A federal judge has ordered a city attorney to pay nearly $70,000 in sanctions for causing a mistrial last year in the wrongful conviction case brought by a former high-ranking El Rukn gang member.
The gaffe occurred seven days into testimony on Nathson Fields’ lawsuit against Chicago police and Cook County prosecutors alleging they framed him in an infamous 1984 double murder that sent him to death row.
Former Chicago police Sgt. David O’Callaghan, who is one of those sued, was answering a seemingly innocuous question from his attorney about the role a particular prosecutor played years ago in the prosecution of the notorious El Rukn gang. O’Callaghan blurted out that the prosecutor was involved in “terrorism cases” before Fields’ lawyers shouted objections.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly, who had barred city attorneys from mentioning at trial any terrorism links to El Rukn leader Jeff Fort from decades ago, quickly declared a mistrial.
In an eight-page ruling Friday, Kennelly said he did not believe the misstep by O’Callaghan’s attorney, Terrence Burns, was intentional. But the judge said the attorney was “extremely negligent” and “did not properly and sufficiently instruct O’Callaghan regarding the court’s ruling concerning the terrorism matter before he testified.”
Kennelly ordered Burns to pay $68,618 in attorney’s fees and expenses to Fields’ lawyer, Candace Gorman, to cover the cost of retrying the case.
“Fields suffered a clear and unmistakable harm, consisting of wasted effort and expense by his counsel and the need to prepare for a second trial,” Kennelly wrote.
A spokesman for the city Law Department did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Fields’ legal saga began in 1986 when Cook County Judge Thomas Maloney convicted him and a co-defendant in a double murder allegedly ordered by Fort. Maloney himself was later convicted of pocketing $10,000 to fix the verdict, only to return the money in the midst of the trial when he suspected the FBI was onto the bribe. Fields eventually won a new trial and was acquitted in 2009. He was released after spending 17 years in prison.
In his federal lawsuit, Fields alleged that Chicago police and prosecutors buried the so-called street file containing crucial information on the murders for nearly three decades before it was suddenly discovered in 2010 in a filing cabinet in the basement of the old Wentworth Area detective headquarters.
The April 2014 retrial on his lawsuit ended with a jury finding for Fields on only one count, awarding him just $80,000 in damages.
Earlier this year, however, Kennelly ordered yet another new trial, saying the jury should have known that a key witness, former El Rukn hit man Earl Hawkins, had cut a deal that sprung him from prison years early despite earlier public assurances from prosecutors that he would remain locked up until 2026.
Gorman has alleged in court filings that a second witness also was given an early release without the jury being notified.
Kennelly also made a potentially bombshell decision, allowing Fields’ attorneys to expand their investigation into whether Chicago police have for years buried street files of hundreds of other murder suspects.
The third trial is set for May.
Gorman told the Tribune in an email Monday she was pleased with the judge’s decision to sanction the lawyers.
“These defendants refused to play by the rules when they framed my client for a double murder that he did not commit,” Gorman said. “… Even when the second trial was over, they continued their fraud on the court by helping to arrange for the early release from prison for two of the witnesses that falsely testified against my client. It is my hope that this sanction will send a message to these men that the Court will not put up with their misconduct at the next trial.”
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