7th Circuit Court

Chicago US attorney drops most serious stash-house sting charges against 27 defendants

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago has dropped drug conspiracy charges against 27 defendants charged in stash-house stings, in which undercover officers lead targets to believe they are plotting to rob a drug stash house. The controversial stings can result in heavy penalties because the defendants believe a large amount…

Jan 30, 2015 11:01 AM CST

Posner ruling tosses Social Security judges’ grievance claim, compares them to assembly line workers

The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that administrative law judges for the Social Security Administration can’t pursue a grievance against their agency. As the National Law Journal (sub. req.) reported, Judge Richard Posner compared the ALJs to workers on “a poultry processing assembly line” in rejecting…

Jan 26, 2015 9:00 AM CST

Feds expand case against defense lawyer charged with perjury, indict another attorney

A criminal defense lawyer considered a rising star in Chicago prior to his federal indictment last year for perjury and obstruction of justice is now facing an expanded criminal case. In a superseding indictment made public Friday, Beau Brindley is accused of encouraging witnesses to lie in five cases and…

Jan 16, 2015 1:35 PM CST

Federal judge sanctions prosecutor’s office for bad faith in police misconduct case

A federal judge has sanctioned a former assistant state prosecutor and her office for bad faith in connection with a Chicago police misconduct case. At issue were files maintained by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office concerning misdemeanor arrests of a Chicago man that he and his lawyer sought to…

Jan 12, 2015 1:50 PM CST

After retiring as federal judge, Illinois jurist relishes his return to the state trial court bench

After 10 years on the Illinois trial and appellate court bench and another 16 years serving as a federal district judge and chief district judge in Champaign, some might think Michael McCuskey would be ready to take it easy. But within months after retiring as a federal judge last year,…

Jan 6, 2015 12:20 PM CST

‘Tis the season for lawsuits over holiday displays

A Florida city began litigating in February over the expected holiday display extravaganza at the Plantation Acres home of Mark and Kathy Hyatt, who were featured last year in The Great Christmas Light Fight but lost the $50,000 contest to a family in Georgia. Nonetheless, the case is still ongoing…

Dec 19, 2014 4:10 PM CST

Federal judge says acquitted attorney can sue Above the Law for defamation, but not Gawker

A federal judge in Chicago has given a green light to a defamation and invasion of privacy suit by an Illinois attorney against the Above the Law. At issue is the blog’s coverage of a criminal trial at which Meanith Huon was acquitted of an alleged aggravated assault against a…

Dec 9, 2014 2:45 PM CST

Mayor says FBI cleared 2 officers in chaotic arrest after seat-belt stop, returns them to duty

Two police officers in Hammond, Indiana, who were involved in a chaotic arrest after stopping a car because the driver and a front-seat passenger weren’t wearing seat belts, have been returned to duty. The family, who are black, allege in a federal civil rights suit that the officers, who are…

Nov 25, 2014 4:40 PM CST

Posner: ‘Outlandish’ attorney fees in glucosamine settlement were part of a ‘selfish deal’

A nationwide class-action settlement calling for the payment of $1.93 million in attorney fees represented “a selfish deal” between class counsel and a company that makes glucosamine pills, a federal appeals court has ruled in an opinion by Judge Richard Posner. The settlement by NBTY and its subsidiary Rexall Sundown…

Nov 25, 2014 10:03 AM CST

Posner opinion tosses judge from case partly for his ‘tone of derision’

A federal appeals court in Chicago has tossed U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur from a sex-bias case in part because of a “tone of derision” in his opinion. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a Nov. 14 opinion (PDF) by Judge Richard Posner, didn’t refer to Shadur by…

Nov 24, 2014 5:45 AM CST

Woman ticketed for going topless at Chicago event files civil rights suit against city

Ticketed in August for indecent exposure at a lakefront women’s rights event in Chicago, despite opaque body paint on her breasts, a woman has filed a civil rights suit against the city. Plaintiff Sonoko Tagami says a city ordinance banning women from going topless is unconstitutional because it violates the…

Nov 13, 2014 12:40 PM CST

Posner researches Chabad online; Bauer explains his ‘religious inclinations’ concurrence

Federal appeals judge Richard Posner of Chicago often garners attention for the opinions he writes, but his decision tossing a rabbi’s suit against Northwestern University may not be getting as much attention as the concurrence. The first sentence of the Nov. 6 opinion (PDF) by Posner begins with a same-day…

Nov 11, 2014 5:45 AM CST

From Playgrounds to Battlegrounds: Chicago teens tell how guns affected them and their neighborhoods

For five years, teenage sisters J'Doria and Jari Taylor lived on a tree-lined street of brick homes in Chicago's Auburn Gresham neighborhood, and there they grew familiar with the sound of gunfire. The girls didn't need police statistics to tell them they were surrounded by violence, but those statistics support…

Nov 1, 2014 5:25 AM CDT

New defamation suit by Northwestern prof is 4th case filed over student’s claim of sexual assault

A student’s claim that a Northwestern University philosophy professor was involved in sexual misconduct in 2012 has sparked four lawsuits this year. In February, the woman filed a Title IX suit against the school in federal court, saying that it had mishandled her complaint that professor Peter Ludlow got her…

Oct 29, 2014 2:30 PM CDT

Former ‘People’s Attorney’ radio host is convicted in $10M mortgage-fraud case

A federal jury in Chicago has convicted former national talk radio show personality Warren Ballentine in a mortgage-fraud case that cost lenders nearly $10 million. Jurors deliberated less than two hours after a four-day trial, before convicting Ballentine on Friday of making false statements to lenders and bank, mail and…

Oct 24, 2014 1:50 PM CDT