of significant amounts of equipment to which he is attached.

Prosecutors were planning on making great hay out of his current physical condition and had plans to go into detail about his medical treatments.

So why no doctors? Prosecutors had plans to provide jurors with just enough information about the medical condition so that it could be interpreted their way. Attorneys weren’t really interested in anybody who knew anything on their own and might come to different conclusions than the legal people wanted them to reach.

I didn’t have any medical knowledge, other than the little trivial tidbits that I have picked up in some two-plus decades of being a reporter-type person. But I still didn’t get picked, although I didn’t get all concerned about learning an exact reason for why I didn’t wind up losing a couple of weeks of my life to a jury (which can happen in criminal cases).

IT HAS ME wondering how many people tried to get out of being picked for this jury just by claiming to have seen the film “Dreamgirls?” That certainly would be a unique reason for getting bounced from the jury pool.

And considering how “big” a star everyone likes to think Hudson is, it will be interesting to see a pool of people picked because they don’t have a clue who she is.

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What to get Obama for his birthday? He wants cash, as in campaign contributions

By the time you read this, Barack Obama will have slipped into and out of Chicago.

He celebrates the big 5-oh on Thursday, officially having been alive for half a century. But the public portion of his birthday celebration was done last night at the Aragon Ballroom.

IT WAS A concert. Obama himself returned to his home city to make an appearance at the concert – which featured such Chicago-native talent as Jennifer Hudson and Herbie Hancock.

Yet before anyone gets the impression that Obama is a man of the people who likes to party hearty, keep in mind that this was a political event just as much as any other he would have attended.

For the tickets to get into the Wednesday night fundraisers went from anywhere from $50 each to $35,800.

People who paid the top price were provided with some food and also likely had some direct access to the president himself. People who paid a little less probably can say they were in the same room with Obama, and saw him in the flesh – but didn’t get any chat time with the Leader of the Free World.

AND IF YOU were cheap enough to shell out merely $50, it means you can say you were in the same building as the president – but you didn’t get anywhere near to him.

Which means you might as well have been one of the masses around the country who took part in what were called “grassroots meetings” that allowed people the chance to pretend they were celebrating the anniversary of the date on which Ann Dunham in Honolulu gave birth to a son by her collegiate boyfriend (Does anyone still seriously believe that’s not true?).

If it sounds like I’m mocking the Aragon event and the smaller meetings, well actually I am.



Former Gov. Jim Edgar's 50th birthday/fundraiser in 1996 gave us a Marilyn Monroe-moment (actually, former state Budget Director Joan Walters). Barack Obama had to settle for a birthday song from Jennifer Hudson (albeit, the real thing, not an impersonator). Photograph provided by Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.



Somewhere in my collection of tacky junk I have accumulated from political people throughout the years is a birthday party “invitation” from then-Gov. Jim Edgar.

THIS CARD WAS issued to announce a very similar event – a reception held at the Illinois State Fairgrounds meant to celebrate Edgar’s 50^th birthday (he turned 65 two weeks ago). I kept the card because of the photograph on the front – an old childhood picture of Edgar, wearing pajamas with the name “Jimmy” printed all over them.

Yet when one looked closely at the card, it was merely an invitation to a political fundraiser. Pay some money, and you can be “included” in the Edgar birthday festivities.

Which was a similar situation to what took place Wednesday night in Chicago for Obama -- although I'm sure the passage of time and inflation and scale of elective office means that Obama was shooting for much more cash than anything Edgar ever hoped to raise that night some 15 years ago.

Barack endured the company of all those people Wednesday night out of a professional obligation. He was raising the money that will help him get re-elected president in next year’s election cycle, and also will help others raise money so that they can get re-elected as well.

IF ANYTHING, THE latter function might be more important. Obama needs allies in government if he’s to be able to accomplish much of anything (I’d say he needs friends, but a political “friend” is really something cheap and worthless – even more-so than a Facebook “friend”).

Political allies come at a price. What did Obama do to help them get elected? Help with finances usually is a good start.

That is what Wednesday night was truly about. It certainly wasn’t about any legitimate birthday celebration – which I would guess Obama will do in the comfort of the White House on Thursday (although I understand there was also an after-concert dinner for up to 100 Obama backers, which also had its political motivations).

Which is why I was somewhat amused to see that the Republican National Committee felt the need to publicly criticize Obama for partaking in a birthday celebration event in Chicago.

“I SUPPOSE THE White House is thinking (Obama) should stick to the part of his job he really likes,” was what came from the lips of a GOP spokeswoman.

The last I knew, fundraising was a legitimate (and essential) part of any elected official’s job, which makes the spokesman’s statement sound like sour grapes that she wasn’t invited to the birthday celebration event.

I only wish these could be billed purely as fundraisers, instead of pretending there was a human touch to the events, such as those people who will now claim that the Aragon Ballroom’s “history” includes a presidential birthday concert.

Actually, I can’t help but think there could be one sure-fire way to raise money with minimal effort off of an Obama birthday tie.

I COULDN’T  HELP but notice a week ago when I shopped for a birthday card for my father the large number of holiday cards that depict Obama, usually offering up some pseudo-holiday greeting.

I’m sure the people using those Obama images are coming up with stock photos or generic drawings for which they don’t have to pay the president a dime. Just think, however, of how much revenue could be generated if every single purchase of such a card kicked in a dime to the campaign coffers?

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Crass vs. Vapid – Which is worse?

Some observers of the Illinois political scene are trying to make an issue out of Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., for the remark he made recently to a suburban newspaper editorial board that ostensibly compared abortion to the crime of murder.

Yet in my mind, the congressman from Wheaton has to take Second Place (at best) to the owner of a Minnesota-based company that manufactures a portable gun-rack – one meant to fit beside a person’s bed so they can immediately grab their weapon and start shooting if they think they hear someone in the middle of the night wandering around their home.

WHAT MAKES THE Back Up (the name under which the portable rack is marketed, implying that decent people have a main gun rack somewhere else for the prize pieces of their firearms arsenal) offensive?

The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday that the manufacturer put out a press release this week promoting the product by saying that actress Jennifer Hudson’s mother might possibly still be alive, had she had a Back Up and a weapon in her bedroom.

“Could a Bedside Shotgun Rack Have Saved Jennifer Hudson’s Family from Tragic Death?,” the company’s press release asks.

The company’s president told the Tribune that he used the prominent slaying so soon after it occurred in his marketing effort not to be offensive, but to give people a “hit between the eyes” on the issue of firearms use.

FOR THOSE WHO weren’t paying attention (and it doesn’t matter where in the country one was because the prominence of the star of “Dreamgirls” meant that the fate of her mother, brother and nephew this weekend became a national story), Darnell Donerson and Jason Hudson were found dead on Friday at Donerson’s Englewood neighborhood home.

Police quickly figured out that a 7-year-old boy who was with the two was missing, and that resulted in the weekend-long search that ultimately ended when a Chevy Suburban van was discovered abandoned on the West Side, with the body of Julian King inside.

From various reports, Hudson is the Oscar-winning actress who has had to toughen up this week to cope with the loss of her mother and brother, and wound up having to provide the positive identification that her young nephew was dead.

In short, she is living these days through everybody’s worst nightmare.

AND HOW DO the manufacturers of the Back Up handle the situation?

They drag up her family name and image, and try to morph her mother into the notion of a “pistol packin’ granny” who could have defended herself, had she only been able to get to a gun.

That line of logic is one I often hear from firearms advocates, and it is one I question, since many people when confronted with a crisis are going to have a brief moment of not being able to think straight.

And all it takes for something bad to happen is that one lone moment. Who’s to say that if Hudson did have a firearm on her, that it would not have wound up being used against her?

FROM ALL INDICATIONS, the person who is not quite a suspect but a “person of interest” (in legal lingo) was a former in-law.

His arrival at Donerson’s home might not have been seen as a pleasant experience. But it was not like he broke in suddenly, thereby alerting Hudson’s mother that she was in danger.

There’s a good chance that she didn’t realize how violent the situation could get until it was too late.

I can’t help but notice that prosecutors have not actually charged the in-law, William Balfour, with any crime in connection with the slayings. The only reason he’s still in custody is because he was on parole – which makes his questioning in connection with the triple slayings a violation in itself (so he gets to sit in a cell in a state prison until Chicago police and prosecutors figure out how to handle this situation).

AND WHILE THEY ponder, some people on the outside will try to figure out ways to use the slayings to their advantage. I would expect the firearms advocates to make such a statement, but the idea of using the incident to try to sell a product is just so crass.

It is why I consider it to be the tackiest talk of the week, even moreso than what Roskam said when he subjected himself to an interview with the Pioneer Press chain of weekly newspapers in the north and west suburbs.

Now what he actually said is left to question.

The newspaper, in its attempt to squeeze a whole batch of information into a short story previewing the Congressional fight between Roskam and Democrat Jill Morgenthaler, paraphrased a lot.

SO WHAT ACTUALLY turns up in the newspaper is that Roskam, “asked in the Pioneer Press interview why women can have abortions if rapists cannot be executed.”

The implication being that a woman who is impregnated by someone because of a rape could not have suffered such a severe indignity to her person if the crime of sexual assault is not one for which the death penalty can be applied.

The newspaper later provided a direct quote from Roskam to the Springfield-based Capitol Fax newsletter about Illinois government that makes it appear Peter was trying to take the logic of former Rep. Henry Hyde (a long-time opponent of abortion services being legal) when he said (in part), “a rapist under the court doctrines can’t be put to death. (Hyde) said, why is it that the baby who is the result of that criminal behavior can be put to death?”

Such talk came off as crass when it came from Hyde’s mouth (it implies there are times when a woman’s life has to play second-banana to a potential life that was forced on her. That’s offensive). But now that we’re getting second-generation Hyde, it loses something in translation.

IT’S LIKE WE’RE getting a photocopy of a photocopy of what Hyde sent. Coming from Roskam, it’s not offensive as much as it’s just vapid.

Eventually, such logic is going to be repeated so often by those people who are just determined to think of abortion as a criminal act in and of itself that it will become absurd.

Roskam is not quite absurd, but his comments are taking the debate on abortion in that direction.

And if it comes to a choice between absurd or crass (which is what I think the Hudson gun rack appeal is), I consider crass to be more offensive any day of the week.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The “Hudson gun rack” ad (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-talk-shotgun-29-oct29,0,264779.story), or “abortion equals murder” (http://thecapitolfaxblog.com/2008/10/27/roskam-perhaps-wonders-aloud-too-much/)? Take your pick.