Judge names special prosecutor in Laquan McDonald case
CHICAGO — An Illinois judge on Thursday named a suburban Chicago prosecutor to handle the prosecution of a city police officer facing murder charges in the shooting death of 17–year-old Laquan McDonald.
Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan swore in Joseph McMahon, the state’s attorney for Kane County, Ill., as the special prosecutor at a court hearing.
McMahon, a Republican who has served as a prosecutor since 2010, will immediately take over the case against officer Jason Van Dyke, who was charged last year with first-degree murder for the 2014 incident that has drawn national attention as the country grapples with distrust of police in the African-American community.
The court-ordered release of dashcam video showed the white officer fired 16 shots at the black teen. The jarring footage triggered weeks of protest in the nation’s third largest city and led the U.S. Justice Department to launch a civil rights investigation of the police department’s practices.
“This is an important case involving serious allegations," said McMahon, who said three prosecutors from Kane County and fourth from Winnebago County in Northern Illinois will assist him in the case. "It should be handled by a public prosecutor and an experienced prosecution team. "This is a job I’ve been asked to do, and it’s what the public expects of its state’s attorneys."
Gaughan announced in June he would appoint a special prosecutor to take over the case, nearly a month after Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez asked that she and her team of prosecutors be recused.
Alvarez, a Democrat, lost a March primary after she faced an avalanche of criticism for how long it took her to charge Van Dyke. He was charged 400 days after the incident and on the same day that the city, under court order, released the dashcam video. She initially resisted calls from activists and some city politicians who petitioned the court for a special prosecutor, but changed her position after losing the primary. She told Gaughan that appointing a special prosecutor would help the court avoid any potential delays in Van Dyke's trial that could be caused by her leaving office at the end of the year.
Last week, another Cook County judge, LeRoy Martin Jr., appointed Patricia Brown Holmes, a former Cook County judge and assistant state’s attorney, to serve as a special prosecutor tasked with investigating the conduct of several other officers at the scene of the 2014 shooting of McDonald.
Van Dyke’s partner, Joseph Walsh, and Detective David March, were taken off the street and placed on administrative status in mid-December after the police department released documents that showed the two provided statements to investigators that conflicted with the graphic dashcam video.
A coalition of groups that had previously petitioned the court for a special prosecutor before Alvarez decided to step aside said they were not happy with the choice of McMahon. They said hey wanted to see Gaughan select Holmes or another attorney from the private sector in Cook County to take on the case.
“Judge Gaughan could have chosen Judge Holmes for this assignment, or he could have selected someone with similar understanding of Chicago and its most affected communities,” attorneys for the petitioners said in a statement.
The petitioners were represented by the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law, the People’s Law Office, and the University of Chicago Law School’s Civil Rights and Police Accountability Clinic of the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic.
Follow Paste BN Chicago correspondent Aamer Madhani on Twitter: @AamerISmad