Judge had to decide if law enforcement guideline was enough to warrant crime

I have to admit to being somewhat surprised when I learned Wednesday of a Cook County judge’s ruling that acquitted a suburban Park Forest police officer of a reckless conduct charge in the death of an elderly man.

Prosecutors emphasized during the criminal case of Craig Taylor that his use of a shotgun loaded with beanbag rounds did not strictly comply with the guidelines for using such a weapon – which is supposed to be a non-deadly way of subduing a potentially violent person.

SPECIFICALLY, THEY POINTED out that the officer was about six feet away from his target when he fired five rounds into the man’s torso – causing injuries with internal bleeding that ultimately caused his death the following day, although it should be noted he refused medical treatment that could have saved him from the injuries.

As investigators with the state’s attorney’s office pointed out at the time of Taylor’s indictment, such a weapon is not supposed to be used any closer than 15 feet from its target; because such a blow could be so hard that it would be deadly at such close range.

My point is that I expected the bench trial for Taylor at the courthouse in suburban Markham would have focused heavily on that technicality. When combined with the fact that the victim’s family was heavily emphasizing his age (95) and his military service record (he was in the Army Air Corps during World War II), I expected the outcome to be some sort of technical ruling that would say he had to be found guilty of a crime, any crime.

But that didn’t happen!

JUDGE LUCIANO PANICI wound up issuing a ruling that said Taylor’s use of force during a 2013 incident at a Park Forest nursing home “was not excessive.”

Which then allowed the criminal case for which a trial was held last month to focus heavily on the fact that the deceased man had been abrasive to the nursing home staff (which is why police were called in the first place) AND had pulled a knife that he used to threaten police officers.

In my own experience of covering cops, crime and courts during the past quarter of a century, it usually comes out that any sense of an officer feeling threatened by someone with a weapon justifies the use of deadly force.

As in Taylor and the other officers who were with him back in July 2013 would have been justified reaching for their pistols and trying to shoot the man dead!

IT MAY HAVE gone in Taylor’s favor that he said he took his target’s age and physical condition (he was living in a nursing home because he wasn’t physically capable of living on his own any longer) in not reaching for his pistol, but instead trying to use the beanbag-loaded shotgun instead.

During Taylor’s trial, some said he should have tried to show even more restraint – such as using the shield he was equipped with to merely knock the man down.

Although I suspect if he had, we’d still be hearing intense complaints from the man’s family about how their elderly, war hero relative was brutalized by a police officer.

Which means there was no way this incident was going to turn out in a way that would have satisfied the man’s family.

I UNDERSTAND THEIR feelings of loss. Nobody wants to lose a relative. But this case had devolved to the point where it seemed like they were more interested in taking down a police officer who had no prior record of criminal behavior or improper incidents on the job.

That is why I can’t help but feel a bit of relief for the ruling that Panici made on Wednesday. He didn’t let a technicality (the six-foot distance versus 15-foot guideline) pressure him into deciding on a “guilty” verdict.

Not that I expect the elderly man’s family to be content. They still have a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court – one that will seek to break this police officer financially, possibly for the rest of his life. His legal troubles are far from over.

But the judge wound up keeping this unfortunate incident of two years ago into a completely illogical legal catastrophe; which is what a “guilty” verdict and prison time for Taylor would have created.

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Cameras in ctrooms encroach on Chgo

They’re not quite within the city limits. Not yet, anyway.

But it’s just a matter of time now before those among us who gather their news by relying on the resources of local television (whether you watch the actual newscast, or just watch video snippets off of a website after-the-fact) will be able to see real live moving pictures of what happened at the Criminal Courts building or other courthouses scattered across Cook County.

FOR THE PAST year, the Supreme Court of Illinois has been experimenting with the idea of permitting video to be shot of court activity so that it could be used on local newscasts.

This experiment is being done judicial circuit by judicial circuit, and has started in the rural parts of Illinois. It would seem they want to see how it works in the smaller court systems of the state, before unleashing the idea on the bureaucratic mess that is the courts in Cook County.

Thus far, five judicial circuits in 13 counties have been trying the concept of shooting video of their court activity. On Monday, court officials added the 18^th Circuit to the list.

That circuit includes the far western suburbs of DuPage County. Which invariably means that the DuPage County court system is going to get extra-heavy television coverage in coming months – all because pictures will be available to go with the reporter’s observations.

IT’S THE REALITY of television news – things that really don’t mean all that much get covered if there is video depicting the “moment of truth.” And if the video is particularly clear, the “story” will get major play on the newscast.

Eventually, the “fad” nature of courtroom video will phase out the idea of feeling the need to cover this stuff – particularly when this concept gets to all 102 counties of Illinois.

Including our very own Cook! Supreme Court officials have said more circuits will be added by the end of 2012, and Cook County Chief Justice Timothy Evans has told reporter-types that he’d like to see the program expand into Chicago by that date as well.

Although I get the sense that Cook County officials may start the concept locally in the suburban courthouses – giving us audio and video of court activity from places like Markham, Skokie and the Maybrook district in Maywood.

IT MAY TURN out that the last place we get to see anything from is the Criminal Courts building out near the Little Village neighborhood.

Although I can’t help but think that the public is going to be disappointed by the sight of real, live courthouse activity on television.

For they are going to learn just how buried in minutia and legalese much of what happens in a courtroom really is. They’re going to learn how important the reporter-type person is in terms of being able to explain what a certain legal motion meant.

It’s going to come across like a foreign language, and we’re in need of an interpreter. It’s definitely not a place conducive to visual-looking stories, no matter what some people might believe after watching too many episodes of “Judge Judy” or some true-crime drama program on television.

AND A PART of that is because of the oppressive atmosphere of most courtrooms. Whether they’re decades old, or date back to a more recent era, most of them are intended to be intimidating places with a deadly-dull look to them.

Anybody who thinks that such video will create a constant flow of “Drew Peterson”-type stories to watch every night is going to be in for a shock.

The true “feel” for a courtroom is sitting in a seat with torn upholstery with a sheriff’s deputy watching you like a hawk for any signs you’re going to act up (so he can eject you from the courtroom) and an aroma caused from decades of bad food, certain individuals who might not have bothered to bathe properly and poor air circulation in the in buildings.

The true feel is something that cannot be captured on video. You have to be there – although court is the last place that any decent human being wants to have to be in.

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Battle of Beverly, the sequel? Yet another redistricting brawl to dismay us

MARKHAM, Ill. – It seems that the community activists from the Beverly neighborhood are geared up for a political brawl, and their punching bag of choice will be Cook County government.

These are the activists who engaged in a vocal and visible crusade back when Chicago was drawing the new boundaries for the City Council’s 50 wards.

REMEMBER HOW THE 19^th Ward that historically included all of the Beverly neighborhood was redrawn to stretch into surrounding communities, while also dumping some people on the eastern edges of Beverly into a ward with their neighbors from the Morgan Park neighborhood?

Those people lost that brawl, and it still smarts. Or so it seems.

Because now the Cook County Board is engaged in the process of drawing new boundaries for its 17 districts. The board’s redistricting committee on Tuesday held the first of what will be three or four hearings where the politicians will pretend they’re listening to the public’s interests.

That first session held in a basement courtroom of the south suburban courthouse based in Markham became dominated by Beverly residents – many of whom were the same people who ranted and raged about the redistricting that split up their wards (and put some of them in boundaries with people of neighboring communities whom they’d prefer – for various reasons – to ignore).

ONLY NOW, INSTEAD of screaming about how “sacred” their 19^th Ward is, they’re engaging about how special a place the 11^th county commissioner district is.

That particular district is NOT just Beverly. But it takes in many neighborhoods that encompass the spirit of the Sout’ Side Irish of old – even if their modern-day composition is a mixture of ethnic groups.

It takes in at its far end the Bridgeport neighborhood, which is how it is the political turf of Commissioner John Daley, D-Chicago, who sat through Tuesday’s committee hearing with a grin repeatedly popping up on his face after person-after-person got up to testify about what a wonderful place the 11^th District is, and how incredible a public official Daley is toward his constituents.

“I feel I was lucky enough to have grown up there,” 19^th Ward Alderman Matt O’Shea told his county government counterparts.

NOW DON’T TAKE this the wrong way. I’m not knocking the one remaining son of late Mayor Richard J. Daley who is involved in politics.

Maybe he really is that attentive to the people who voted him into office.

Or maybe the “Daley” name just has that much pull in Chicago, making people feel like they’re something special by being able to say he’s their representative in Cook County government.

Which is a claim that I doubt many people can make. Personally, I have always wondered how many people have a clue who their county board member is?

OR IF THEY really understand the difference between municipal and county government (and no, the joke that a county board member is someone not quite good enough to get elected alderman doesn’t work here – even if there is an element of truth to it).

But listening to official after official, including mayors of suburban Oak Lawn and Hometown that also are in the 11^th District, engage in the rhetorical love is just a bit much.

Particularly since Tuesday’s hearing was likely the only chance for South Side and surrounding people to express their views on redistricting – unless they feel like making a trip to Maywood or Des Plaines next week.

Based on what I heard at that hearing, it seems the whole world wants to live in the Cook County 11^th district with Beverly as its spiritual center, and be represented by a Daley. Hardly anybody else expressed a thought.

THAT KIND OF apathy by the public ultimately is what leads to what likely will be the end result – when the county government does get around to finally creating new boundaries for its districts, there will be a lot of disappointed people.

Because I suspect that for all the talk of public hearings and maintenance of a special room (number 1134 at the County Building, 118 N. Clark St.) where people can use county computers to draw their own political boundaries for consideration, the maps that ultimately get approved are ones being concocted by the politicos in that oldest of political clichés – the smoke-filled room.

That is, unless all the health and wellness initiatives being touted in recent weeks by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle have made it illegal.

But whether there is smoke or not, the end result will be just as secretive.

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Courthouses to remain open on weekends, at least for the time being, Evans says

Perhaps some people think the only place where crime occurs is on the South Side of Chicago and in those suburbs that happen to surround it.

That was the impression I got from learning of a plan desired by the Cook County sheriff’s police to shut down the bulk of the courthouses based in the suburbs. Sheriff Tom Dart justifies the change as a cost-cutting move, saying he could get away with less staff if the courthouses in Skokie, Rolling Meadows, Maywood and Bridgeview didn’t have to be open on Saturday and Sunday.

FOR THE MOST part, they’re not. But invariably, there is crime committed Friday and Saturday nights, which means that bond hearings have to be held. That means a judge, his clerk and the deputies needed for security, have to be on call for the weekend.

Either that, or else those defendants would wind up having to sit in a holding cell at a local police station for several days until a Monday court hearing could be held.

That would be a financial burden for the local cops (whose cells are set up to accommodate a person for a couple of hours before he is transferred elsewhere) and for the judges who would have to preside over extremely long Monday dockets.

So I was glad to learn that Chief Judge Timothy Evans (who I still think of as the former alderman who was the first loser to Richard M. Daley for mayor of Chicago) sent Dart a letter this week telling him to forget (for now, at least) any talk of shutting down those courthouses.

“SERIOUS ISSUES OF public safety, due process and court administration have been raised that I believe deserve attention,” Evans wrote in his letter to Dart, as reported by the Chicago Tribune.

Those issues include what struck me as an obvious flaw up front about Dart’s proposal – the logistics of expecting that the county could do without those four courthouses in operation for the weekend.

For Dart’s proposal would not have left Chicago and its inner suburbs courthouse-less on weekends.

The county court’s first district (which is the city of Chicago proper) and it’s sixth district (the south suburbs, with a courthouse in Markham) would have remained open.

DOES THIS MEAN Dart (who early in his legal career was an assistant state’s attorney assigned to the courthouse in Markham) really thinks all the crime is concentrated on the South Side? That somehow, the north and west portions of Cook County have no need for a judge to hand down those rulings determining just how much money someone’s family has to come up with in order to keep their loved one from spending the next few months in Cook County Jail while awaiting trial?

I’d like to think Dart, who earlier this year was extremely critical of state officials for being shortsighted enough to think that video poker revenues would resolve the state’s financial problems, hasn’t suddenly fallen victim to similar shortsightedness.

Somehow, I don’t think all those northern, northwestern and western suburbs get that peaceful on the weekends. Nor do I think their local law enforcement officials want to have to take the added time to haul their defendants into the city to achieve Justice through a court hearing.

Part of the reason Cook County’s court system is broken up into the six districts is because there is just too much potential for overload at the Chicago courthouses if they tried to do all the work there.

AND WOULD THIS mean that some of those city cases would wind up getting shuffled down to Markham tp make room for all those northwest suburban “criminals” who now need to take up court space in Chicago?

It just seems to me that this is one of those necessary expenses that we’re going to have to live with.

After all, Thursday in Chicago is another one of those furlough days – a cost-cutting measure by which city employees will not get paid. So they’re not going to work. They get the day off and most city services will not be available.

But even with the concept of furloughs, police and fire department officials are still expected to work.

THINKING THAT THE county could shut down the bond court on Saturday and Sunday in Maywood or Skokie is about as short-sighted as thinking that the Belmont District or the Calumet Area of the Chicago Police could suddenly use some time off in order to save the government a few bucks.

It just doesn’t work that way.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is trying to portray the county’s chief judge as irresponsible (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/12/suburban-courts-ordered-to-remain-open-weekends.html) for not going along with his desire to shut down some of the suburban courthouses on weekends.

It’s a four-day (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-christmaseve-clos,0,3070094.story) holiday weekend for City Hall workers – or more like five days for those municipal employees who just slacked off on the job on Wednesday.