The issue that won’t die; Van Dyke fate

Former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke may now be a convicted felon sentenced to serve a few years in prison (although Illinois Corrections Department officials still won’t say exactly which one) for the death of a teenager – but the racially-tinged shooting incident won’t wither away.

VAN DYKE: Case lingers on

For it seems that both the special prosecutor who oversaw the criminal case AND the Illinois attorney general’s office are considering legal maneuvers that could try to force a new prison sentence to be imposed.

SOMETHING, PERHAPS, CLOSER to the 18 to 20 years that prosecutors sought from Judge Vincent Gaughan, rather than the 6-year, 9-month sentence (of which he’s already done 3 months in the Rock Island County jail) that could see him released in a little over three years time.

Van Dyke was found guilty last autumn on a charge of murder in the second degree (implying there was some mitigating factor that could sort of justify the killing) and multiple counts of aggravated battery.

Literally one count for each of the 16 shots that Van Dyke was found to have fired at Laquan McDonald. Which theoretically could have resulted in prison time for each shot and could have added up to something close to 100 years of time,

In my own (admittedly non-law school educated) mind, that combination of charges never made sense. They conflicted with each other, and the real question to me about the sentencing that took place last week was how would Gaughan manage to reconcile the mismatch.

McDONALD: Means more in death than life

HE WOUND UP doing so by basing the sentence for Van Dyke off the second-degree murder charge and ignoring all those additional charges that could have brought about the lengthy, life-like prison term that the activist types eager to see imposed on a white cop for killing a black male who hadn’t even reached the age of maturity back on that October 2014 night that he was shot to death because he was acting erratically (his mind was messed up on illicit drugs that night) while walking around the neighborhood near a Burger King franchise.

It seems the legal minds wishing to appease those activists are wondering if the Illinois Supreme Court could issue a mandamus order – which essentially would say Gaughan screwed up and emphasized the wrong criminal charge.

Which could result in a resentencing with results more satisfactory to those people who back in autumn marched through the streets of downtown Chicago in celebration of the fact that a “cracker cop” got what he deserved by being found guilty.

RAOUL: Will he take on appeal?

We’ll have to see if Joseph McMahon (the special prosecutor brought in from suburban Kane County) or newly-elected state Attorney General Kwame Raoul wants to take on this issue – or is willing to accept the prison time that Van Dyke already must serve.

SOME WILL SAY that Van Dyke is now a former cop with a criminal record – which pretty much ruins him for any type of life he had hoped to live. They’re likely to think that prolonging this legal argument only stirs up more resentment amongst the city’s populace.

Although others will think the resentment lingers for as long as Van Dyke gets a penalty less severe than their imaginations have concocted.

This may be the real harm of the racist policies that were considered legitimate in our society in the past – they’ve created so much anger that it’s almost like we’re going to need white people to suffer unjustly in order to balance things out.

Which would only serve to ensure these racial tensions linger amongst us for decades to come – particularly fed on by nitwits in support of the Age of Trump we now live in who may well want to think that the only victim in this whole affair is Van Dyke himself!

OF COURSE, THERE will be others eager to keep the memory of this incident alive. Consider that newly-elected state Rep. Anne Stava-Murray, D-Naperville, is enhancing her reputation as someone eager to draw attention to herself by ticking off the sensibilities of political people around her.

STAVA-MURRAY: Wants McDonald Act

Stava-Murray introduced as her first bill ever a measure creating the Laquan McDonald Act. A measure applying only to Chicago and creating procedures by which we could have recall elections for mayor and alderman in Chicago and state’s attorney in Cook County.

It really does come across as an attention-grabber from the freshman legislator who already has indicated she’s not seeking re-election in 2020 – and instead will challenge Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., for his post on Capitol Hill. It certainly isn’t about necessary changes to the law – the electorate dumped Anita Alvarez as state’s attorney back in 2016 and Rahm Emanuel didn’t even try to seek re-election, largely because of public disgust over what happened to Laquan.

As though we’re supposed to forever remember Laquan, and not think of that silly clown and his mediocre hamburgers every time we hear the phrase “McDonald” in the future.

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EXTRA: Another ‘foreign guy’ vs. ‘Miss America’ for Ill. atty general?

The campaign in next year’s election cycle for Illinois attorney general is already shaping up as one to see who will be capable of out-trivializing the other.

Kwame Raoul likely to get as many insults ...

For the Cook County Democratic Party on Friday officially picked state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, as its preference amongst the seven other political people expressing a desire to be the party’s slated candidate to replace Lisa Madigan – who is giving up the post following four terms in office.

MEANWHILE, REPUBLICAN PREFERENCE Erika Harold was able to issue a statement earlier this week indicating that Kane County State’s Attorney Joseph McMahon decided not to run for office.

Meaning that the woman who once served as Miss America and later went to law school likely will run in the Republican primary unopposed.

And since the Democratic primary usually is dominated by the Cook County vote, we ought to start thinking of the state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood as the favorite.

So when it comes to picking a replacement for Lisa Madigan, it could likely be Raoul versus Harold. Which has so much potential for ignorant thoughts and trivial expressions to be concocted. It truly could become a campaign of which candidate can sink to the lower level of intellectual thought.

... as will Erika Harold

FOR THOSE OF you to whom the name Kwame Raoul is alien, he’s a state senator who has served for over a decade. When Barack Obama made the move up from representing Hyde Park and Kenwood in the state Legislature to the state of Illinois in the U.S. Senate, Raoul was the guy who replaced him.

Amongst the rank-and-file of the Illinois General Assembly he has shown himself to be a competent legislator. Although there are those who dismiss him as just another funny-sounding name like Obama.

But while Obama was Hawaii-born and Ivy League-educated, Raoul is a Chicago native with a DePaul University education and Chicago-Kent School of Law background. Something that theoretically ought to sound like many of the masses.

QUINN: Not the Cook Co. preference

Except that some won’t be able to get past the non-Anglo name and will want to presume that because they come out of the same neighborhood that they’ll want to tag him in the same way they still try to do with Obama.

ALTHOUGH I DON’T doubt that Harold will have to deal with her own share of attacks during the upcoming election cycle. She is an Urbana native with a University of Illinois bachelor’s degree, to go along with the Harvard Law School degree she has (paid for in large part through the scholarship funds the Miss America organization provided to her after she won the top title in 2003 and did her year of wearing the tiara as an example of American femininity.

She is a licensed attorney and has served on various legal commissions. But you just know it’s a matter of time before she gets dismissed as the airhead beauty queen. Heck, Raoul himself has already had to issue some apologies for the way he has dismissed her as merely “Miss America.”

The trash talk will be spewed for several months. Who’s to say how ugly this campaign will get – or how ridiculous?

I actually wonder if the fight for attorney general will wind up being even more stupid and ridiculous than the brawl for governor – the one with the multi-millionaires capable of self-funding their own attacks on each other.

 

McMAHON: Dropped out of GOP running

IT ALMOST MAKES me wonder if things would turn out to be more sane if former Gov. Pat Quinn’s desire for a political comeback would lead to a better outcome if it were to occur.

Not that it is likely to happen. The Cook County Democratic Party, in its slating effort, specifically rejected Quinn’s pleas for support, or for even an effort to remain neutral so that any of the eight would-be Dems could have a chance of winning the March 20 primary.

All of which makes me wonder if it is just me approaching advancing age, or if our level of political intellect is just taking a ? I fear it’s the latter.

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How important is the background in police officer Van Dyke criminal case?

It was always clear that the defense for Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was going to center heavily upon making the teenage boy he killed appear to be the ultimate threat to the public’s safety.

 

VAN DYKE: Free on $1.5 million bail

As though the fact that Van Dyke felt compelled to fire so many gunshots into the 17-year-old boy because he felt threatened, and that perhaps we ought to consider rewarding the officer with some sort of commendation – rather than filing so many criminal counts of murder against him.

YET THAT STRATEGY received a blow last week when attorneys for Van Dyke had their request denied to have access to the record of Laquan McDonald.

Because he never turned 18, he never had bouts with the law as an adult. The now-deceased McDonald has an extensive record in the Juvenile Court system. Which means that all records of it are confidential.

It would have taken a judge’s special permission for the record to be presented to the attorneys so they could have access to just how bad a boy Laquan was during his lifetime.

Which is something the judge in question refused to permit, saying that his record was not particularly relevant because he’s not the suspect in this particular criminal case. He’s actually the victim.

AND BECAUSE HE was underage, he benefits from the premise of the Juvenile Court system that he is redeemable. Or would have been, if he were still alive. Which is why juvenile offenders are permitted to have a level of anonymity that slightly-older defendants are not.

If McDonald had merely been one year older at the time of his shooting death in October 2014, there would have been no qualms about the defense attorneys being able to dig up all the dirt they could on Laquan.

We literally would have a criminal proceeding where he would be on trial just as much as Van Dyke will be when the day comes in a couple of years or so (the usual length of time for a criminal case to work its way through the legal proceedings and go to trial) that this case finally gets resolved.

Yet I can’t help but wonder how many people are wondering to themselves if it is somehow wrong that McDonald’s past won’t be better known. I’m sure there are people who will think we ought to have a more-full picture of what happened on that night nearly two years ago on the South Side when Van Dyke encountered Laquan and wound up firing those 16 shots into him.

FOR ALL MOST of us know now is what we saw in that police squad car video that showed someone try to walk away from police, then collapse under the gunfire of a police officer – with the little wisps of smoke coming from the body as it was hit by bullets.

Defense attorneys have hinted that police were being given significant amounts of information about Laquan by police dispatchers, which was reason for them to anticipate he would be openly hostile toward them and that force was likely to be needed to subdue him.

Others, however, are more than willing to believe the proponents of McDonald who say they fully suspect Van Dyke just wants to dirty up their guy to distract attention from his own behavior, which they likely will go to their graves believing to be cold-blooded murder – no matter what verdict the eventual trial produces.

They may wind up resenting any information about McDonald that ever becomes publicly known.

ALTHOUGH MY OWN comprehension of the law and of law enforcement procedure is that we do give police the authority to use force that can be deadly. We wouldn’t provide officers with firearms and other weapons if we didn’t think there would be instances in which they’d have to use them.

It means if we’re to truly understand if Van Dyke was justified in this instance of using any deadly force, we’re going to have to comprehend what really was going on that night near a Burger King.

That will be the real challenge for Kane County State’s Attorney Joseph McMahon, the legal type who was picked to be the non-partial prosecutor to handle the case.

Because the real tragedy would be if years later we wind up totally confused about the case that has caused so much strife between cop fanatics and black activist-types winds up as a “We don’t really know what happened!”

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