Courtroom 302 (63 page)

Robert A. Roth, president of the
Reader
, has been a steadfast supporter ever since he hired me twenty-three years ago. He backed this project wholeheartedly, even though it took me away from the
Reader
for years. I’m grateful to
Reader
editor Alison True for her patience as my leave from the paper grew ever longer. I also appreciate the friendship shown and guidance given me by Alison and others at the paper during my career, especially Mike Lenehan and Kitry Krause.

The writings of two prominent legal scholars have informed this book. One is the late David Bazelon, judge in the court of appeals in the District of Columbia for thirty-seven years. Judge Bazelon died in 1993, and I regret never having met this exceedingly compassionate person. I am proud to know he grew up in Chicago, and I hope this is a book he would have liked. The other scholar is law professor Richard Delgado, now on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, whose provocative essays are a reminder of the value of original thinking, even in—or especially in—the often rigid world of the law.

A word of thanks to the friends who helped sustain me during this endeavor, especially Robert Bowser, Dave Cella, Jack Demuth, Tori Marlan, Bernie Tadda, and Cass Wolfe. Now that I have actually finished they will have to find something else to kid me about. I have confidence in them.

My mother wanted to be a writer. She had a biting wit and a questioning mind; had she lived in a different era she would have been a tenacious reporter, and the public, if not some public officials, would have been better off for it. I wish she at least had lived to see this book. I am grateful to her and to my father for their nurturance, and to my brother, Mike, for fending off bullies and hardly picking on me.

My children, Natalie and Peter, have grown from youngsters to young adults during the course of this project. They make everything I do feel worthwhile.

This book would never even have been attempted if not for my beloved, Jane Neumann. As usual she was ahead of me, believing I was capable of writing it before I believed it, and sure of its importance. Nor could I have finished without her help. She
gave me time when I needed time and prodded me when I required that. She has always been my first reader, an arrangement that would have ended long ago but for her keen editorial sense. She has suffered without complaint the squatters in our home—the piles of transcripts and boxes of case files clogging the corners for years. She has helped with innumerable book-related tasks while working fulltime to support the family. Her help with the book pales, however, next to the care and warmth she has blessed me with throughout this project, and throughout our life together.

SOURCES

I was a fixture in Courtroom 302 in 1998, watching the proceedings from the jury box or the gallery, and this book is based on what I saw and heard. I also conducted hundreds of interviews and spent countless hours studying records and trial transcripts to better understand what I witnessed in court.

I continued researching this book well after 1998. Over the succeeding years I talked repeatedly with principals in the cases covered here, until I felt I grasped what had happened both on the surface and beneath it.

Judge Locallo made me feel welcome in the courtroom from the start. In Illinois, as in most states, judges are prohibited from commenting publicly on pending cases. Locallo was happy to discuss cases with me after they concluded, however—sometimes moments after. We had thirty-two formal sitdown interviews, most of them lasting more than an hour, as well as many briefer conversations. We usually talked in his chambers late in the afternoon or in the evening. In subjecting himself to a year of scrutiny, he displayed his trademark courage and confidence. And he responded to my endless queries with infinite patience.

The fact that Locallo so clearly supported my venture seemed to persuade the other courtroom personnel that they ought to as well. Notwithstanding Locallo’s cooperation, however, the other workers in 302 might have been chilly to a stranger—especially a stranger whose avowed purpose was to monitor them and write about what he saw. But I was shown more geniality than wariness. Seven prosecutors and six public defenders were assigned to the courtroom at some point during 1998. All of them talked with me at length. For their friendliness and the time they gave me, I am grateful to prosecutors Joe Alesia, Andrew Dalkin, Mark Ertler, Stan Gonsalves, Mike Nolan, Mark Ostrowski, and Frank Vazquez, and public defenders Diana Bidawid, Amy Campanelli, John Conniff, Bob Galhotra, Kathryn Lisco, and Amy Thompson.

The clerk in 302 during the first half of 1998, Duane Sundberg, acquainted me with his filing system early in the year, and often, after court had been recessed for the day, I sat alone in the courtroom, paging through files of pending cases. Locallo usually was at work in his chambers; we took turns being the last to leave the courtroom.
The clerk during the second half of 1998, Angela Villa, was equally helpful. The clerk’s files provide a helpful but sketchy view of a case, since, in Illinois, police reports (other than the arrest report) are not included in them. Prosecutors and defense lawyers granted me access to the police reports and other documents I wanted to review.

Besides the lawyers assigned to 302, there were many other attorneys with cases in the courtroom in 1998—private lawyers, as well as prosecutors and public defenders in special units. When I sought help from these lawyers it was given almost without exception. Other attorneys familiar with 26th Street broadened my understanding of the courthouse. Thanks to those mentioned in the text, and also to Larry Axelrood, Darron Bowden, Cathryn Crawford, James Cutrone, Janine Hoft, John Murphy, Thomas Needham, Robert Nemzin, Kevin Smith, James Sorensen, Richard Steinken, and James Stola. I especially appreciated my discussions with Jack Carey, a witty, kindhearted public defender who supported this project enthusiastically but succumbed to cancer before he could see the result.

Judges and former judges who shared their viewpoints of the courthouse included Robert Bastone, Robert Bertucci, Richard Neville, and Joseph Urso; retired circuit judges Lou Garippo, Michael Getty, Thomas Hett, and Earl Strayhorn; retired appellate justices William Cousins and R. Eugene Pincham; and presiding judge Paul Biebel and his predecessor, current supreme court justice Thomas Fitzgerald. Thanks also to judges Ray Garza and James Varga for their insights about Locallo, who had been their colleague in the state’s attorney’s office.

At the heart of criminal court proceedings is not the judge, however, but the defendant, who is the reason for the whole exercise. Reporters’ access to defendants is often blocked by defendants’ lawyers while cases are pending, since statements to a reporter can hurt a defendant’s case. Once the verdict is in, reporters tend to lose interest. As a result, the unfiltered perspective of defendants is frequently neglected. But I had time on my side. I talked several times with most of the defendants whose cases are described in this book—often in jail or prison interview rooms. For their willingness to discuss their experiences I am grateful to Larry Bates, Kevin Betts, Tony Cameron, De’Angelo Harris, Leslie McGee, Terrence Pouncy, and Dino Titone, and a host of other defendants whose cases I was not able to include in the book.

Joan Stockmal, a spokesperson for the Cook County sheriff’s office, was instrumental in setting up interviews in the Cook County jail, and Nic Howell, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Corrections, arranged the interviews I conducted in four prisons.

Deputies Gil Guerrero and Laura Rhodes allowed me to interview some defendants through the bars of the courtroom lockups. The deputies’ insight into the goings-on in the courtroom was particularly informed, given their knowledge of what was going on behind it. Their good humor also made the year more enjoyable.

The courtroom lockups are among the places in the courthouse that defendants in custody know all too well, and the general public and reporters rarely see. Another such place is the courthouse basement, the entree to the halls of justice for most defendants, as I related in the prologue. For allowing me to watch that baptism on several occasions I am indebted to the late Ed Hassel, who was in charge of courthouse security in 1998. Lieutenant Kenneth Promisco also facilitated those visits, as did Lieutenant John Hopkins and Sergeant London Thomas. Stockmal of the sheriff’s office arranged for me to view the complex process by which inmates are moved daily from the jail to the courthouse for their court dates.

Innumerable spectators, witnesses, and relatives and friends of defendants or victims offered their views to me in the gallery, in the hallway outside the courtroom, and sometimes in their homes.

Jurors are often so worn down by their service that the last thing they want to do is rehash it. I appreciate that some were willing to do so nonetheless.

When I wasn’t in Courtroom 302 in 1998, I was often in the clerk’s office in the adjacent administration building. The clerk’s office is on the fifth floor, whereas the county psychiatrists and psychologists are on the tenth floor; some clerks like to say that this means they’re only half nuts. The clerks were fully helpful and pleasant as they located one old file after another for me—no easy task considering the hundreds of thousands of these files. My gratitude to Bill Marino, Peggy Anderson, Margaret Schadt, Debra Grinstead, Bobbi Krol, and Wes Bauer. Jack Cusack explained the process by which evidence is impounded, and Dennis McNamara provided statistical data. Really ancient files were tracked down by Phil Costello and Jeanie Child of the clerk’s archives department, aided by Tom Sobun, the office’s capable point man in the county’s huge, dusty file warehouse not far from the courthouse. Mary Espejo and Bob Kushnir in the Daley Center downtown found the misdemeanor files I needed to see. Marcus Ferguson clarified the mysterious case-assignment process for me, and Ralph Ferro was a font of knowledge about bond court.

Wayne Johnson, in 1998 the Chicago Crime Commission’s expert on the Chicago outfit, shared his expertise with me, and detective Scott Keenan of the Chicago police training division arranged for me to attend a training for detectives in interrogation methods in 1998.

Others who enriched my perspective by providing their own, or who got me information I needed, included Rhonda Schullo, probation liaison in Courtroom 302; Patrick Durkin, director of the Cook County boot camp; Charles Fasano, prison and jail program director for the John Howard Association; Melody Heaps, founder and president of Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities; court reporters Paul Marzano and Thomas Manno; Michael Boehmer at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office; Bruce Olson of IDOC’s planning and research department; criminal court administrator Peter Coolsen; James Jordan, law clerk to presiding judge Biebel; and Jerry Neal, the affable food service worker who carts meals to jurors.

Thanks also to spokespersons Pat Camden and Edward Alonzo (Chicago police), Sergio Molina and Dede Short (Illinois Department of Corrections), Bill Cunningham and Sally Daly (Cook County Sheriff), Mary Nolan and Carolyn Barry (Cook County Circuit Court Clerk), John Gorman (Coak County State’s Attorney’s Office) and Ross Rice (FBI).

I HAD TWO ENGAGING
interviews with the dean of Chicago criminal lawyers, Harry Busch. Busch began practicing criminal law in the 1920s in the courthouse at Illinois and Dearborn, the predecessor to the current courthouse. He was in his mid to late nineties when I spoke with him in 1997—he was elusive about his precise age. He was living in a high-rise retirement home on the north side, near the lake. He interrupted himself at times during our conversations by saying “strike that.”

Busch had been a prosecutor for four years in the late 1920s before he began a career as a defense lawyer—a career that lasted more than half a century, during which he represented many mobsters and public officials accused of corruption. The main changes during this time, he told me, were the growth in drug cases and in plea-bargaining,
developments that displeased him. He was so opposed to narcotics that he never represented a defendant on a drug charge: “To me that would have been obnoxious.” And he rarely sought plea deals for his clients; he preferred to try their cases before juries. “I was there to do a job, not to be another cog in the wheel,” he said. The pleasure from crafting a plea deal could never match the pleasure he derived from winning a jury trial: “When you win one of those, you feel you’re entitled to dance—and the music in your system is playing.”

Busch claimed to be the first person to have set foot in the courthouse at 26th Street when it formally opened on April 1, 1929. He said that happened because he was then the prosecutor assigned to the chief judge’s courtroom. He remembered the courthouse being “very clean” when it opened. “It didn’t stay that way long,” he said.

Our second interview was in February 1999. During that interview, Busch fielded a call from Supreme Court Justice Michael Bilandic. Bilandic had been mayor of Chicago before he was elected to the Supreme Court, and before he’d been mayor he’d been an alderman in Bridgeport. The day of this second interview happened to be the day before a mayoral election in Chicago. After Busch hung up, he told me Bilandic had wanted to know if he’d be working his precinct tomorrow. Busch had promised the justice he would go around his high-rise reminding people to vote.

Busch’s mind and tongue were still sharp in this interview. He told me he didn’t like the fact that some prosecutors claimed to be working on the side of the angels. “Oh c’mon, that’s a lot of shit,” he said. “They’re on the side that’s paying their salaries.”

Busch died a year and a half later, in October 2000. His family said he was 97; according to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, which said Busch was still licensed to practice law, he was 101.

THE NOTES THAT FOLLOW
provide references to the books, law review articles, newspaper stories, and other sources that supplemented my research. The sources of direct quotes from interviews are identified in the text; when the source of paraphrased information is unclear, the source is identified in the notes.