Putting legal process on trial? ‘Hurry up and wait’ takes longer these days

It has been more than a couple of decades since I regularly hung around courthouses in my reporter-type person duties. Yet the general rule of thumb I remember was that it usually took a court case about two years to make its way through the legal procedure.

The Criminal Courts building looks similar in some ways. But the legal process seems to be getting more and more drawn out.

 

Back in 1989 and early 1990 when I was a regular reporter at the Criminal Courts Building, or roaming around the various suburban courthouses, I covered many a trial of events that took place in 1987.

SO IT IS with that memory in mind that I noticed a Chicago Tribune story that previewed the upcoming trial of Allan Kustok, which is scheduled to begin Tuesday at the courthouse in suburban Bridgeview.

Kustok is a man who has the image of a respectable pillar of society. Except that he now faces criminal charges for the slaying of his wife.

Back on Sept. 29, 2010!

The case is going to get its share of attention in coming weeks because Allan and his now-deceased wife Jeanie had two children who became athletes of some prominence at area universities.

BUT TO ME, the idea that this case took three-and-a-half years to get through the process so that a trial could be held is what is truly notable about this case.

I realize that criminal trials are not something to be rushed into – even though I’m sure the people who view themselves as “law and order” types (they’re really borderline fascists who want a justice system to bully others) wish they could be.

Delays can be just as lengthy at the federal complex

I also recall one of the most humorous moments I ever experienced in a courtroom was once hearing a woman tell someone else “We’re going to have a trial today” because her brother had been killed the day before.

Actually, it was just a bond hearing that day, and if I recall right, the defendant in question pleaded guilty about a year-and-a-half later. Which means there never was a trial.

BUT IT JUST seems like cases are taking longer and longer to work their way through the process. It was last month that Roy Valle, a former village clerk in suburban Lynwood, pleaded guilty to criminal charges for a February 2011 car collision that killed another woman.

He’s now a man in his mid-60s serving a six-year prison sentence. Not a pleasant experience for him, I'm sure. But it took nearly three full years for that case to get through the legal process – and it ended in a plea.

No trial necessary.

It’s not even just the Cook County Circuit Court system that has the delays. As I wrote last week, state Rep. Derrick Smith, D-Chicago, faces charges in U.S. District Court based on claims by prosecutors who say he was bribed for his government actions.

IF HE IS found guilty, he will have to give up his legislative post.

Yet Smith is now on the ballot for his third term in the Illinois House of Representatives, even though he was indicted in his first term. This is now becoming the ongoing joke of the local election cycles – that an indicted legislator will continue to get himself re-elected (because the opposition can’t come up with a credible candidate)!

I find the delay to be more troubling than the re-election of an indicted goof (who, theoretically, is innocent until proven otherwise).

And yet it isn’t just these three cases.

THE CRIMINAL COURT facilities truly are nothing more than a factory these days, watching as cases creep their way through the process of discovery (by which attorneys for prosecution and defense exchange information so that everybody is properly prepared for a trial – should a case come to that).

And with many people facing the process of sitting through hours of time every time they have to show up at a courthouse, the idea that a case can get endless continuances after just a few minutes goes so far as to create the idea that these cases linger on indefinitely.

Which makes that whole legal concept of how people are entitled to a speedy trial seem like a bigger joke than the idea that the Chicago Cubs will someday win something of significance.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Currently, I do some work for one of the daily newspapers in the suburbs, and occasionally have to show up at courthouses in Cook County. My superficial observation about change is that they seem not to. In that they look grungier as if they haven’t been cleaned since the days I was a courthouse regular, and sometimes I sit in a busted courtroom seat that I could swear was busted all those decades ago too.

To listen to the “Bard” named Berra, “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over”

So is it over?

Did the 99 percent win, or will it be undone?

I’m referring to the fact that a Cook County judge this week made a ruling that I’m sure has Mayor Rahm Emanuel tearing his hair out, has the Police Department perplexed, and has people talking about legal appeals.

AND ALSO LIKELY has the conservative ideologues of the world ranting and raging about “activist courts” and “damn liberals in Chicago.”

Even though when one looks at the ruling and the circumstances, it actually makes a lot of sense. Almost too much sense for me to believe that an official came to this conclusion all by himself. But will some future judicial panel decide to undo what happened on Thursday? Is it over now, or will it be over later?

For what it’s worth, the ruling is going to cause criminal charges against 92 protesters to be tossed out of court. These particular protesters were of the “Occupy Chicago” breed – those activists who go about complaining that 1 percent of the populace is pocketing all the wealth for themselves; leaving the remaining 99 percent with nothing.

Remember last year when those protesters were taking to camping out in public locations all over the country to try to force the masses to pay attention to them?

WELL, IN CHICAGO, they were setting up in Grant Park – the same place where the Chicago Police of ’68 were beating up protesters against the Vietnam War who came to the Second City because it was hosting the Democratic National Convention.

The beatings and other use of force last year wasn’t anything as intense as what happened all those decades ago.

But there were mass arrests. Emanuel would have preferred to not have these people screeching and screaming in the public park that Chicago likes to think of as its front lawn. After all, they made the neighborhood look so gross!

The “excuse” used by Emanuel to have police go into the park were the curfew laws that exist on the books. Technically, people aren’t supposed to be in the park after 11 p.m.

EMANUEL CLAIMED PUBLICLY at the time the fact that the activists were told in advance that they couldn’t stay after 11 p.m. was evidence of a new, humane approach to the Chicago Police Department – harassing the “hippie freaks” without appearing to be harassing them.

Except that Associate Judge Thomas More Donnelly didn’t quite see it that way. He ruled that the way the city handled the situation amounted to violations of a person’s right to assemble freely.

Or, as Donnelly put it, the city’s enforcement of the curfew is way too erratic. Too many other people get to hang around the park in the late hour of the day (and wee hours of the following day) without having to fear they’re going to be picked up by the police and tossed into a jail cell.

They may face a fair chance of getting mugged, but that’s a different issue altogether.

DONNELLY EVEN WENT so far as to point out that night in early November of 2008 when all those people packed Grant Park to hear Barack Obama give what turned out to be his victory speech upon learning he had, in fact, been elected as U.S. president.

His advice, even if never said, often works



That wonderous night when Chicagoans got to regale in the mood of knowing that “one of ours” (even if he really is a Hawaii native) had managed to achieve the goal that local people like Sen. Paul Simon and the Rev. Jesse Jackson had strived for – but failed to achieve.

But technically, when they didn’t all go home before 11 p.m., they were curfew violators. Should the Chicago Police Department have tried to bust some skulls open in order to chase people out of the park?

Maybe the ideologues would enjoy that image in their wildest fantasies. The rest of us, including the judge, see the folly in such thoughts

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Judge to city: Resolve it yourself!

After the egomania and insanity that was the activity Sunday related to the Chicago schools strike, it was reassuring to see someone try to act in a rational manner.

EMANUEL: Mayoral ego restrained by judge



I’m referring to Judge Peter Flynn, who was the one who was asked by the city’s attorneys to issue an order that would force the Chicago Teachers Union members to end their labor dispute and return to the classroom – immediately!!!

WHAT DID FLYNN do that catches my admiration? Nothing.

Flynn told the attorneys with the city Law Department and with the Chicago Public Schools that  he might be willing to hold a hearing on Wednesday to consider a request to forcibly end the teachers’ strike.

But let’s not forget that the teachers union’s House of Delegates is supposed to meet again Tuesday, and could come up with a vote to approve a contract offer that was made late last week.

If that happens, the strike ends naturally and the kids would be back in school on Wednesday. In which case, Flenn wouldn’t have to do a thing. As he put it, the issue would be “moot.”

PERHAPS THIS IS just the natural temperament for a judge. I have lost track of the number of criminal trials I have covered as a reporter-type person throughout the years where a jury sends a note to the judge claiming to be deadlocked on a verdict.

The judge invariably sends them a note back telling them to keep trying on deliberations. Most often, the jury manages to work out the problem themselves.

I’d like to think Flynn (a judge whom I personally have never encountered while covering court activity) is taking that same attitude here – telling the city officials who want to strong-arm the schoolteachers that they need to be patient.

Because it would be better off if this strike ended with people in agreement on something resembling a contract. Bringing the strike to an end with a court order and no resolution on the contractual issues would create so much animosity on both sides that I wouldn’t want to bet on when (if ever) they’d reach agreement.

AND FOR THOSE people who read that and engage in fantasies about “breaking” the Chicago Teachers Union, I’d have to respond with, “Grow up!”

That kind of attitude is exactly the problem in this round of negotiations. There is so much distrust on both sides that it is complicating the efforts to reach an agreement that will keep teachers working in their classrooms toward the intellectual improvement of their students.

That distrust is the reason why the House of Delegates is not rushing itself to approve a contract agreement and said Sunday they want more time.

They want to be sure that something unexpected wasn’t slipped into the legal language of the contract that would harm the teachers’ interests – but that they would vote for by accident.

YES, I DO believe that politically-motivated people are capable of being conniving enough to try that tactic. Anybody who doubts it is misguided.

Although I also comprehend the frustration that I’m sure many people with children in the Chicago schools are feeling these days. They now have to concoct a way of caring for their kids for at least another couple of days – after having been told over and over and over again on all those television newscasts for at least three days that the strike was likely to end and the kids were supposed to be back in class on Monday.

Frustration is being felt everywhere, and it was reassuring to learn that Judge Flynn didn’t give in to it with a knee-jerk court order that would have only served to fulfill the more vindictive side of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s personality.

Now if only we can get the schools officials and teachers union to “play nice” in their talks, perhaps we can get those children back in class before week’s end.

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EXTRA: Justice in the dark

For those Chicago-area residents who remain without electricity or who had strong winds blow a tree into their house or onto their car or some other personal piece of property, my tale will seem trivial.

But one of the odd effects of the severe storms that hit metro Chicago this week was that it caused a moment of Justice in the Dark.

I HAPPENED TO be in Joliet Monday morning at the Will County courthouse. A newspaper I do some work for had an interest in a particular defendant.

Which is why I happened to be sitting in the courtroom of Judge Daniel J. Rozak, watching him go through his court call and waiting for the case to be called when the lights went out in the building.

Suddenly, the courtroom I was sitting in was pitch black, and the air conditioning immediately went dead.

Now this particular outage didn’t last long. I’d say power was fully restored to that courtroom within about 10 minutes. Lights flickered on bit-by-bit after a while.

BUT EVEN THOUGH court bailiffs quickly opened some doors so that outside light could creep into the courtroom, it didn’t change the fact that nobody could see much of anything.

What I will remember about this moment is that Rozak didn’t let the lack of light stop him. The case that was before him continued. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear perfectly as the judge went through all the legalese that ensured the defendant who was pleading guilty did so in a manner that would make it impossible for him to claim at a later day that he was being coerced.

For the record, the case in question was a man caught driving under the influence of alcohol. He got 24 months of court supervision, all done in the dark. About the only thing notable about his case is that he was a Mexican citizen (and yes, he had a valid “green” card indicating his “resident alien” status).

Which means that if Immigration and Customs Enforcement someday wants to be hard-nosed about this case, this man who has lived in the United States for two decades and has family here could face deportation.

I COULDN’T HELP but wonder what this man (who had a court-appointed interpreter at his side) thought about what was going on around him – having a lot of legalese spoken to him in the dark!

American “Justice” at its finest? Or just a humorous moment, since I have to admit that the hearing I heard was in no way memorable. Just another of the thousands of court cases that arise every year from people who get caught imbibing a bit much.

And perhaps I should feel thankful that I was indoors when the most severe weather struck, and that I had electricity functioning when I returned home later that day.

Because some people won’t be able to make that claim for several more days.

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Courts give us payroll, abortion issues

Leave it to a pair of courts at opposite ends of Illinois to give all of us continued squabbles.

The appeals court located in our own city struck down the restrictions that had prevented state laws applying to teenage girls wishing to abort a pregnancy from doing so, while down in the part of Illinois near St. Louis, a judge is considering whether the state is justified in refusing to pay its bills just because there’s no balanced budget in place.

WHEN IT COMES to abortion, there always have been those activists who accept that the concept is legal, but they work to place so many restrictions on it that it can become virtually impossible for women to obtain.

That logic definitely has been behind the whole concept of “parental notification,” where a girl has to be prepared to tell her father (or whoever the legal guardian is) about her intent to end a pregnancy before she can do it.

Of course, that also entails a girl telling the parents about a pregnancy. And the sad truth is that there are situations where the concept of informing a parent has nothing to do with parental responsibility, but is merely meant to be a procedural stumbling block that makes it impossible for the girl to end her pregnancy.

The General Assembly created this law back in the mid-1980s, then updated it in the mid-1990s (back in the days when Republicans actually weren’t irrelevant and were trying to push their own social conservative agenda into Illinois law).

THERE ALWAYS HAS been the legalese about how a girl, if she can convince a judge that telling her parents truly would be a harmful experience, can get a waiver. But no one has ever been able to figure out how exactly this provision should be enforced.

That is why the decades-old law has never been enforced. In fact, a lower court judge previously had ruled there is no way for the concept of a “judicial waiver” to be enforced.

That ruling is what the U.S. Court of Appeals based in Chicago struck down.

Of course, their ruling doesn’t really offer specifics about how a judicial waiver can be enforced. Some would argue it isn’t their place to decide that.

IT IS THE political people (the ones who are gumming up our state government’s operations with their inability to approve a budget for the fiscal year that began two weeks ago) who need to figure this out.

So now, we get to add abortion to the list of ongoing issues – unless someone can get the Supreme Court of the United States to agree to hear an appeal on the appeals court’s ruling, then strike it down.

Even if that were to happen, it would take time – perhaps a couple of years.

So now, we move forward on this issue in Springfield, where the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has become so disgusted with the state that they’re taking it to court.

SPECIFICALLY, THEY WANT to be sure that the roughly 40,000 state workers they represent get their next paycheck (and the one after that and so on).

This is one of those quirks of Illinois government. The state must have a balanced budget in place before any money can be spent.

It’s not that the money intended for this fiscal year’s expenses isn’t there. It’s just that without a specific plan, no one knows how much to spend on any one aspect of government.

It sounds responsible, there must be a budget in place. But it has always caused the quirk when the Legislature and governor cannot agree that the fiscal year begins July 1, and a couple of weeks later new bills start to come in and they can’t get paid.

IN ONE SENSE, Illinois government is the biggest deadbeat imaginable. In some years, we get the situation of state workers having to show up for their jobs, knowing their paychecks will be late.

So now, the union wants the courts to behave as a collection agency of sorts.

The union filed a lawsuit in St. Clair County court (down near St. Louis), and hopes that a judge issues a ruling requiring the state employees to be paid.

After all, they argue, the money is there in state bank accounts. It’s not like anyone stopped collecting the state’s share of taxes on anything in recent weeks.

SO THEY THINK they should not be penalized, which is a different tactic from past years when they merely grumped and groused and hoped that their disgust could persuade legislators to act and approve a budget.

Perhaps it is a sign that even they see the political people trying to resolve the state’s budgetary mess are too entrenched in their own stubbornness to find a legitimate solution to the problem.

And these are the people we’re going to entrust to resolve the situation surrounding abortion and underage girls? If so, then we’re in a mess.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: A pair of court cases have the potential to create many headaches for people across Illinois – abortion (http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x631626671/AFSCME-files-suit-to-force-state-pay-for-workers) and budgets (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/07/court-revives-ill-abortion-notification-law.html) are never a pretty mix.