Illicit narcotics sold in rural Illinois, yet locals insist on viewing them as ‘Chi’

I couldn’t help but get a chuckle from reading a downstate newspaper account of how a central Illinois man was found guilty of criminal charges related to his selling of cocaine and heroin to people in and around his hometown.

Of course, the locals want to believe that such substances don’t really exist in their community. Somehow, this has to be some sort of alien presence infecting them. Because there’s no way the locals would ever engage in such actions (either selling narcotics, or using them).

SO NATURALLY, THEY turn to the fallback accusation. Blame Chicago!!!

For as the headline in the Bloomington Pantagraph (of a story originally published by the State Journal-Register of Springfield) told us, “Lincoln man convicted of selling cocaine, heroin he bought in Chicago.”

It seem the man, who is 38, was found guilty last week in Logan County court of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance. Prosecutors claimed during his two-day trial that he made several trips to Chicago (about a three-hour drive up Interstate 55 from his hometown of Lincoln, Ill.), where he bought the drugs.

Then, he’d bring them back to his hometown (about a half-hour’s drive north of Springfield), where he’d sell them from his house. To add to the comical nature of this criminal enterprise, the man lived in a house located two blocks from an elementary school.

WHICH UNLESS YOU believe means that six-year-olds are stopping by his house on their way home from school to satisfy their fixes, could almost be seen as irrelevant.

Although I don’t doubt it feeds into the need of those people who are all too eager to believe that our beloved home city is representative of all that is wrong with and corrupt about our society.

This almost strikes me as being the kind of tidbit that Donald Trump himself would link to in another of his inane, nonsense-style Tweets on Twitter when he feels a need to get back to bashing Chicago.

Of course, Trump would have also felt the need to document that the drugs originated in Mexico, before going to Chicago, before being put into the hands of people who were then providing them to “real” Americans who comprise all that is just and proper about our society.

WHICH IS SUCH a nonsense thought to have – even though I don’t doubt there are situations where that very scenario could have happened.

To me, the sad truth of narcotics use is that there are people in all walks of society who have allowed themselves to become addicted.

Think of it this way, if there wasn’t a need felt by certain types of people, there wouldn’t be a market for those so-called despicable ghetto types from Chicago to be able to sell such product.

Then again, that image I just presented is equally as absurd as the one of so-called real Americans not using such substances to begin with.

THIS KIND OF story presented in such a manner merely feeds off stereotypical images that don’t do anything to truly inform us about the “scourge” that certain illicit substances can have upon us.

As for this particular case, it seems the man in question faces sentencing come February – and could get between six and 30 years for a prison term. With four previous convictions, he is regarded as a “habitual criminal,” which could make a sentence near the high end of the range likely.

Which as far as I’m concerned merely means crime and illicit behavior is capable of occurring just about everywhere.

And for all I know, when this man eventually winds up being sent to prison, his fellow inmates who happen to hail from Chicago will probably view this guy as an example of the kind of riff-raff they’ll be exposed to that will be a part of their punishment!

  -30-

Would Chicago be better off if Van Dyke were to get a bench trial?

Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer about to go on trial for a 2014 shooting death of a teenager, has until Friday to decide whether he wants his fate determined by a jury of his so-called peers, or by a judge.

GAUGHAN: Will he, or jurors, decide fate?

I can’t help but think we as a society would be better off if he were to get a bench trial – as in letting a judge decide his fate based solely on the merits of the law.

IT’S NOT THAT I have all that much faith in the mindset of the judiciary. It’s more that I suspect there’s no way any group of individuals will be capable of putting aside their emotions with this case.

We’re more likely to avoid offending the sensibilities of our society if we put this case into the hands of a judge.

Not that we can avoid offending people. When it comes to Van Dyke and the death of Laquan McDonald, there are going to be people who will be grossly offended – no matter how the case is resolved.

As things stand going into Friday, a 12-member jury has been picked, and officials say they expect four alternates who could be called upon if one of the dozen jurors winds up having to withdraw could be chosen soon.

WHICH IS WHY Judge Vincent Gaughan has given Van Dyke and his legal counsel until Friday to make the decision – jury trial, or bench trial?

If Van Dyke ultimately decides on a bench trial, then the outcome will be solely up to Gaughan. All of the jurors who have thus far been chosen will be dismissed – and they won’t ever have to make a decision on what should become of the cop who got captured on video firing 16 shots into McDonald’s body.

VAN DYKE:A decision to make by Friday

Defense, of course, sees this as a case of the teenager wielding a knife while walking down the street and behaving in ways that made it seem as though he was a threat to the public.

It’s apparent that Van Dyke took actions that resulted in McDonald’s death; although police officers are given authority to use deadly force on the job. Which makes this a trial solely about determining the line between justifiable homicide and murder.

IT’S SAD THAT this is going to become a race-tinged case. There already are those upset that the 12-member jury apparently has seven white people, three Latinos, one Asian and ONLY one black person.

The trial hasn’t even begun, and we’re already getting the accusations that defense attorneys went out of their way to eliminate as many black people from jury consideration as possible.

I don’t care if all four alternates wind up being African-American; we’ll get the claims that a group of white people refused to administer justice against a white cop. Although there will be others who will rant and rage about the notion of Van Dyke being prosecuted BECAUSE he’s white.

They’ll think acquittal is the only possible outcome that won’t be a travesty.

THAT IS WHY I’d prefer this to be a bench trial. Even though I’m sure the masses of Chicagoans who have taken an interest in this case will be prepared to decimate the legal reputation of Gaughan if he doesn’t ultimately rule in their favor with regards to Van Dyke. I actually have more faith in a judge to make such a decision than so-called civilians, and to understand the nuances of "the law" than some individual who likely is peeved that his/her life is being disrupted for a few weeks by being called upon for jury duty,

McDONALD: Chgo gets to relive his death

Because for every person determined to think Van Dyke is being unjustly prosecuted, there are also masses determined to believe that the only reasonable outcome is for Van Dyke to be brutalized while serving a prison term.

This truly is an ugly trial; one that will bring out all the nasty elements of our society. A part of me thinks we’d have been better off if Gaughan had accepted the suggestions that this trial venue be transferred to somewhere else.

It also makes me all the more grateful that my own name didn’t get called for consideration of jury duty because (with two uncles who served as Chicago police officers) I honestly don’t know how I’d have handled the questioning over whether I could be impartial in deciding between the gun-wielding cop or the knife-wielding teen.

  -30-

One bit of truth to Van Dyke’s talk?

VAN DYKE: His life's on trial

Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer who will go on trial beginning next week for a 2014 shooting incident that left a teenager dead, is telling a selective story to the Chicago Tribune – trying to get out some sense of the perspective that he’s not a thug in need of being locked away from society for life.

He gave the one-time World’s Greatest Newspaper an interview, and the competition Chicago Sun-Times felt compelled to do a quickie rewrite. Many broadcast outlets also are feeling compelled to acknowledge Van Dyke’s thoughts.

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of the officer who admits he shot and killed Laquan McDonald back in October of 2014? It certainly isn’t his claim that he faces the possibility of life imprisonment for doing his sworn duties as a Chicago police officer.

What caught my attention was Van Dyke’s statement, during a 40-minute interview with the newspaper where his attorneys often interceded and kept him from more thoroughly answering questions, that he acknowledges the potential consequences to the city at-large.

Could there wind up being some sort of riot by people who are offended by whatever verdict of his so-called peers that a jury winds up arriving at?

“I’m very scared for it. It obviously weighs heavily upon my mind,” Van Dyke said.

SOME, I’M SURE, will think back to the days of 1968 – where the Democratic National Convention protesters were not the only ones who experienced violence that year.

It was also the year that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed by a racist-motivated assassin – and many black neighborhoods across the nation wound up in flames. Including in Chicago, where there are parts of the city’s West Side that for years remained in rubble and where they never recovered from the damage.

Does Van Dyke think he could be the cause of a similar reaction if he winds up being acquitted of the criminal charges? I don’t doubt some people would be grossly offended – and I have heard some activist types speculate how they fear this trial is headed for acquittal.

Van Dyke makes Page One in worst way possible

As though they expect “the establishment” will be prepared to protect a police officer because his “victim” was just a young, black male – particularly one whom prosecutors seem eager to label as a violent troublemaker who brought his fate upon himself.

TO TELL YOU the truth, I’m inclined to think it’s the other side that could get ugly – although I’d like to think that all could wind up showing some sense of self-restraint.

For in this Age of Trump that our society is now in, there are people who will be eager to defend Van Dyke as a cop doing his duty. They’ll want to think any kind of punishment is improper – and evidence that our society is all awry and out-of-whack with common sense.

People often talk about how there are “two Chicagos,” one upscale and thriving while the other is a dumping ground for those individuals whom the elite don’t want near them.

Could it be that Van Dyke and one’s attitude towards his actions will merely wind up being yet another bit of evidence as to which Chicago faction one falls into?

EVEN VAN DYKE himself realizes he’s going to be remembered in our city’s history for reasons he likely would never have dreamed possible and probably wishes he could avoid at all costs.

There is, of course, the ironic part of Van Dyke feeling compelled to submit to a newspaper interview. Prosecutors and his defense attorneys will be looking to pick a jury from those individuals who paid absolutely no attention to what was said or written about the case.

Meaning his words technically won’t influence them when they decide his fate of “guilt” or “innocence.”

They’re more meant to influence the way the rest of us think when we make our snap judgments after the trial is over about just how stupid that jury could possibly be for the verdict they ultimately reach.

  -30-

Does grand jury mean we view teen’s death as more than lone cop’s acts?

I don’t doubt that Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer now facing criminal charges for the shooting death in 2014 of a teenage boy, probably believes deep in his heart that his actions were justified.
 

VAN DYKE: Not the lone offender by any means

Regardless of the verdict of any future judge or jury, he probably will go to his grave thinking that the 16 shots he fired at Laquan McDonald were necessary because the 17-year-old was a threat to the public safety.

NOW I’M NOT necessarily saying I think he’s absurd or that he’s a heinous sort of individual. It’s more a matter of my believing that the “us versus them” attitude is so engrained in law enforcement personnel that we’re going to need an outside perspective to determine whether Van Dyke’s acts on that night in October 2014 rose to the level of an offense for which the patrol officer ought to serve prison time.

Or was it really some sort of necessary offense for which the appropriate penalty ought to be that he loses his job? Because the department has initiated the process by which Van Dyke would be dismissed, and likely would carry a black mark of sorts on his record that would make him unemployable to many.

If anything, this is a case that goes far beyond a simple “yes” or “no” answer. If anything, the real story of what happened probably has little to do with Van Dyke himself.

It really is more about why so many people were willing to keep quiet about what happened until it was discovered that a squad car video camera managed to capture enough of the incident to create the horrific images that have since spread throughout the Internet.

THAT “CODE OF Silence” officers supposedly carry amongst themselves worked to Van Dyke’s advantage to the point where it is apparent we would never have even the slightest inkling of truth if that video had not turned up.

All of this rambling becomes relevant because of actions Monday at the Criminal Courts Building where the special prosecutor handling Van Dyke’s case has said she wants to go before a grand jury; letting them decide how extensive the wrong-doing was that night.

 

McDONALD: No prosecutor can bring him back to life

To what degree did other officers who were at the scene or in the area of the shooting incident commit crimes by keeping their silence about what they saw or heard

Admittedly, the Chicago Police Department already has indicated it plans to discipline a few of these officers, with some facing the prospect of losing their jobs. Which some people may think is a fairly severe punishment in and of itself.

ALTHOUGH THERE ARE others who will only be satisfied with the thought of a criminal cop, which is how they want to view these officers, doing actual prison time.

The more sadistic individuals likely are having fantasies of police officers being assaulted by other prison inmates – which is a sick thought to carry about one’s head.

But the ugliness of the McDonald death, along with the other incidents of violence being inflicted upon individuals by police does tend to express itself in grotesque ways.

Personally, I like the idea of a grand jury becoming involved because it will get us further away from the notion of thinking of the McDonald death as some sort of isolated act by a corrupt cop who, for all we know, may be able to convince a jury that he acted within the letter of the law.

THAT MAY BE true. But it certainly doesn’t make his actions that night morally acceptable. Someone is still dead, deprived of a chance to make anything significant of his young life. Which is a fate no one deserves to endure.

 

EMANUEL: It's not all Rahm's fault

We need to think of these types of incidents as being something more widespread than a single individual. Which is a thought that will bother some because they’re eager to use the cop hostility as a way of cracking down on individuals.

When what we ought to be thinking of is ways to revamp the law enforcement mindset into something more meant to take the protection of the public into account.

Because the less we think of the police as the thugs unleashed by the mayor whenever he needs a crackdown for political purposes, the better off we all are as a society.

  -30-

How stubborn can Cook County be? We’re going to learn fairly soon

We’re going to learn in coming weeks, if not days, just how stubborn our county’s court system is capable of being.

Who'd have dreamed of cellphones back in the days when Anton Cermak gave us our current Criminal Courts building?

For there is a change that took place beginning this week with regards to those people who have business bringing them to the Criminal Courts building (a.k.a., 26^th and California) when they have to comply with court orders concerning their personal cellular telephones.

BECAUSE TECHNICALLY, PEOPLE aren’t supposed to have such phones on their presence inside the courthouse.

And the storage lockers that used to be in place for people to put their phones while they’re at the courthouse are no longer in use.

So we now have a situation where someone can show up at the courthouse, be forbidden to enter because of their phone, then somehow be found in contempt (and perhaps even have a warrant issued for their arrest) because they couldn’t make it to court.

Because it seems that chief Judge Timothy Evans (the same man who once had dreams of being our city’s mayor) has no intention of easing up on the restrictions against cellphones being in one’s possession when they’re inside the courthouse.

PERSONALLY, I GET the reason for the restriction. It seems that before the ban was put in place back in 2013, people inside courtrooms were using the camera functions on their phones to take pictures of things happening inside.

It seems some of those pictures were winding up in the public amongst gang-oriented people as a way of identifying people who had the unmitigated gall to testify against them in criminal cases.

EVANS: Soon to have to make a tough decision

There also were instances where people were using text message functions to pass along information from criminal cases to people outside the courtroom who might have to testify in the future. In short, there were people using modern technology to try to undermine the legal system.

Evans came up with the outright ban on people having their phones in court as a way of countering that problem.

BUT IT CREATES a bigger problem in that cell phones are so common place these days – particularly since the ability to find a public payphone can be pretty difficult these days.

What does a person do with the phone while they have to be in court?

I know from being a reporter-type person who has covered several of the courthouses in Cook County that what the local officials always say is to leave the phone out in your car. And perhaps at the suburban-based courts, that makes sense since they all come equipped with ample parking lots and expect people to drive to court.

But court officials always like to say how every single courthouse was designed to be on a bus route so as to remove the excuse that someone without a car can’t physically get to court.

AND I ALSO know I’d never want to have to park a car near the Criminal Courts building (take the pink line el train to California Avenue, then a bus six blocks south to the front door of the courthouse). Which is the way many people get themselves to court when they have to be there.

Those storage lockers may be a pain in the butt for sheriff’s police to have to oversee (because the same gang-types who were using their cellphones to take pictures and make recordings of court proceedings allegedly are using the lockers to store drugs while in court).

But the fact is that if court officials really are going to be so absolutist in their approach to phones, they’re going to have to assume responsibility for them. And if they’re not willing to do so, then they’re going to have to lighten up.

Which is what I think will ultimately have to happen. We’ll just have to have those sheriff’s deputies who patrol each courtroom (and are already prepared to crack down on anybody who gets out of line during court proceedings) be prepared to bust anybody who thinks they’re being cute by trying to take a “selfie” with the judge in the background.

  -30-

Law enforcement types the biggest control freaks because they can be

Dealing with police and court officials for the past quarter century has let me know there are varying personalities amongst those who devote their lives to protecting the public safety.

Some have a strong sense of public duty, while a few probably ought to be locked up. And the bulk of them are no more intelligent than the rest of us – even though they’re doing a difficult job that many of us couldn’t handle.

BUT IT DOES create a sense among many that they want to exist in their own world; without the prying eyes of the public monitoring what they do. Just like the Army – which often gives off a sense that they’d like to handle the public by issuing a statement saying war was declared, then issuing a follow-up statement years later saying the war was won!

So a pair of news stories I stumbled across on Friday were not the least bit surprising – the Chicago Tribune reported how police in Fox Lake are upset that the coroner in Lake County, Ill., is giving out details related to the slaying earlier this month of a police lieutenant.

While the Chicago Sun-Times reported how the Cook County state’s attorney’s office is now relying on the grand jury system to handle criminal cases involving firearms, rather than bringing them before a judge for a preliminary hearing.

The latter puts the early stages of prosecution under the control of prosecutors, rather than judges who might find flaws with cases. While the Fox Lake police have tried saying little to nothing about the case, only for reporter-types to wind up getting details from the coroner’s office.

IN THE CASE of the Fox Lake police, they have tried saying they want little information to get out because they supposedly want to have details that only a criminal suspect would know.

So he (or she, I shouldn’t make assumptions) can inadvertently trap him/herself in their own words.

So while the police have said multiple shots were fired in the incident that killed Joseph Gliniewicz, the coroner has said the officer was shot in the torso. Although even the coroner has been hesitant to say much more.

It’s not a flood of lurid detail coming from the coroner, but it is enough that the Fox Lake police felt the need to issue a statement calling the coroner “unprofessional” and “completely irresponsible.”

PROBABLY BECAUSE THE police only want to have to make a statement saying that an arrest has been made – something they haven’t been able to do yet.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the coroner said one reason he has given out as much detail as he did was because of some rumors that had become public. He wanted to correct the record. Is that unprofessional?

Or could it be a police department willing to let the public think nonsense so long as it benefits them. Similar to one story I once covered where authorities claimed to have the suspect on video tape committing an act of vandalism – and it turned out during the bench trial that the video depicted 23 different people doing various things!

Not as specific as police wanted us to think.

OF COURSE, THESE cases get into the court system, where there also are officials who want things done their way, The Chicago Sun-Times said that State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez told her staff earlier this year to take gun cases to grand juries to get indictments – rather than having a judge hold a preliminary hearing.

Such a hearing gives a judge a chance to rule on whether the police were justified in arresting someone – or if the charges before the court are totally bogus. A judge can always be predictable, but grand juries give us that old cliché, “A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.”

The state’s attorney’s office told the newspaper that they’re merely trying to be more consistent with the way they handle criminal cases involving firearms. Which sounds noble, particularly since police are interested in creating cases that will wind up with convictions.

A defendant being indicted for a gun offense sounds ominous. Unlike a case being tossed out because a judge decided the evidence to support charges was too weak to take seriously!

  -30-

My civic duty, soaking in hours of boredom, just in case I’m needed

By the time you read this, I most likely am sitting in a room at the Cook County Criminal Courts building, being kept isolated from any “real” people and trying to justify in my mind how to keep myself from losing my mental faculties.

Yes, I have jury duty!

TUESDAY IS THE day that I am supposed to report to that grand old courthouse in the Little Village neighborhood where generations of Chicagoans have had JUSTICE!!! dealt upon them for whatever criminal offenses the state’s attorney was able to justify.

I’m supposed to be at the courthouse, most likely for the entire day – and always the possibility of several days thereafter. Although I won’t know for sure until day’s end whether my service on behalf of the people of Illinois will be complete.

I can’t say I’m looking forward to Tuesday, although I have to admit it is made a little bit easier by being employed, so to speak, as a freelance writer.

I don’t have a company to whom I have to explain why I can’t show up for work on this day. I won’t have some snide nitwit of a boss thinking it is a major inconvenience for him that I can’t be present at the office as though my life is supposed to center around making him look good professionally.

THEN AGAIN, IT is a day in which I have to focus on the prospect of being called to service to decide the fate of a person who happens to face a criminal charge or two. As in I can’t do anything that might actually earn me some money with which to live.

In short, I exist on Tuesday to collect that check of $17.20 that the Cook County sheriff’s department will issue to me and to all the other would-be jurors – to cover the cost (as they estimate it) of our transportation costs to and from the courthouse.

In my case, I took a combination of Metra and CTA “el” trains to get myself to the 26^th Street courthouse. Unlike all those suburban Cook County court facilities with ample parking, I’m at the building where street parking is limited, and the few nearby lots are ridiculously expensive.

I’d rather deal with the transit transfers in order to make the trip.

I SUSPECT I have an advantage over all my other would-be jurors in that I have been in enough courthouses – including this very building where I was once the regular assigned reporter back when I wrote for the now-defunct City News Bureau.

I also comprehend the degree to which I’m being kept in isolation to prevent any less-than-reputable attorney from trying to influence my thought process.

Although the most intense judicial outburst I ever personally heard from a judge upset about jury contact involved a courtroom sketch artist (you know, the ones who do the quickie drawings on television news) who had the gall to try to say “Hi” to a juror.

I’m prepared to sit for hours on end on Tuesday, to see whether or not I need to go through the process of being grilled by prosecution and defense attorneys to see if I’m fit to have a say in whether or not a criminal defendant deserves to lose his freedom.

I DON’T KNOW whether my reportorial experience having covered courtrooms across the county makes a difference – although I wouldn’t be surprised if some insecure attorney-type person would think I “know” too much and can’t be trusted to be impartial.

Then again, some attorney-type might enjoy the idea of inconvenience to a reporter-type person and go out of his way to pick me. I really don’t know whether I’ll make it onto a jury, or have my own freedom back on Wednesday.

For the record, I have done jury duty twice before in my life – and have never actually been picked. One of those times, I didn’t get rejected until something like 8:30 p.m., and didn’t get back home until just before 11 p.m.

I’m braced for another day just like that. Which will go a long ways toward explaining my grumpier-than-usual temperament on Wednesday.

  -30-

So close, yet so far apart on many issues. Illiana concept is such a myth

It never fails to amaze me the knee-jerk reaction that political people in Illinois and Indiana will face.

So close, yet so far apart!

On so many issues, it seems that whatever one state does – the other will do the exact opposite. Perhaps we ought to stare each other down while standing on opposite sides of State Line Road.

ALTHOUGH IN ALL honesty, a part of me thinks the REAL boundary between the two states is Indianapolis Boulevard. Or perhaps somewhere just east of Gary down by the Indiana Dunes.

The latest issue that we can’t seem to agree upon is one that many of us can’t reach a consensus on – whether or not gay couples ought to have any right to the legal benefits derived from marriage.

The trend is turning towards realizing that what one couple does really doesn’t impact another couple. It’s not like anybody is talking about forced marriage between two men, or anything even close.

But there are those who have hang-ups when it comes to the concept of choice – if the choice that one person makes somehow manages to offend the moral compass of someone else.

PERSONALLY, THE IDEA of denying someone their freedom of choice is what offends my moral compass. But back to the issue, and the fact that our state’s legislators are not on the same side of this.

For the Chicago Sun-Times on Friday reported the musings of state Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, who says that a bill permitting gay couples to marry in Illinois could get legislative approval this coming week and that he’d like to have a final vote in the Illinois Senate on the issue one week from this coming Thursday.

That, of course, is Feb. 14, also known as Valentine’s Day. How sweet!

Although I’m sure there are some ideologues out there who are now gagging at the very thought of the commercial holiday for romance being used for such a gesture. Perhaps many of those people are Hoosiers who think their state’s officials are more in line with sense – although personally I can’t help but view them as being a couple of decades behind the times on this issue.

FOR IT SEEMS that the Indiana General Assembly has a state Constitution amendment pending – one that would set it in parchment that gay marriage is something that goes against the very being of being an Indiana resident (perhaps that is why Abe Lincoln left the state when he became an adult and moved to a more sensible place like Illinois).

The new political protest battleground?

The Times of Northwest Indiana newspaper reported Friday that Republican leadership in the Indiana Legislature has decided to wait a few months before doing anything with the proposed amendment that says a, “legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals (of the same gender) shall not be valid or recognized.”

They want to see if the Supreme Court of the United States offers any guidance when they rule (as expected) on the issue come June.

We literally could wind up with an issue where the state border becomes a political battleground marker. Are we literally going to get gay rights protests occurring at State Line Road in sight of all those Indiana-side stores that tout their ability to sell cheap cigarettes?

THE TIMES NEWSPAPER reported that Democratic legislative leaders in Indiana are saying they expect action on the issue to be delayed for at least one year, which they say is progress. Past Legislatures would have given a knee-jerk approval to the idea.

But learning of the Indiana idea reminded me way too much of 1996 when the then-Republican controlled Illinois Legislature felt compelled to alter state law to emphasize that marriages between gay couples (never permitted) were NOT valid.

That law, which then-Gov. Jim Edgar signed into law on a particularly busy legislative day when there was much other activity meant to occupy public attention, was an embarrassment. I still wonder why officials felt compelled to act, and I suppose we should be grateful that Illinois officials didn’t see the need to muck up our state constitution like Indiana is considering.

But seriously, we in Illinois got this out of our systems a couple of decades ago, and are now getting with the program on this issue – even though I expect a few die-hards to fight this fight to the very end.

DOES THAT MEAN the people living east of State Line Road will finally follow Illinois’ lead some time about 2030?

That thought is almost as laughable as the tale of Steven Robbins – who was serving a 60-year prison sentence at the state prison near Michigan City. Until he made an appearance Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court on drug-related charges that were dropped.

Somebody on our side goofed, and Robbins was allowed to leave the Criminal Courts building. The Gary native with extensive family in and around Indianapolis gets to be our state’s newest resident.

Ouch!?!

  -30-

How public is our cellphone use?

The whole point of cellular telephones being so readily accessible  is that we’re supposed to be capable of using them from anywhere at a moment’s notice.

So a part of me wonders how the whole concept of restricting the cellphone access at the buildings that serve as courthouses in Cook County is going to work.

FOR THE PAST month, there have been big signs at the entrances to those courthouses – telling us of all the types of items that people will no longer be able to bring inside the buildings with them.

Those include portable telephones. And the signs have told us that the restrictions will take effect as of Monday.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported this weekend that there will be some leeway used during the next few weeks – a grace-period during which people will be allowed to keep their phones on them provided they keep them turned off.

Which ought to be the common-sense approach to handling this particular issue.

EXCEPT THAT THERE are always those who will figure some people can be pushed around at will. Including many of the people who are among those who have business at the courthouses.

For many of them are criminals – in that they have committed some act worthy of a criminal charge that they may well plead guilty toward in the near future.

Yet too much of this is being done by people who seem to think their lives are lacking unless there’s someone whom they can abuse.

If it means they think they can pick on people by taking away their telephones, it just strikes me as an act of bullying by our county court system.

ALTHOUGH I DON’T doubt there is some semblance of a problem that court officials are trying to take care of.

For the stated reason for the tougher regulations is that some people are persisting in using the camera functions on their cellphones in order to take pictures during court hearings.

In some cases, these pictures are being posted as ways of publicly identifying those who have the temerity to testify in court against people who have street gang connections.

In others, they are being put on the Internet as ways of trying to embarrass judges for their professional conduct. Be honest, any video clip can be edited into something that can make someone else stupid!

SO YES, COURT officials may have a legitimate beef with the way people are using their cellphones.

But I’m all for allowing the sheriff’s deputies stationed inside each court room to rule over their domain with an iron fist on this issue. Let them confiscate the phones of people who can’t use them properly.

Let those people who get caught have to face the prospect of a serious criminal charge! It would be totally appropriate.

The hassle, however, that will be caused by banning them from the buildings outright is just ridiculous – particularly since the logical expectation of not permitting people to bring their phones into the building is that there will be some place where people can store them.

AND I’M VERY sure that there’s no way the sheriff’s police (who patrol all these buildings) want to be responsible in any way for someone else’s portable phone.

I do know that other court systems restrict the public from bringing phones in to the building – in Will County court in Joliet, only people who purchase a special license (a couple of hundred bucks for the year) from the county can have their phones.

Which means attorneys who work there can walk around with their phones, while everyone else gives them the “evil eye” of resentment. Is that really what we want at the Criminal Courts building – giving those defendants yet another reason to think they’re being “abused” in life.

The cellphone restrictions just strike me as being petty and vindictive – and I’m sure there will be many outbursts in coming weeks at the courthouses both in Chicago or the surrounding suburbs.

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As close to ‘goo-goo style’ government as we’re ever likely to get in Chicago?

The Criminal Courts building -- nine decades and counting of giving us criminal justice, Chicago-style

Call it a plus, if you will. Because I’m actually encouraged with the legal process thus far for Richard Vanecko – the Mayor Daley nephew (and grandson) who now faces criminal charges in the 2004 death of another man.

By the legal process, I’m talking about since the point when Vanecko was actually arrested and has to face the process by which alleged criminal acts are adjudicated.

FOR VANECKO THIS week faced arraignment. That’s the part of the legal process in which a defendant is asked by a judge, “How do you plead?”

And he responds, “Not guilty, your honor.” Then, he gets assigned to a trial judge who will be the one who has to oversee his case for the next year or two (or however long it takes the attorneys for both sides to prepare for this trial).

Note he pleads “not guilty.” At this stage, he has no alternative. If at some point in the future, he wishes to change that to a “guilty” plea, he can do so. But what happened this week was about assigning Vanecko’s case to a judge for eventual trial.

And that is where I see the plus in this case.

FOR THE VANECKO case was assigned to Associate Judge Arthur Hill, Jr. – who has been a judge for nearly a decade following a career in the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

Which is a typical career path for the men and women who wear those black robes and preside over cases at the Criminal Courts Building.

But what makes this case unique, and encouraging, is the fact that when Hill presided over his first hearing in the Vanecko case, he felt compelled to recite his professional record in law enforcement.

Which involved being hired as an assistant state’s attorney back in the days of Richard M. Daley as head prosecutor for Cook County.

AND WHEN DALEY eventually became mayor, Hill got one of his few non-criminal law positions in his career – he served a stint on the Chicago Transit Authority board. He was a Daley appointee.

And Hill definitely didn’t have any objections from Daley when he became a judge in 2003.

In short, Judge Hill is a Rich Daley ally.

To the point where he said publicly in his courtroom, “if the lawyers want me to step aside, I will.” Even though he also said he thinks he can be “fair and impartial” in deciding whether or not Vanecko’s behavior in the death of David Koschman rises to the level of a criminal conviction.

IN THE OLD days, it likely wouldn’t have been brought up. It would have just been presumed that a mayoral family member in trouble would get a break from the judge.

For Richard J. Daley was of the belief that judges were political positions just as much as any other. The idea that a judge should think himself above politics would have been absurd to him. He always made it clear he didn’t think much of reform efforts that thought judges should be appointed based on some high-minded appeal to legal ideals.

Let the people decide! So long as they pick the “right” candidates like they do for every other office.

The idea that Hill would acknowledge that there might be reason for him to step aside shows we have advanced in a certain sense.

NOT THAT IT’S a guarantee that Hill will be forced off of this case. For there’s no guarantee that any other judge would be more impartial.

Call it the drawback of having Richard M. Daley serve just over three decades as state’s attorney and mayor – he has a lot of contacts. There’s hardly anyone who can’t be perceived as having a Daley bias.

And as for those who believe that we ought to pick a judge from outside the area to come into this case (just as a special prosecutor – former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb – has already been named), I’d wonder if it might bring in some bias against the city.

Some rural judge thinking he can appeal to his people back home by “putting away” the mayoral nephew – regardless of the legal merits of the case.

BACK IN THE days of Operation Greylord (a federal investigation of judicial corruption), some Southern Illinois judges were brought in to oversee the criminal cases. But the partisanship based on regionalism has become all the more intense in recent years.

That is why I’m wondering if a judge willing to admit his potential for bias IS the best we’re going to get in this particular case – which is going to linger with us for so long that we’re likely to be sick of it by the time it actually makes it to trial.

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Some people don’t pay attention

We joke about it all the time. The phrase, “the third rail” is taken to mean instant doom when used in just about any context.

Except when it comes to being taken literally.

BECAUSE I HAVE lost count of the number of stories I have reported in the quarter-century that I have been a reporter-type person that involved someone dying because they came into contact with the rail that provides the electric power that operates the rail cars on the “el.”

Do people think that the third rail kills everybody else but them? Do they think they are invincible?

Or do they think they’re the equivalent of Wile E. Coyote? How many of those anvils did he get conked on the head with throughout the years?

Too many of these stories blend into each other, because the details are so unfamiliar. I recall one instance when I was a reporter for the now-defunct City News Bureau involving a homeless person, whom it seems publicly urinated on an “el” platform and had his urine stream hit the dreaded rail.

THE “BURNS” ON his body were restricted to his fingertips, since the electricity shot up through the urine and into his fingers. Not a pretty image.

Which makes me wonder why people don’t pay attention to all those signs that get posted warning people of the electrical danger of getting too close to the tracks. Let alone the possibility of getting hit by one of those “el” trains.

They certainly were ignored by a man who, early Wednesday, thought he could walk across the tracks to get to the “el” platform on the other side, rather than using the stairs that people are supposed to use to get from one side of the “el” station to the other.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the man in question was at the California Avenue station on the blue line.

AS SOMEONE WHO has used that particular station on those occasions when I have had to cover a story at the Criminal Courts building located just four blocks to the south, it really would have been simpler for him to use the stairs, rather than jump off the platform and try to walk across the tracks to have to climb aboard the other platform.

This particular man saw things differently. Now, he’s no longer with us.

I’m sure his family will wish he had been willing to put a little more thought into his use of the “el.” Although if he was that desperate to save himself a few seconds of time, he probably was capable of doing so many risky things.

Perhaps it was just a matter of time before he perished. What a waste!

BUT THIS MAN, whom police didn’t immediately identify, wasn’t the only one who didn’t seem to think before acting this week.

There also is the story of a Chicago woman who had to go to court Tuesday in suburban Skokie, only to find herself being arrested and hit with more criminal charges after her court appearance.

For it seems this woman had a young child and two dogs with her. She knew she couldn’t really bring them into the courthouse.

So, she chose to leave them in the car, sitting and waiting while she made her court appearance. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that she now faces charges of endangerment of a child and animal abandonment.

PERHAPS SHE CRACKED open the car windows to provide a little relief. But officials pointed out that the temperatures got into the 80s on Tuesday and that the kid and dogs were in the car for more than an hour – although the woman told the county sheriff’s police she lost track of how long she was in court.

Which makes no sense to me. Anybody appearing in court ought to realize how indefinite the process could be.

One could get lucky and be the first or second person on a court call. Or they could be the last. It’s not an experience for people in a hurry.

Her behavior kind of reminds me of a guy I once saw arguing with a sheriff’s deputy at the Criminal Courts building. He wanted to be able to walk up to the court clerk, immediately get a new court date, then leave.

BECAUSE HE HAD left his car parked right on California Avenue in front of the courthouse, not realizing he’d have to wait his turn on the court call like everybody else.

Yet another person who thinks the rules of life don’t apply to them.

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