Nine months after the Democratic National Convention swept over Chicago, the city’s Law Department continues to prosecute ordinance violations leveled at protesters arrested during demonstrations against the war in Gaza.
But the city has little to show for the effort in the way of winning cases at trial or securing meaningful punishments in plea deals.
The harshest punishment the city has secured so far was 10 hours of community service as part of a plea deal, according to the National Lawyers Guild, which is tracking DNC protest-related cases.
Most of the 18 plea deals the city has reached have been settled with no fine and court supervision that was immediately terminated, according to the lawyers guild.
In total, 62 cases fell under the city’s purview, with about a dozen others being prosecuted by the state. About half of those were dismissed before trial, primarily because an officer failed to show up for court, or there wasn’t body-worn camera footage relevant to the arrest, the lawyers guild said. Of the cases that went to trial, the city hasn’t won any. It lost seven, the lawyers guild said, and five others were dismissed on the day of trial. Four city cases are pending.
All of these outcomes leave civil rights attorney Amanda Yarusso “baffled” as to why the city has continued to pursue pending cases, particularly on nonviolent arrests.
“What is the point of it? It’s been an incredible waste of resources,” said Yarusso, who has represented some of the DNC defendants.
“It’s, as far as we can tell, a refusal to dismiss these cases. … I don’t know if it’s at the police department’s insistence. It certainly seems at odds with what we would think that the mayor stands for. But what the result is is both the city and the defendants and the attorneys representing them have had to waste an incredible amount of time and resources on these cases, to what end?”
And as Chicago police tout their response to the DNC in recent debates over a proposal to issue ad hoc curfews to address teen gatherings, Yarusso questioned whether the department should be granted more enforcement powers.
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All of these outcomes leave civil rights attorney Amanda Yarusso “baffled” as to why the city has continued to pursue pending cases
If they know they can’t win and they are pursuing the cases anyway, then the suits themselves are punishment. These people are likely having to pay for legal representation, they anr losing time at work, some could even lose their jobs over the lost time.
Franklin said she spent the night handcuffed at a police station. After she was released, she said the city gave her wrong information on her court date and even her attorneys couldn’t figure out the right place for her to show up.
The city initially won the case by default due to her absence. But a judge later overturned that judgment, siding with Franklin. Now, the city is fighting that decision, Franklin’s attorney said.
Steinbruegge made headlines during the protests when he got arrested in his “skimpy little” bike shorts after taking a ride from his Lake View home to peruse the area, he said, out of curiosity. He was arrested for trespassing by a Homeland Security officer who turned him over to Chicago police. Police accused Steinbruegge of ignoring signs deeming the area off-limits and refusing to leave despite multiple police orders. He spent the night in jail and was released at 4 a.m.
But he says the city failed to give him or his attorneys the proper hearing information, too. He spent “hours and hours” driving around to multiple county courthouses and municipal buildings looking for his court hearing to no avail, and he lost his case by default.
Parking receipts at all of the stops he made trying to find his hearing helped bolster his case, and a judge ruled in his favor. The city is now fighting to overturn that decision.
Olga Fedorova was on assignment for a wire service called European Pressphoto Agency when she was arrested. Fedorova said her Chicago Police Department-issued press credential was confiscated as she was attempting to photograph a person being carried away by their hands and feet by police.
Like dozens of others, Fedorova was charged with disorderly conduct for failure to obey a police order, a violation that carries no jail time, according to the city’s municipal code. But she said she was placed in a dark van with protesters for hours before being moved to a police station cell where she spent the night.
“There’s no sleeping in that cell whatsoever. It’s just like a stinky, disgusting place where there’s no food, there’s no shower,” Fedorova said.
Fedorova was able to get her press credentials back shortly after. But it wasn’t until a couple months later before the city dropped the charges against her, she said. In one case, she had bought a flight to come back to Chicago for a hearing, only to learn a day or two before that it would be on Zoom.
Yeah, this is just designed to waste everyone’s time and resource to punish them for merely existing and shining light to people opposing the DNC. They know they have nothing on the people and are authoritarians who made arbitrary arrests and impeded the work of the press. Just like Eric Adams in New York, Brandon Johnson shows that being part of the Democrats does not come with an intention to uphold the law and basic decency, when there is political elites and oligarchs to pander to.
Abuse of authority. A just legal system would have mechanisms that trigger audits and reviews of all individuals involved when a certain threshold of dismissals is exceeded. It should also make those incorrectly caught up in the process whole when it’s determined that there’s no real case against them.
Can these people sue for malicious prosecution and civil rights violations?
Sure, if they had money to hire lawyers and pay the fees to file the suits.
Don’t forget they’ll also need a functioning and de-politicized justice system, which probably can’t be trusted in the current political climate and seems like it’s probably going to be at least decades away given all the damage that’s been done to it lately.
A lawsuit like that would probably be taken on contingency.
The DNC needs to go
monkeys paw
Granted. Only the MAGA party is allowed to run in elections. (See China; CCP)
We need third, fourth, and fifth parties.
It would be nice if we had a second party
