A Cook County judge will decide whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate federal immigration officers' actions last fall.
Tuesday's hearing lasted only a few minutes, but it represented the first step in the legal process that will see a Cook County judge decide whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate federal immigration officers' actions last fall.
Speaking out after court on Tuesday, lawyers for a coalition of some 200 groups, clergy and public officials blasted Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke for failing to investigate alleged crimes committed by federal immigration officials during operation "Midway Blitz." "A murder was committed. There was an attempted murder. Months and months have gone by," said Loevy & Loevy Partner Locke Bowman. It is why they are calling for an independent special prosecutor to investigate, even as O'Neill Burke herself has called such a move illegal. Her office has already outlined a protocol for charging federal agents committing violent crimes. "People want somebody to do something. I get that. But us violating the law doesn't get us where we need to go," O'Neill Burke said. That argument is part of the filing that was submitted in court by her office, saying, in part, "The law permits the appointment of a special prosecutor for an actual conflict of interest in two distinct scenarios... Neither scenario exists here." The state's attorney's office also argued that "in Illinois... federal agents must be investigated by law enforcement... The petition before this Court is baseless, frivolous, and contrary to law. It must be denied.""There is absolutely nothing that stops a state prosecutor from looking into, from evaluating evidence and from bringing charges," said Loevy & Loevy Partner Steve Art."There are extraordinary circumstances, as is often the case with laws where you could, in this case, have an investigation conducted by the state's attorney's office. But it would be the extraordinary case," Soffer said. Judge Erica Reddick set April 10 as the next court date in this case, at which time the petitioners will have to offer up their formal response to the state's attorney's opposition.
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