The release of the long-awaited report by special prosecutor Edward Egan and his assistant Richard Boyle, expected to provide considerable detail about torture committed by Chicago police officers under the command of Jon Burge, is being held up by one man, a lawyer fighting hard to keep his testimony under wraps.
Judge Toomin had been asked to rule on Doe’s motion because Paul Biebel, the chief judge of the criminal court, who appointed the special prosecutor, recused himself from this single aspect of the special prosecutor’s case. Toomin denied Doe’s motion and ordered him to appear before the grand jury on October 14, 2005. Doe didn’t show.
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It’s unusual for an attorney to defy such an order. Judge Toomin held Doe in contempt and ordered that he be taken into custody until he complied with the grand jury subpoena.
Moments before Toomin’s order was issued Biebel had ruled that the special prosecutor could report on matters that took place before the grand jury–including which cops and prosecutors had been called and which ones had taken the Fifth rather than respond to questions about the torture. (The Fifth Amendment protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves.) Doe made use of the contradiction, going to the Illinois Supreme Court with an emergency motion. That motion is under seal, but a judicial source indicates that it appeals Toomin’s ruling of what can be in the report, asking again that Doe’s name be kept out completely, while also asking the court to rule as to whether a report may be issued at all.
In previous testimony on the Wilson case Hyman has said that he left the state’s attorney’s office in June 1982. According to Judge Toomin, John Doe’s “tenure as a public prosecutor ended on April 30, 1982.” If Doe stopped working as a prosecutor on April 30 but had some vacation time and sick days left, he might have officially left the office about the same time as Lawrence Hyman. Hyman has not responded to my message asking for comment.
