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.
Archived at https://archive.is/21J6c
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.