Look! Judge Follows the Law

A judge follows the law, exactly as it's written, and somehow, this is news:

• A Cook County judge today dismissed the indictment against Chicago Police Officer John Haleas, the officer accused of writing numerous false drunken driving tickets.
  
  Judge James Obbish ruled that prosecutors improperly used statements given by Haleas to Internal Affairs investigators looking into misconduct charges against him. A U.S. Supreme Court case prohibits statements from administrative disciplinary proceedings from being used against officers in criminal cases.
  
  Haleas was charged in March 2008 with four counts of perjury, four counts of official misconduct and two counts of obstructing justice. He was stripped of his police powers.

Garrity carries the day. Just because you are a police officer, you are not below the law. You are entitled to each and every protection provided to an American citizen in the same circumstances regarding alleged criminal conduct. Adminstrative discipline is another matter.

This part is typical Cook County State's Attorney though:

• In his ruling, Obbish noted that the internal affairs investigator involved in the case and the assistant state's attorney in charge of seeking the indictment gave differing versions of how Haleas' statement was handled during the investigation. An internal affairs sergeant said he informed then-Assistant State's Attorney David Navarro of the statement, which Haleas had no choice but to give in the internal probe of allegations he was making false DUI arrests.
  
  But Navarro said he had carefully kept any information about the statement out of his case file in order to not taint the criminal investigation, according to Obbish. However, Obbish said he had no way to verify that claim because the state's attorney's office lost the file.

This is what happens when you have political hacks pretending to be lawyers. We suppose the file was "lost" when someone smarter than the ASA running the case realized the report contained more evidence of prosecutorial misconduct than of police wrongdoing, so it's easier to lose the case on a motion. It keeps the ambitious ASA politically "clean."

And this, more than anything, should have put a complete end to ASA ride-alongs.